My thoughts exactly

You might like oneshot. It's not quite as full featured as some mood trackers are, but the design is pretty nice. It hasn't had updates in a year or so, so daily you might be worth checking out too.

I second that. It's been brutal trying to find a good FOSS 2FA app for desktop.

Once you notice the hands in this meme... 😶

I've been looking for a decent PDF editor on Linux for years. Like you said, there are plenty that will basically work, but I always have issues with font mishandling.

So far I've just settled on using a windows VM with adobe for editing PDFs (along with one other windows only program that I need.) There is a way to get Adobe PDF software working in linux, but I haven't tried it.

If you need to sign PDFs, xournal++ is an excellent app for applying a saved signature as a stamp.

You only need a subscription if you use it over 300 times per day (or week, I can't remember). I haven't needed an API token and have been using it with no account successfully.

Techlore, The New Oil, and The Linux Experiment. All three have YouTube channels as well.

From a recovering distro-hopping addict, there's two ways to dip your toes in to the various Linux experiences:

1. When you install your distro, partition a separate /home folder that is distinct from your root and boot partitions. There are many good walkthroughs on YouTube on doing this process, it's fairly simple. Once you do that you can keep your home folder intact as you install different distros over the top. Just make sure to mark you /home folder each time and don't format it during install.

2. Like another commenter said, try distrobox. It will allow you to test out the various distro bases pretty conveniently. Another similar option is learning how to set up virtual machines. Again, sounds more difficult than it is. There's many good videos that walk you through the process.

Aside from the mechanics of testing out different options, I would recommend KDE as a desktop environment. Cinnamon and Gnome are both flexible, but do feel more restricting than I like. You can customize nearly every element of KDE, I really like it.

Really, most distros are fairly similar, aside from using different package managers and having different sets of software pre-installed. The desktop environment is where you'll experience the most user facing differences.

If you like to tinker, make your way over to an arch based distro at some point. I've really enjoyed endeavourOS, but you will need to mess with config files to get your printer working and things like that.

I hear you man. That exact thing happened to me back with the Pixel 2.

You know, I've heard of people having success getting the carriers to remove the lock on the bootloader sometimes. It may be worth calling Verizon's support line and asking them to do it.

Here is a good debloater that should allow you to remove some of the cruft from Google. It utilizes Shizuku which is a fantastic tool for accomplishing stuff without rooting your phone. I know I've seen debloating guides on YouTube that walk you through the stuff you can get rid of.

Something else that could really help is using a DNS blocking service to filter out requests to ad/tracking domains. I use NextDNS right now because it has some pretty comprehensive filters that are very easy to setup. Here's a video that goes over setting it up. Pi-Hole or Adguard are self-hosted options, I used Pi-Hole for awhile and liked it, but switched in order to simplify my digital life a bit.

Edit: also, here is a guide from a reputable privacy site that covers a more technical approach to degoogling stock android. You can do a lot more than you might think.

Absolutely, there are some really good ways to mitigate the data flow even if you can't stop it entirely. The OS is a big deal, but I think the most fundamental change to make is the apps and services you use.

You've probably already done that to a degree, but see if there are more changes you can make.

Alternativeto is an excellent way to explore your options, but also the techlore and the new oil youtube channels are fantastic resources for limiting privacy leaks.

I'll post a few debloater apps that I've run across when I get home too, I haven't used them but I know there are options for removing some of the tracking elements of stock android.

Yeah, weird right? 😅

Check out Immich for the photo backups. You can have multiple users with their own personal libraries. My family has Android and iOS backing up to my server right now, and its super nice to have it all consolidated.

Other than that, I second the nextcloud option. You can set the nextcloud app (which is available on all major OS) to auto upload pictures. Les Pas is a great way to view and manage a nextcloud photo library from Android.