The guy on this page
https://milaq.net/android-degoogled/
(under chapter “Wifi/cell location”) put together an installation package for location services without microg. I have been using this on “normal” lineageos for a while and while it may not be perfect it’s certainly better than using GPS only.
After going with Xiaomi devices for some years (with Gadgetbridge) I revived my trusty Pebble Time Steel only yesterday. This thing is 8 years old and doesn’t do heartrate but it still tracks my sleep more precise than any of Xiaomi’s devices ever did. Maybe you can find a device in good condition on eBay? Be sure to ask sellers for daylight pictures of the screen with settings menu or a bright watchface. If the battery is dying the screen looks like nacre cause it’s being lifted by the battery.
I’m running LineageOS on a Moto G42. I bought this device with LOS in mind (also it is one of the very few devices with headphone jack and MicroSD slot). So far I’m happy. I always rooted/custom flashed every device since 2012. I’m no longer rooting anymore though. Shizuku is sufficient for my needs.
Ok, thanks for letting me know.
Would Shizuku be an option for you? That’s privilege elevation similar to root but you don’t need to unlock the bootloader for it. Pro is definitely that banking apps and OTA will still work afterwards. Cons are it’s a bit finicky and apps written for root still won’t work if they don’t explicitly work with Shizuku, too (some of them do). You’ll also be able to uninstall apps for user 0 which aren’t uninstallable otherwise (like gboard on G72, when I had one).
For me Termux is perfect as it is. Have been running a debian chroot in it hosting a few services I consider important like Grafana dashboard and Shiori (bookmark service) for quite some time now.
Still it would need signature spoofing which isn’t currently possible on normal LineageOS AFAIK since haystack and tingle won’t work on newer versions anymore. So if one doesn’t need any GMS-dependent apps and doesn’t want to wait too long for monthly updates on Lineage for microg then milaq’s package looks certainly like a decent option, at least for me.