Free associating? I never experienced F-Droid before or since my scattered Cyanogen/LineageOS experiments. Honestly, I doubt I'm alone making that distinction (similar to how its hard to make a distinction between javascript and jquery when you're first learning)

Honestly I'm a little confused about the DIY mobile software landscape, and would love to get a minimalist, open-source wonderland mobile OS - and I wouldn't even mind if it was browser native, and neither should anyone else because WASM.

fdroid is kinda like cydia, repo based but often open source/FOSS stuff you can install as apks on an android OS device.

dont need a special lineage install to get it, seems to work anywhere

Yep. You can even install f-droid on Amazon fireTV sticks using the sideload feature.