I wouldn’t call it a mess. There’s a reason it’s not standard. It’s because Linux is about having choices. Linux users have such a variety of use cases and there are a zillion different kinds of hardware it runs on. There’s no one thing that works for everyone.

I think this flexibility is a big part of what makes Linux special but also what makes it difficult for newcomers. The documentation on all the various software is typically very good to excellent. The harder part is figuring out which choice to make in the first place.

I don’t really have any answers except to take it all in and be more willing to do some research than some other platforms may require.

System-wide DoH is sort of a power user thing to begin with so other platforms will likely be similar. I think you would probably be using some kind of app to do it on Windows or Mac.

By the way, you might want to take a look at stubby for your situation. I did something similar a few weeks back and that’s what I used. It’s runs a little local DNS proxy that forwards requests to your upstream servers. Then you would set your DNS server to 127.0.0.1 in NetworkManager or whatever you’re using. You have to change like 3 lines in the default stubby config a typical distro may provide to make it work.

VSCodium, emacs, vim/neovim, helix.

Helix is pretty slick, but it’s not very extensible. Very easy to use and if the out of the box features are good enough for you then it’s a fine IDE.

Neovim is my preference unless I’m working with Jupyter notebooks, in which case I switch to vscodium. It’s a pain in the ass to set up. I took the easy way out with LazyVim. It’s fast to work with and I can use it for almost everything.

I dabbled with emacs many years ago. It’s like vim but completely different. You can make it do anything. Personally, I don’t care for the keyboard shortcuts. It’s probably easier to pick up than vim, but all the key chords and sequences are too much for me. In any case, anyone willing to look at vim should also take a look at emacs.

VSCodium is accessible and extensible. You can’t go wrong with this one. It can’t refactor like the Jetbrains stuff, but if there’s anything else it can’t do then I don’t know what it is. It’s a great IDE.

Really, any of these can do just about any job and do it very well. There’s no choice that clearly stands above the others. It really comes down to personal preference.

Where are all the maglev trains in non-capitalist countries? Sooner or later, in any system, someone has to do a cost benefit analysis and decide whether it’s worth it. It’s not just about profitability. There are plenty of situations in the US where something is unprofitable but still funded because the benefit is worth it.

I’ve used Tumbleweed in the past, I use Aeon (OpenSUSE MicroOS) now, and I was a longtime Arch user before this. I will take Arch over Tumbleweed every time. The repositories, AUR and docs are just better. OpenSUSE’s OpenQA and OBS are cool, but, in my opinion, don’t offer enough value over Arch. There’s also YaST, which I don’t care for, but YMMV.

With Aeon, the repositories aren’t really an issue because it’s a different workflow with distrobox. I just pull in Arch packages if I need to. The docs still leave something to be desired, but I’ve been using Linux since the late 90’s so I’m pretty comfortable. I really like transactional updates and immutability on Aeon.

Linux is Linux. The differences largely come down to packaging and release cadence. You never really have upgrade difficulties with Arch due to the rolling release model as long as you are updating pretty regularly. On other distros, it’s not uncommon to deal with release upgrades that can be a little more involved. The other advantage to Arch is the repository and AUR. You can install just about anything with one command/click.

Personally, I think Arch is the easiest distro to use once it’s installed. I was a Debian user before Arch for mostly the same reason - it’s so easy to install software because the repository is huge. Being on Mint, you have access to a lot. Just imagine having access to even more but needing a little more knowledge to get started and that’s Arch.