I welcome competition in the space even if it is imperfect.

The major advantage of a subscription model is that they don't need most users, just enough to be financially sustainable.

FWIW I really like Zorin, it's not dramatically different but it is prettier out of the box.

Well said. Also, "tweakability" is ultimately going to be the same for any distro. Like you said the more beginner-friendly ones like Mint just start with some common tweaks already in place.

OP, do you know about GNOME extensions? It's not something the Jedi will usually tell you about. But it's a great start to the rabbit hole for newbies.

Confusing Linux with Lenovo is pretty funny.

Don't make the mistake of confusing the Linux community (an absolute mess, just read the comments here) with the software itself (Actually cleaner and better organized than Windows).

I have a very similar setup to you, and I use SyncThing without issue for the important files (which I keep in my Documents directory to make it easy to remember).

Yeah it is a beta, but the actual final update that was released lacked that gyro functionality over 2.4ghz that was in the beta. So yeah, you kinda do need to "downgrade".

Hopefully they do release an update with that functionality enabled one day but it's been well over a year now and they don't even officially provide that beta version anymore. So it's not looking hopeful.

The 8bitdo ultimate you linked to is great. To be clear I have only used it with Windows.

But if you get it there is a hitch that's not made clear anywhere- in order to use on 2.4ghz mode (with the dongle) with gyro enabled, you need to downgrade the firmware to an old beta version 8bitdo doesn't host anymore. Someone uploaded it to google drive in that reddit thread I linked to.

The devs did a Q&A that answer pretty much every question in this comment section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwz2iZwYpgg

I don't disagree, but discoverability is important. On the flipside there are so many times in FOSS world where I've actively looked for a tool for months, only to give up and then months later have someone randomly mention it in a thread where I discover it has existed for years.