as for video editing, i've been using flowblade recently, it's been pretty good for putting together more basic edits.

You should install it using flatpak and only update when you have no more active projects (for the moment it seems updates partially break older saves)

pcmanfm has been pretty solid, i really recommend learning CLI file management though, it's universal and super convenient for the basic things.

Sounds like a pihole on your network would solve all of your issues.

Debian probably

pretty done with Bill’s fetishes about bing and ai.

I agree with all your points, but Bill Gates has no agency on the company's decisions these days. Blame Satya.

Window$ user$ lmaoooooo

Intro:

Linux is open source, anyone can grab the code and distribute their own Linux distro, some of them are community Maintained, some are backed by big companies. Some of them are based on another distro and they change stuff, a spin off of sorts. Think of Linux as a big waterfall which then is forked into several rivers, and then forked into more rivers. Each river has it's own characteristics, which some come from upstream and some others are their own.

There are four big players: Debian, Ubuntu (which is based on Debian), Fedora and Arch. Then you have POP OS and Linux Mint which are based on Ubuntu, but they change stuff to make it even easier to use, specially for Nvidia users.

In Linux, everything works out of the box because every driver is part of the core of Linux called the Linux Kernel. Except for Nvidia, for which you need their own non-open source, proprietary driver. Installing that driver manually is much harder than on Windows, so that's why everyone recommends a distro that ships with Nvidia drivers out of the box.

I don't know how they will behave with double touchscreens. Try some distros and report back please.

OS

All major Linux distros have no ads For a PC with Nvidia GPU, pick a distro that ships with Nvidia drivers. Like POP OS & Linux Mint.

Software

GFX:

Vector: Inkscape Raster: GIMP, Krita, Photopea, Canva

VFX:

Editing: Davinci Resolve, KDEnlive Post: Davinci Resolve, Natron

3D Modeling: Blender

I'm not a graphics designer and idk any of the graphics related apps you listed except gimp but everything should work fine as long as it have a native Linux version. You may need to replace Davinci with something else though because it can be a pain to get working on Linux.

For distros, I'd recommend Mint because it's just pretty much the most beginner-friendly one you can get and it's quite conservative but it has very old drivers so performance may not be the best, EndeavourOS (based on Arch btw but quite stable) if you have very very recent hardware or if you want newest performance optimizations (driver versions) and Pop!_OS if you have an NVidia GPU. I wouldn't recommend Fedora or Ubuntu because the first one rushes major bleeding edge changes (including AI) and the second one is known for some questionable choices (including ads and pushing proprietary app stores with poor moderation).

P. S. We do not like clickbait or any other kinds of bait here. Please follow the rules of ethical posting