If that's the case, then you should answer the OP with how it's set up. OP is specifically asking how to do it with random drives other people hands them, not trusted drives always connected.

What is the disaster that could happen you’re referring to?

Auto mounting random USB sticks has never been wise. No telling what random malware they contain.

Windows might have locked the drive, making it read-only (hybrid power off stuff) or you might just need to mount it with rw permissions.

How did you mount it?

If Gnome has issues but Plasma and Mate work fine, then it's likely not firmware related, but rather a process in Gnome that's using a core all the time. So find out what that process is, if it's a common thing on Gnome and if it will finish if given enough time.

I'd love supported GUI apps for pacman and systemd. I know there are GUI's out there for them, but they are not supported by the main project, so they don't count.

I haven't used roll20 in years, so I don't think my information is current, other than my name.

But, I think subscribers should be wary and there might be an increase in spam mail to your roll20 mail address.

Looks suspiciously like and advertisement.

Screenlocking works just fine. That was not the issue mentioned.

This looks interesting.

So it's like PiHole, but written in Go, smaller and faster?

I second AudioBookShelf. Although I don't use it for podcasts, I use it for audiobooks, but it does do all the things you mentioned.

Surprised you didn't think of https://docs.kernel.org/.

As far as I know the breeze theme is only designed for Plasma, as it depends on some Plasma components to do it correctly.

That is quite an extensive network you got there at home.

Lots of servers, VM's and docker containers working together.

Mine is just 1 small server with a bunch of docker containers running.