This is why I recommended a Shield for which there is an actively maintained LineageOS. Yes, it's an investment, but well worth it nowadays.

I also have a Surface GO 2 and been running Linux for the past 2 years. In the beginning the only "trouble" was that you you needed the surface-linux kernel for drivers, but that's no longer the case as all drivers have been upstreamed to the mainline kernel.

For distros, anything goes as long as it has a recent kernel. I just go full Arch (EndeavourOS is also a good choice).

What you probably want to pay attention to is the desktop environment - i've found Gnome works best for touch and tablet devices KDE requires some tweaking.

For 2, check the flathub store, you might be impressed with what you find for note-taking and PDF editing. Definitely some good options out there for Linux.

3 is a preference. Generally use internal storage for OS and external for data. Linux doesn't take that much space, so if with 120GB you're having storage issues, just ditch windows, problem solved, lighter system.

4 Yes it works.

You VPN may have an option under settings called Split-Tunneling - Most well-established VPN providers will have this. This allows you to set the local subnet for your network, and it'll bypass the VPNs so that local connections are local. Check it out. Otherwise, what you propose works, yes, as long as you're okay with having that laptop as a single point of failure for your content. At least get an external drive and periodically backup to it as well, and have that drive elsewhere. Good enough starting point.

1. Invest in an Nvidia Shield
2. Install LineageOS Android TV

I have two of these in the household, one of the best tech investments I made. No more homescreen ads.

Thanks for the response, this makes sense I suppose. I personally like being explicit and knowing-at-a-glance what is currently configured, but I can see some defaults being useful for many beginners for instance, and keeping config cleaner.

This sounds interesting. But in that case, how are headers set? From a security and even privacy standpoint the correct headers can be quite important. How do you enable/disable http2 and http3?

Lightning is indeed NOT a fork of a Bitcoin, it's essentially a Layer 2 for Bitcoin (if you think in terms of the Internet's TCP/IP model). It solves pretty much every use case created by any Altcoin when competing with Bitcoin, as Bitcoin chose security and decentralization over scalibility in its base layer (on-chain).

As for buying Monero, I only deal with Bitcoin, but I'm pretty sure you can easily buy Monero still as long as you don't use centralised exchanges (permissioned), and instead use Decentralised ones (permissionless). That'll be the case for any altcoin that still has decent popularity for the foreseeable.

Not exactly. Lightning makes it super cheap and instant.

Bitcoin is pseudonymous - Transactions are transparent, yes, but the addresses are not linked to any PII - The exception comes in when the user uses a Centralised Exchange that does exactly this, it bridges anonymous addresses with PII via KYC.

Bitcoin can be sold anonymously using P2P DEXs (decentralised exchanges), where the fiat transaction has no link to Bitcoin.

That's assuming they even would want to sell.

All in all, it comes down to how the user uses the tool. Bitcoin can be as privacy preserving as anyone wants. But if they KYC, they can kiss any privacy goodbye, and really, that's the misunderstanding that has reached most non-Bitcoin users these days. Experiences based on a lack of understanding.

Arch was the distro that got me to stop distro-hopping. It's stable, it has a rolling release, and it's mine (as in, customizable, manageable).

I guess, if there's anything I wish I'd known off the bat is that the Arch documentation is probably the best available. So much so, a LOT of it applies to Linux in general and not strictly to Arch.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page

If something breaks, READ the error messages, understand each component, and check the wiki, there's a very high chance the troubleshooting section has the exact issue laid out.