You can’t, but they will create a Gmail account for you when you open up a Google account (like when you start using a regular Android phone).
The complaint here is, that you can’t simply use your mail account from a different provider to do something like that and that all of Googles services tie into that Gmail account they create for you.
I’m confused: So you needed a Gmail address for a Google user account, but how can you have a Gmail address without a Google user account?
You can’t, but they will create a Gmail account for you when you open up a Google account (like when you start using a regular Android phone).
The complaint here is, that you can’t simply use your mail account from a different provider to do something like that and that all of Googles services tie into that Gmail account they create for you.