TL;DR = I think I finally figured out why some Linux setups feel right and others fight you. It comes down to one thing I didn't have a name for until recently: cadence matching. Sharing the journey, including my many wrong turns. Not a "you should use what I use" but hopefully learning what others have found also.

As a kid from Nepal , born 2000, when I was about 10, some phones were starting to be seen and one of the person with nokia 3310 was my uncle. I was hooked. Played snake all the time and locked his phone with PUK code. Then, internet came, hacking wps password from wifi using android phones from neighbour when they came along. Started watching MKBHD, mr mobile, austin evans etc. Wanted a laptop badly, after few years uncle and my dad put half amount each to buy me Acer aspier 4349, I drove that laptop from in and out and used several OS like XP, vista, 7, kali linux and many gaming windows pre configured OSes( had no clue what i was doing), cracked games and all. That was my fondest memory of using PC. But I knew Nepal would be my bottleneck for my tech as