As other said, arch may not be for you. But I would recommend looking at KDE Neon too, it’s Debian based, with KDE as desktop environment, which is nice coming from windows. Whenever you encounter installation instructions about ubuntu, you can do the same on it, when with Fedora or arch you’ll be left alone figuring out how to install your stuff.

And my biggest advice is: take notes of what you do on your computer. EG, how did you install x our y software (Flatpak, command line, .deb package etc), which commands or software where useful for X problem. It will help you troubleshoot later or uninstall things you don’t remember his you installed them first, basically learn how linux works.

Right, it’s still in dev. But could be something to look at, in the future.

Personally, I have a GUI-less server that is connected to my lan running jellyfin server and an nvidia shield plugged to the TV with an alternative launcher to get rid of ads. That way, the server consumption is low and always on and you get a good interface and a remote for the TV.

If you really want a Linux device plugged to the TV, you could look into Plasma Bigscreen, a KDE made for TV.

Actually not the first tri-folded phone, but OK

As I said, I have no single Google apps and this work. I just don’t have tts and voice recognition, but one can easily do without, furthermore if you have someone by your side that can reply for you or you can wait a break to reply to messages. I have apps to have the map, my music, my podcasts, my audiobooks, all available on my car interface which is enough for me.

I’m on graphene is, but I use android auto without any google apps. I use magic earth for the maps, but you can use many other map app like organic maps or even osmand. The only things I’m missing is the speech recognition, so I can’t reply to messages and the text-to-speech, so I can’t hear them while driving. Well, maybe some day I’ll find an alternative to the Google apps for this, but until then, I prefer to do without it.

A privacy site which wants to collect and sell data, looks fishy…

I would install it with docker (moreover docker compose) preferably. Easier to maintain and troubleshot. Anyway, for 1, make sure jellyfin has the rights to see your video and music folders. For 2, are you trying to do it from the same network or from outside?

Encrypt it yourself :)

You can use https://www.swisstransfer.com/ from infomaniak, it’s privacy respecting, or https://lufi.ethibox.fr/

Never had a problem with phone calls. For me, graphene always worked just like a regular android phone but without bloatware.

I have a graphene is phone and I have no problems with play integrity api. I currently have two apps (one banking) that does such calls (I see the notifications) and blocked it for both, they still work without problem. By default, graphene does not block it, btw.

Maybe take a look at paperless-ngx, it will take care of the OCR for you and make it searchable. Just not sure if it will show the path correctly.

Look for ubigi, worldwide e-sim for fixed periods of time

Arch is also harder than other distros to learn, that’s why maybe turning to a more used distros like fedora isn’t a bad idea. Fedora is also good for new hardware with it’s rolling updates and will have many tutorials to help you installing things. The only thing gaming focused distros do is ship you with packages and software meant to help you. So for the tests you could try others distros to see what’s easier for you.

That said, you also said you came from Debian, so you could also install a Debian based distros. With Debian 13 out from not so long, it shouldn’t be a problem to run on your laptops as they are older.

CachyOS tend to offer their own modified kernel, for gaming optimization, if I remember well. You may not be running the correct kernel.

When you look at the installation guide of the linux-surface github, there are steps for several distros. Do you plan to use your surface for gaming mainly, hence the reason to install cachy or do you plan to use it for various tasks? It may be easier to make it working on a fedora or, if you really want an arch based distro, on arch.

The end of the article misses one possible way to deal with your computer, migrating to Linux. It’s not possible for all the mass of people, but it’s still a possibility.

If you are inside, the GPS location might not be found. If happing outside, it could be because of a bad configuration of the systems settings.

Your easiest way is to upgrade windows normally and if you dislike all it’s bloated software, just install Atlas OS on top of it. It’s just a software that will go through your windows and debloat it as much as possible. Simple as that. Easier done than reinstalling windows for an LTSC version. I personally have a dual boot with a win 11 with Atlas OS specifically for the software I can’t install on Linux.

Or use vaultwarden to have the convenience of syncing your data to a personal server or computer and have passkeys.