I really like LXQt for VMs. It is lightweight and fast enough to provide a very snappy environment, even beating out something like XFCE. With LXQt I get the minimally viable desktop environment with a panel, notification handler, etc.
Though most recently I have been using XFCE specifically because its notification widget gives me more info in the preview.
Desperately waiting for Gnome Nautilus to not suck major ass (type ahead search, faster performance... hell, just make it like Dolphin, pretty much).
My setup sounds very similar to terminhell's. I have a server where the host is running Proxmox and I have a dedicated little Debian VM in it to run PiHole. It has been very reliable and stable in the four years since I've set this up.
To get ad-blocking on the go I set up Wireguard for myself and my gf so that we are always on my VPN when we are off my local WiFi. This has been functionally set and forget.
I haven't used AdGuard so I cannot comment on it, but I have not been found wanting in the slightest with PiHole.
I have 225k domains blocked with the combination of filter lists I use. I just use a few of the good ones. You can find good lists here. https://firebog.net/
I don't get it. You could have probably maintained a Debian Sarge install and upgraded it all the way through to Bookworm. I'm kind of surprised they don't provide an upgrade path in place for Raspian when Debian can manage it.
I use Btrfs on my secondary drives as well, just for the checksumming capabilities. If there is data errors, I would like to know about it (even if I cannot do anything about it, because I do not have redundancy set up). I have my fstab set up so that it mounts with noatime,compress-force=zstd:1
Performance-wise, Btrfs has been improving a lot even in just the past few years. I think if I were using a very weak computer (like raspberry pi 1 strength) I would not use Btrfs or a CoW fs.
I use bottles to run games and works amazing too.
Am I dullard for just using Lutris? Like literally any time I want to install a program or game I will use Lutris' GUI to select the installer, select a prefix directory, and so on. Once it's done installing, then I switch the target EXE to the actual program I want. It isn't exactly convenient but it has been reliable. So I haven't tried any other approach.
"DAMN! I ran the red light. But actually it wasn't my fault, the light switched to yellow just as I was checking my rear mirror, I had no time to react by the time I glanced forward again. Oh well. It's fine."
-- Maybe me.
zstd
Just btw, while zstd's compression ratio might be stronger, it will not be as fast as something like lzo-rle. When it comes to RAM you will definitely want to prefer speed unless you have a strict space usage requirement.
I prefer public trackers and torrents just because I don't like gatekeeping piracy. I want those bits to be distributed as far and wide as possible. So anything I get and/or seed will be public.
Even if there are bad peers that don't give back (which there are many), plenty enough times it's just people with shitty under served Internet connections. I'm fortunate enough to have a good enough connection where that doesn't bother me.
I just tried EndeavourOS with XFCE on a really old laptop and it works quite well. Xfce lacks some niceties that Gnome or KDE would provide, but its stability and reliability are unquestionable.
I suspect this isn't even a contest. Kdenlive is just really good.
Nautilus in general is my biggest gripe with Gnome. I despise it so much that I'm willing to abandon ship to KDE when Plasma 6 reaches my distro.