Good to see more laptops being release with Dasharo/Coreboot.

Can't agree more. I hope that Framework will soon follow suit.

That’s a 40% price increase just to get your keyboard layout and a CPU upgrade

Fixed that for you*.

Unless you really want vim bindings

I kinda do for how ubiquitous Vim keybindings are.

try them out.

Regardless, I think I will try it out after I'm at least somewhat productive with Vim.

I much prefer the way Kakoune works over vim

I think preference is generally subjective. So you're completely in your right to prefer Kakoune over Vim (and vice versa). Though, if possible, would you mind elaborating what you prefer exactly and why?

while still being close enough so that you can pick it up quickly if you already know vim and the other way around.

Doesn't that disrupt muscle memory?

I have used vim/neovim for years and cannot go back to a non-modal editor. But TBH I got sick of its configuration. You need far too many plugins and config to get things into a sane working order to be usable on a day to day bases for any type of development. It takes ages to learn and become as productive as you were before and a lifetime to refine.

Interesting. Though I can definitely see where you're coming from. Uhmm.., have you used any of the Neovim distributions to make maintenance easier?

For the past year or so I have switched to helix and don’t plan on going back to vim/neovim as my main editor ever again.

Both Helix and Lapce have certainly piqued my interest as FOSS alternatives to VS Code. However, both have issues related to how well their current Vi(m) implementation is. As you've touched upon it; Helix' keybindings and 'sentence-structures' are different to those found on Vi(m).

Furthermore, neither of the two have existed long enough to be able to profess any statement regarding their longevity. Like, there's no guarantee that I can keep using either of the two 20 years into the future. While no program is able to 100% guarantee that, undoubtedly, the track records for both Emacs and Vi(m) testify that -if anything- they would be the most likely ones to survive 20 years down the line; like how they've done for the last couple of decades.

I appreciate the input, but I simply don't want to invest in a program whose future is very unclear to me at this point in time.

Thanks for answering! Much appreciated!

I might be a distro hopper. Every distro just niggles me after a while

Perhaps you've yet to find the one 😜. Your criticism to the different distros is fair though.

I thought Arch because it is almost always up to date and seems to be widely recommended.

Yup, it's by far the most popular rolling release distro. Though, I'd argue that openSUSE Tumleweed -while not as popular- is definitely worth checking out as well. They're, however, quite different from one another. Arch offers a blank canvas, while openSUSE Tumbleweed is relatively opinionated; though it does offer excellent defaults. You would have to make up your own mind whichever 'style' of maintaining a distro suits you best.

I had a go at installing Arch today in a VM using archinstall and set up BTRFS with Timeshift and grub-btrfs and it all seemed fairly straightforward.

Well, that sure does sound promising!

Surely dotfiles are meant to change over time?

Indeed. But any and all changes should await my 'permission' of sorts before being committed declaratively (or related) if at all. This might indeed make it hard(er) for software to create and change dotfiles as they will, which is somewhat the intended purpose.

DuckDuckGO for the bangs, with a custom !bang made for my favorite SearXNG instance; on which most of my 'googling' actually happens.

You can install Distrobox on Fedora (or any of the distros that support it), create a Debian distrobox on your Fedora install, and within the Debian distrobox you can use apt-get to install whichever Debian package you like. Or..., you could make an Arch distrobox and even install stuff from the AUR. Or really any package from any of your favorite distros as long as it's supported.

EDIT: I think what I’m wanting is something that gets new features more frequently, yet doesn’t become unstable. I feel drawn to the desktop eye-candy that I see getting featured with KDE desktops. I seem to believe I’m missing out on something, but can’t directly state what. Ultimately, I think I simply want to move to a more core/upstream version of Linux so that I get new functionality faster. I’m trying to find what I desperately need but never knew it existed.

Thank you OP for clarifying! Distros that are closer to upstream, but still accomplish 'stability' (often through hand-holding) and on which KDE has great support would be (in alphabetical order):

• Fedora's KDE Spin: Has a semiannual point release cycle, but still continues to get updates to kernel etc almost as soon as they come. Therefore it's sometimes referred to as semi-rolling release. In the middle out of these three in regards to how close it is to upstream.
• openSUSE Tumbleweed: Sets out to be the stable rolling release; thus receiving a constant stream of updates without foregoing stability. Perhaps surprisingly to some, it accomplishes this rather gracefully. Being on a rolling release enables it be the closest to upstream between these three.
• Ubuntu (their KDE flavour is more popularly known as Kubuntu): Also has a semiannual point release cycle, but mostly foregoes updates besides security-related ones and the ones received for snaps. It is the furthest away from upstream out of these three.

A lot more can be said concerning the differences between these three distros. However, working with them either from inside a VM or through a Live USB is probably a lot more valuable. All three are great picks, so you should be fine regardless.

Please feel free to inquire if you so desire!

You can even install KDE on Mint, and configure it however you want.

Personally, I'd advice against this as KDE is not supported on Linux Mint. While this doesn't have to mean much, it does mean a lack of polish and sophistication you might expect on Kubuntu or Fedora's KDE Spin or openSUSE (on which KDE is the default DE). This might result in some edge-case bugs and other mishaps that might trample your experience; thus giving you the wrong idea about KDE. Instead; consider booting into a Live USB of any distro that comes with KDE by default.

So taking your other comment into consideration as well, I suppose the following would be the easiest good setup:

1. Install Debian Stable using the image for a minimal network install onto a secondary device or onto a partition of your main device (multi-boot). Make sure to only include the stuff you think you'd need.
2. Install all of your favorite tools within that Debian Stable installation.
3. Use the excellent penguins-eggs package to make a live image out of it.
4. Install the live image onto your favorite USB with whichever tool you like; personally I enjoy using ventoy.
5. Profit :P .

If my proposed solution doesn't quite fit your needs, then please feel free to correct me!

Would you be fine with some tooling that enables one to make their own custom iso from an existing distro? This path still allows for a substantial amount of freedom, though it's not a blank slate by any stretch of the imagination. But it makes up for it with how relatively easy and painless it can be.

Or would you instead like to get into the nitty-gritty of things and want all the freedom you'd want? This increased freedom does come with a substantial cost in convenience and labour.

Pick your poison :P . I'll be waiting ;) .