I found an international model Samsung S4 mini LTE gt-19195 AKA serranoltexx.
It required the program heimdall available on the Ubuntu repos to get TWRP over the the S4 without needing to OEM unlock it.
While I was installing LineageOS 14 for microG I used the instructions from the LineageOS wiki on the S4 mini.
After I had TWRP loaded it was easy to adb sideload the LineageOS for microG zips and the supersu zip from LineageOS.
Just to be clear LineageOS for microG is a slight fork of regular LineageOS just with microG components pre-installed.
So far it seems to work great and I have a pocket sized web browser though the NFC doesn't seem to detect my transit card.
My big bump was trying to track down how to OEM unlock the phone in the Samsung GUI, the youtube ideas involved messing with the calendar settings; any good device should never require booting into a bad OS to load a good one, the S4 mini qualifies if you follow the heimdall a recovery and adb sideload your OS zip files.
The screen is beautiful and colorful but this phone(tablet to me) burns amp hours like a fiend when it is working hard, good thing it is mostly a bluetooth tether web browser to me.

Other notes:
The S4 mini requires a powered USB OTG cable to work or making a microUSB OTG adapter which shorts the wires to pins 4 and 5 of the usb port.
The NFC equipment unlike that of my Nexus 7 doesnt seem to talk to RFID objects like my transit card, too bad but not a fatal problem.