Installing it works best with standard vanilla Chromium. If you have issues, it may be because you don't have ADB or the Android SDK installed on your computer. Just follow the directions, and it will run itself. Its simplicity is honestly a thing of beauty. And if you fuck up, you can (almost) always flash it back to stock Android with Google's own WebUSB application.

After that? Getting a launcher that can install custom icons was a priority for me personally. I've heard awesome things about Lawnchair, but Pear Launcher is nice too. Aurora Store is a must if you don't want the Play Store but still want play store apps (disclosure: It undermines some of the important security features of your phone's setup to do this, and the GOS devs themselves strongly condemn the practice. F-droid and Obtainium are, imho, the better solution for most things. But also, bank apps and Discord are essential for me.) Shelter from F-Droid is an excellent tool that lets you set up certain apps in a work profile, which makes toggling certain apps on and off very easy so it uses even less bandwidth and battery power.

For apps, I recommend the following replacements:

• Play Store -> Accrescent and F-Droid

• Images -> Aves Libre

• Maps -> CoMaps, Organic Maps, or OsmAND

• Google Translate -> SimplyTranslate

• Weather -> BreezyWeather

• YouTube -> PipePipe or Clipious

• Keyboard -> HeliBoard

• Stock utility apps -> Fossify from F-Droid

Beyond that, just enjoy it. It's so simple and so quiet. I mean mentally quiet. So few pop-ups, so little fuss, it's remarkably pleasant.