Some of these demand that the terminal you use them with is kitty:

alias ipc='curl icanhazip.com'
# btop is *pretty* bloat!
alias htop='btop'
# I'm kinda proud of this oneliner. It's pointless, but it was fun. It displays a random square image when you run
# neofetch rather than the default ansi art
alias neofetch='filarr=(~/Media/Images/1x1/*.*) && fil=${filarr[$RANDOM % ${#filarr[@]}]} && neofetch --kitty $fil' 
# comics are an important part of my life
alias gd='cd ~ ; gallery-dl'
alias gde="cd ~ ; gallery-dl --chapter-filter 'lang == (\"en\")'"
alias yd='yt-dlp --sub-langs all --embed-subs --embed-chapters --progress --paths home:~/Downloads'
alias subl="/opt/sublime_text/sublime_text"
#exa is currently unmaintained. eza is a maintained fork. It installs a link to exa, but...
alias ls="eza --icons --hyperlink --group-directories-first --git"
alias lsblkv="lsblk -o \"NAME,KNAME,SIZE,TYPE,VENDOR,MODEL,MOUNTPOINT\""
alias icat="kitty +kitten icat"
alias mem="grep -e Dirty: /proc/meminfo; grep -e Writeback: /proc/meminfo"
alias flush="sync"
alias links="links https://www.duckduckgo.com"
alias q="qalc"
alias hf="history 1 | fzf"
# tile the first two kitty windows and resize all kitty windows to 915x945, redirecting any errors to /dev/null
alias tk="xdotool search --class kitty windowmove %1 30 105 windowmove %2 975 105 windowsize %@ 915 945 2>/dev/null"
# only ask for password once on long updates
alias yay="yay --sudoloop"

The only issues I’ve had are a) learning curve using BTRFS and its associated utilities and b) difficulty differentiating snapshots. I learned REAL DAMN QUICK to give those guys descriptive comments like ‘snapshot before 2023-12-16 update’.

system config and system data are in my root subvolume, home directory, dotfiles, and some data that I want to be accessed at SSD speed are in my home subvolume. This all gets timeshift backup/snapshots. The rest of my data is located on spinning platter sata drives, which is backed up regularly using a different method (weekly rsync job that copies to a cold backup drive.)

I’ve been using luks on btrfs for a couple years now with little issue. I’m not using the RAID features of BTRFS though. I’m using it for subvolumes and snapshots.

I personally like Timeshift as my snapshot utility simply because I kinda grok both its GUI and CLI interfaces. It’s saved my bacon a few times over. I like rolling release-type distros, so it handles the occasional bad update gracefully. I’ve heard folks say good things about Snapper, though.

I’d add my ballot in to recommend Mint or Pop! for someone who wants to game. Newer WINE and Proton versions have made gaming so very nice on Linux. Cinnamon, Mate, and XFCE environments are what I’d recommend for your graphical shell. Cinnamon is kinda Mint’s flagship DE. I’d recommend it for anyone new to Linux or even new to computers in general.

I spent many, many years administering Suse and RHEL systems for work. I found that while I was more comfortable with configuring Red Hat/Fedora-style systems from a terminal/shell-only POV, Mint+Cinnamon were what made Desktop Linux work for me when I realized I absolutely was not going from Win 7 to Win 10. I feel like it’s only gotten better since.

I currently use Endeavour + Cinnamon, but Endeavour is Arch-based, and more for tinkering with than ‘Install and it just werks’ the way Mint or Pop! are.

kde-look, etc… and ‘pling.com’ haven’t caused any issues so far, SFAIK. That said, it’s apparently all user upload. There’s (probably tiny, but not zero) room for shenanigans in that regard.

I don’t use their app. Instead, I download the things I like and manually vet them to make sure nothing untowards is going on. There never has been, so I’m probably a bit paranoid.

A LOT of the time, that theme, icon set, cursor, or whatever else you like will ALREADY be in your distro’s repos. It’s usually quick and easy to check, and then do the manual download and visually inspect if it’s not available. Installing just means sticking the unzipped folder in your .themes or .icon folders, appropriately.

Protip: A lot of themes, fonts, icon sets, and the like are starting to offer customizable downloads. For example, if you like Bibata cursor, you can go to their website and do all customized colors to match your favorite theme: https://www.bibata.live/studio

Iosevka font is another one that does this. You can pick and choose glyph features for a custom version: https://typeof.net/Iosevka/customizer#gh-light-mode-only

(These are things you could do with the source code, but the online customizers make it easier for newer folks.)