If you want close to the bare minimum of software needed to run a system, and setup everything exactly as you like it, use arch.

If you want a preconfigured system that is performant, stable, secure, but still able to be customized to your liking, use Fedora.

If your scared of using a comand line for installation, use EndeavorOS.

I have used all 3 of these, in some capacity. I run my servers on Fedora Workstation, because it just works and comes with properly configured sepolicies out of the box. Arch has been the daily driver on my desktop/laptops for almost a decade now, because I often like to experiment with new programs and replacements for commonly used software, and the arch wiki is a wonderful. I tried EndeavorOS on an old PC to play YouTube videos/stream on my TV and it worked fine. I had to uninstall a handful of apps it came preloaded with, but that’s easy enough with an arch base. But IMO, now that the archinstall tool exists and is officially supported, there is actually no reason to use EndeavorOS unless you really don’t want to type a couple commands into a command line.

I don’t have a specific answer, but you could also look for tools that schedule reboots. If I remember correctly, a fresh boot has the same effects as lockdown mode. Fingerprint is not accepted, and the device contents remain encrypted until you unlock the first time.

As others have said, debian is very minimal, so If you would prefer to setup and configure the whole system yourself, debian is a good choice.

Personally, I prefer fedora server. It comes with more things configured out of the box (zram and sysctl configs for example) as well as better security defaults (selinux included with proper policies) and first class support for container infrastructure. Ultimately you could achieve a similar end result with debian, but for my homeservers I prefer to let the fedora team handle most of the system configuration for me.

I don’t know what sponsor you mean, but my Spigen SlimArmor case has little bubbles in the inside of the corner so it can squish more in those areas

For the sake of anyone who finds this looking for a proper answer, SteamOS/Bazzite/ChimeraOS are all suitable for this purpose. I didn’t consider them when writing this because I thought they were primarily game focused, but for non-games like Jellyfin or a web browser, you can just add them to your steam library as non-steam games.

Android browsers can provide what are called “Custom Tab Intents”, meaning that other apps can request to open web pages in a webview-like custom tab. This depends on browser support, with WebView being the fallback when your default browser does not support it.

If you’re looking for a chromium based browser, I like Cromite (successor to Bromite). Otherwise, Iceraven and Mull are two Firefox forks for Android that work well in my experience.

Nope, most of the websites I use on my TV are pinned on my home screen, and I have wvkbd (on-screen keyboard) bound to the select key on my controller for the times I do need to type

I have a bluetooth keyboard/trackpad combo, and the experience is not good. If I wanted to use a computer, I’d just sit at my desktop. I’m mostly looking for gamepad/controller driven software, but I appreciate the reply.

I have something similar to this, but 99% of the time I don’t need a keyboard, just a mouse and a couple specific keys. Would much rather use a controller personally

Arch for the last 8ish years. I’m interested in switching to something immutable and with a declarative package manager, but every time I try something else I end up back on arch. It works and has all the packages I use ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Graphene only supports Pixel phones. You could try to port over the device tree, HALs, and build system changes from LineageOS, but you would have to maintain it all yourself and run your own builds. Im using a pixel and I really enjoy graphene, but I’m not sure if it’s worth that much effort

I selfhost SearXNG and route it’s traffic through a VPN. I rarely get blocked by search engines, and when I do I just change the VPN server. You lose the benefit of your data being intermixed with everyone elses on a shared instance, but you still get the other privacy improvements from SearXNG