I've been running Lineage on my Pocophone F1 for about two years now, and I only had it mess up once after an update. I didn't lose any data, I just had to connect it to a computer to restore the system partition.

I don't like Google that much.

Normally, when installing Lineage, you'd install OpenGApps, which is just a repackaging of the proprietary Google apps. If you want to avoid running Google code on your device, you can use microG, but I personally haven't tried it.

Installed it on my OnePlus 7 pro ~2 months ago, I think it's worth it.

The extra customization and permission options gave me the last few things that I wanted from AOSP. Battery life is great, 8+ hours screen-on time, though of course that's highly dependent on the phone and person. The only bug I've noticed is the in-screen fingerprint reader not working sometimes, which is annoying but not a deal breaker for me. I have done 2 updates through their official updater without issue.

If you install gapps then the play store will work fine. Though there is an app that will download APKs from the play store for you (don't remember the name). With that you could skip gapps, but I still like contact syncing, Keep, and Gmail.

I use Lineage and have for... years now...? Never got a phone without knowing if there is lineage ROM available.

Samsungs are a bit of a pain to install since you need to use Heimdall to do it (its called Odin I think on alternative computer OS's, but that one) - I've never bricked a phone... buuuuuut I am pretty careful with what I do with them and following installation guidelines.

I'm using an Essential Phone (I know) that hit EOL a earlier this year. My phone runs totally fine, battery life's great, but the only way that I'll get any updates is through lineage. Also, totally worth it if you like to fiddle with settings and lean away from Google.

I've tried a totally bare bones version (no gapps) and ended up not having some app work (like Lyft) when I needed it, so I'm using the gapps version that includes maps, and hopefully dropping down to less and less at some point. I feel like it's like a native linux install: super configurable, fun to tinker with, once in a blue moon you'll have to wipe and reinstall, but easy to get up and running.

I'm personally using LineageOS + MicroG.

Worth mentioning but I've been drifting further and further away from proprietary services for a long time now so I'm not a big user to see if anything would break with MicroG instead of Gapps.

Now, for my experience.

First, F-droid is amazing in my opinion. Sure, it might lack some stuff and some apps are a bit lackluster in terms of design but it works, everything I need almost is there.

For the things which are proprietary, Discord works, my college app works, bank, covid app, Microsoft Teams works. There's no issue with them. How to get them? Well, you should use Aurora store which is an app that connects directly to Google servers to download APKs, they allow you to use your own account (which is against the terms of services so do this at your own risk) or use own of the accounts they made.

Battery life and performance have been pretty awesome on my phone (Xperia XA2) with it living almost 2days with around 8 hours of screen on time, I think, it's been a while since I've checked but it's never been an issue for me.

For you though, it seems the Samsung A40 does not have a LineageOS official build which might be a deal breaker since it means you don't get OTA updates and well no MicroG builds either afaik. Voiding the warranty is unavoidable though.

I've been running Lineage os with microg on my Moto g7 for a while and I've had zero issues. It's very stable and everything works like it should. It even has support for moto gestures.

I only use a few apps not from fdroid so I don't know how good general app compatibility is. I've also heard that Moto g7 is one of the most supported phones (other than pixels), so you might have more issues on whatever phone you have.

Although I don't use Lineage because there is not a build for my phone, I had used it in the past and I'm still being part of the whole ROMs community. And yes, as many have said already, there are significant advantages to do the jump, specially if your phone is no longer supported.

I don't know how is done in a Samsung phone, but I bet there are guides and people who cheerly will help. One thing I would recommend is to ask if there is a telegram group, there usually share tips. XDA also helps, but lately there has been a shift to telegram, or at least in my phone. Dunno why.

Have fun while doing it. I have learned a lot about android while being part of it.

I use it on my phone and on my tablet. I find doing stuff like flashing roms to be an incredibly terrible experience. Lineage on my tablet will occasionally fail to boot, I have to force a hard shutdown then turn it back on. I recently updated LineageOS on my phone and it got stuck in a boot loop necessitating a factory reset or some stupid shit like that.

I have no idea how to root my phone or my tablet.

I use a patched and self-built version of LineageOS on a Pocophone F1 (used regular LineageOS on a ZTE Axon 7 before that)

I would say it's totally worth it. I don't miss many of the Google additions at all.

I have microG installed, but disabled (as in, no Google connection, just the app). I actually could remove it, as the only app that failed without it was Google Camera (I firewalled it to disable network access it's fine :p), but I found a way around that.

So, here are some notes on "living without Google apps":

• F-Droid generally has the majority of what I'd need
• For the rare cases, Aurora Store + anonymous account works well enough
• If you actually bought apps on Google Play, Aurora can download them if you log in (but license checks might be issues)
• microG can use regular Google Play if you try hard enough (search for NanoDroid)
• If you need a closed-source app, using something like Shelter (in F-Droid) or Island (GPlay only, though open-source) and isolating them there is an option

For stability: I generally don't have any issues. But then I like to tinker so even if I have issues you might not. Stick to official LineageOS builds, don't use root, Magisk modules, or custom kernels unless you have a specific need, and you should be clear most of the time.