I've been using Mint as my daily driver and gaming PC for years. Very happy with it.

If you're really on the fence, and you're building a new system, you might just want to "distro hop" for the first week or so. It's a little work and a bit disruptive, as you'll be re-installing the OS every few days. But just like a car, there's nothing like actually driving it to get a feel for how much you'll like it.

It could take a century

Maybe we should chip in and buy a second robot.

As with most things in life, it's probably a combination of factors. But please don't beat yourself up over it.

There's a lot of good advice already in this thread; no reason to repeat it. One thing you might look at the Proton Github issues list. Occasionally, when a game otherwise has a gold rating but I have problems with it, I can find some interesting corner-case details here. Here's a link that you could use to find Anno 1404 issue, as an example: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+%22anno+1404%22

The other thing I would suggest is that you be more verbose when describing problems. You did a great job sharing the high-level issue and your system's details, but what do you mean by "didn't work"? Does it fail to launch? Does it launch but not do X? Those details can go a long way towards troubleshooting (though I do understand that your post was meant to not be game-specific).

Oh, and stay away from Cracks. Unless you're VERY sure about what you're doing, it's just inviting trouble.

Something to consider when we talk about disconnecting and "touching grass"... it's not an immediate thing. You need to be vacation for several days before you can genuinely begin to relax and feel and positive effects. So this idea that we can just nip out for 20 minutes and leave our phone behind for serious benefit is pretty much worthless.

So if you're "disconnecting" and you spend the first few days just sleeping or staring at the TV, that's pretty understandable. You're paying off a fair bit of "rest debt".

WRT your update: That's great that you're getting professional help. Make sure (if you aren't already) that the feels you're sharing here are being thoroughly conveyed to your doctor. Medication can be fantastic, but you may benefit more from a different medication. All good things to bring up with your professional.

Good luck!

It's not exactly what you were asking for, but I'll say one thing that definitely helped me was to remove the mobile apps to sites like reddit from my phone. It was much easier to break its hold on me when I couldn't just view it anywhere. Obviously, it was still an issue on the desktop but nudged me in the right direction that made breaking away much easier. And once I could go several days without hitting a site at all, the addictive nature of the site really subsided a lot.

This statement, from the company that looked at Recall and collectively said "yeah, this is a good idea".

That, as others have mentioned, is a moderately difficult question for us without knowing what you like or what the specs on your laptop are.

If you install Steam, they have a pretty generous return policy. You just need to act within 2 weeks of the purchase OR before you hit a total of two hours played in that game - whichever comes first. I like Steam because the Proton compatibility layer built in makes gaming on Linux so incredibly easy.

I'm hesitant to do so because you undoubtedly like different things, but here is a short list of some of the games I've played that I really enjoyed based on total time played.

Sid Meier's Civilization (the whole series is good, but 5 is my favorite)
Stellaris
Battletech
Satisfactory
Valheim
Football Manager (think of this title as the complex strategy game to FIFA's action game)

"we are all printers"

Well, this would explain why frequently just refuse to work.

If it helps any, you're not the first to have feelings like this toward the end of your undergraduate life. You're not alone.

My advice for the moment would be to focus on making a strong finish in school. Yes, you need/want to start thinking about your future, but you don't want to get this far only to stumble at the finish line. Don't tack on a full-time or demanding job unless it's absolutely necessary. June is going to show up a lot faster than you think it will and you have a lot of research, writing, and revision to go.

The one I bumped into recently: the Coastline Paradox

"The coastline paradox is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. This results from the fractal curve–like properties of coastlines; i.e., the fact that a coastline typically has a fractal dimension."

A good pair of comfortable shoes for your day-to-day circumstances.

Admittedly, this can easily break the $100 limit depending on where you live, your circumstances, etc. but buy the best pair you can afford.

"continuing to push the boundaries of consent."

If by "push the boundaries" you meant "completely ignore them", then yes. This kind of behavior from MS, or any vendor, should always be considered strictly unacceptable.