I mostly work in qtile in a fullscreen layout or a diagonal split between two windows. My hotkeys are super+d for rofi in dmenu mode and super+q for a shutdown menu also in rofi.

You could sync your photos folder between your devices using syncthing.

Aren't the megathreads synced?

Install paru and use it to install mongodb from the aur.

What trustworthy options do you have for acquiring hardware?

Have you tried looking for used thinkpads?

A used framework 13 might be something for you