Indeed. But I think some confusion will still remain as long as the ntfs-3g FUSE driver is still included by distros. Because right now, you have to explicitly specify the filesystem type as ntfs3 if you want to use the new in-kernel driver, otherwise it would use ntfs-3g. And most guides on the web still haven't been updated to use ntfs3 in the fstab, so I'm afraid this confusion will continue to persist for some time.

Here's the TL;DR from Phoronix:

#AMD

• AMD P-State Preferred Core handling for modern Ryzen systems. This is for leveraging ACPI CPPC data between CPU cores for improving task placement on AMD Ryzen systems for cores that can achieve higher frequencies and also helping in hybrid selection between say Zen 4 and Zen 4C cores. This AMD Preferred Core support has been in development since last year.

• Performance gains on AMD 4th Gen EPYC

• AMD FRU Memory Poison Manager merged along with other work as part of better supporting the AMD MI300 series.

• AMD has continued upstreaming more RDNA3+ refresh and RDNA4 graphics hardware support into the AMDGPU driver.

#Intel

• Intel Xeon Max gains in some AI workloads

• Intel FRED was merged for Flexible Return and Event Delivery with future Intel CPUs to overhaul CPU ring transitions.

• Reworked x86 topology code for better handling Intel Core hybrid CPUs.

• Intel Fastboot support is now enabled across all supported graphics generations.

• Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" tuning that can yield nice performance improvements for those using new Intel laptops.

• Continued work on the experimental Intel Xe DRM kernel graphics driver that Intel is aiming to get ready in time for Xe2 / Lunar Lake.

Video, Filesystem & Network

• Support for larger frame-buffer console fonts with modern 4K+ displays.

• Dropping the old NTFS driver.

• Improved case-insensitive file/folder handling.

• Performance optimizations for Btrfs.

• More efficient discard and improved journal pipelining for Bcachefs.

• FUSE passthrough mode finally made it to the mainline kernel.

• More online repair improvements for XFS.

• Much faster exFAT performance when engaging the "dirsync" mount option.

• Many networking improvements.

Full summary here: https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-69-features/

Because MIUI deviates from stock Android so much that it often causes unexpected behaviour and bugs. So it's easier for developers to just say they don't support it, instead of putting up with negative reviews and complaints.

What are corporate users using?

Corporates are using ThinkPads, HP EliteBooks and MacBooks. OS being Windows, macOS mainly. Linux on workstations is pretty rare - mainly used by developers - and the distro being Ububtu LTS (which I do not recommend).

Since you want to use Linux, go for a ThinkPad. There are more Linux-friendly laptops of course (like Framework and System76) but I believe none of them offer corporate-levels of stability and build-quality like ThinkPads yet - as you have experienced yourself with System76.

Main pro-tip is to avoid systems that use nVidia cards - they're often responsible for buggy suspend/resume in Linux, and can break your OS sometimes when you do an OS/kernel upgrade. So if you're after stability, avoid nVidia like the plague.

For the docking station, I've had good experiences with the HP Thunderbolt Dock G4. The initial releases were in fact a bit buggy with suspend/resume, but HP have released subsequent firmware updates to fix those issues. In fact, HP have been really good at providing regular firmware updates for those docks, and the best part is that it's on the LVFS too - which means the firmware can be updated directly in Linux using fwupd. A lot of vendors don't bother updating docking stations - and even fewer update them via LVFS, so this is something you might definitely want to look into.

Finally, for distro recommendations, I would recommend a Fedora Atomic distro since they're immutable, and rollbacks are as easy as just selecting the previous image in the boot menu. Given your requirements, I'd recommed Bluefin - specifically the Developer Experience version, since it comes with virtualisation tools OOTB.

For reference, I mainly use Bazzite (another variant of Fedora Atomic) on my pure-AMD ThinkPad Z13, and haven't had any issues with suspend/resume, external monitors, or virtualisation dev/test workflows. There's virtually no overnight battery drain either when suspending. My system also supports Opal2, so my drive is encrypted transparently to the OS, with virtually no performance overhead. It's also nice not having to muck around with LUKS and the complexities around it. I use this system for both work and personal use (gaming), and it's been a great experience so far - both software and hardware. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

This is a general tech community, mostly centered around news and end-user technology discussions, so it's very unlikely you'll get an answer here. Might want to try asking on Reddit or some dedicated Datto/Connectwise forum.

There's also XFCE and LXQt, if you want simple, easy-to-use environments.

My elderly, non-techy mum has been using XFCE over a decade across three different distros (Mint, Xubuntu, Zorin) and her experience has been consistent all these years, with no major issues or complaints. If my mum can use Linux just fine - so can anyone else (who don't have any specific/complex hw/sw requirements that is). I don't see how much further intuitive it needs to get.

KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXQt etc all have their own place and audience. There's no need to have one experience for all - in fact, that would be a huge detriment, because you can never satisfy everyone with a one-size-fits-all approach. Take a look at Windows itself as an example - the abomination that was the Start Menu in Windows 8 (and the lack of the start button) angered so many, to the point that Microsoft had to backtrack some of those design decisions. Then there was the convoluted mess of Metro and Win32 design elements in Win 10, and finally the divisive new taskbar in Win11... you're never going to make everyone happy. And this is where Linux shines - all the different DEs and WMs offer a UX that suits a different audience or requirements. And we should continue to foster and encourage the development of these environments. Linux doesn't need to be like Windows.

What @lemmyreader said, except this is XFCE installed directly on Termux (and accessed via Termux-X11, a native X server for Android). No *buntu involved here. If you have an Android as well, you can set all this up (minus the actual Chicago95 theme) using this script.

And here's a screenshot of Dillo (and some other apps) running on a modern Samsung phone (Galaxy Fold 4) :)

Nice, great to see the continued development of an old-school, lightweight browser. We need more active alternatives to the bloated duopoly.

Check out bamboo pillows and pillow cases, they have natural hypoallergenic properties and it might suit you better. Or you could just get a bamboo pillow protector + pillow case, in case you don't want to change your whole pillow out.

1. I used OneDrive, and especially the file on-demand (all files on server visible in explorer but only downloaded when needed) feature a lot

You can continue to use OneDrive. I use the OneDriver client and it works really well - your drive appears just like a local drive, but files only get downloaded when you try to access them. Once downloaded, it gets cached locally and is available offline, and is kept in sync automatically. Other cloud providers should have similar FUSE clients available.

2. What are best practices for managing apps?

Best practice is to stick to packages provided by your distro's repos. Flatpak should be your second option if you can't find your app there, and AppImages should be your third option (since Flatpaks are superior as they can share dependencies, unlike AppImages). Avoid Snap. In fact, avoid any distros that even use Snap (*buntu). Also, if you're on a Debian/Ububtu based distro, avoid adding PPAs (thirdparty user repositories) as far as possible, as these can cause dependency issues and may cause pain when you upgrade your distro.

Is there a GUI (I know) way to see all applications

That should be provided by your distro - Gnome-based ones have "Software" and KDE-based ones have "Discover".