Gnome is simple. Gnome is native for GTK apps, which are majority. You can turn on classic taskbar, turn off virtual spaces, add minimize button and it is now a classic user experience.
I don’t understand this obsession with Wayland vs X11.
On Arch I choose Gnome and the underlying technology is picked for me based on hardware of the machine.
I recall having X11, because I had nVidia card. I bought AMD video card and it started to run Wayland without any effort on my side. It was a while ago.
Arch would require you to make more decisions, which may lead you into the woods. Use Manjaro, which made Arch tech decisions for you like choice of network management stack.
I tried Manjaro last week on laptop. It has a polished user experience. Pick to use non-free drivers. Use Libre Office instead of free office. Install Firefox and chromium. Done.
Gnome just added full search and it is included in Arch and shall be in Manjaro in less than 2 weeks.
The advantage with rolling release for your parents is that you will never run install again. You will never need to upgrade version of Debian or Ubuntu. Just update OS every time you visit them, no more frequent than once every few months, not less than twice a year.
Manjaro has polished software installation experience at graphical user interface level.
I can’t help you, but i had a similar experience with similar technology. I spent lots of time recovering content. I succeeded, but i have software development experience. I didn’t want a repeat of that.
In the end I picked windows file sharing for home networking and filebrowser for occasional access to data files from outside of home networking.
Web dav is a very good alternative. Apache web server will be easier, but nginx can be made to work.
Joplin is another good alternative, which is based on web dav.
You can pay around $2-$3 a month to shared services provider for hosted web dav.
You can pay for dreamhost, namecheap or any other shared hosting plan that provides WebDAV. Some provide unlimited storage. I am not sure how realy unlimited it is.
Buy domain and host empty website. Turn on ssl using hosting tools. Dreamhost provides you with free certificate for that. Namecheap charges after 1st year.
Create directory on the website using hosting tools and turn on webdav on that directory. It can be password protected. Turn on password protection and disable public access using hosting tools.
That will give you a disk that can be mounted on Windows, Linux or mac without additional software. On iOS you will need an app like OwlFiles. You will have access to it From home or coffee shop. Anywhere. It will act as your remote storage and you can access it using Explorer or Finder. Most tools will read content of remote disk without any restrictions.
Create another directory and leave public access to have public sharing directory only you can change (keep passwords).
Create another directory or use one of your private subdirectory with application Joplin and you get free and open source notes and todo system. That system can encrypt all your notes with master password. I recommend it: https://joplinapp.org
West locked itself out of Russian oil. It is called sanctions.
West is trying to make it Putin’s fault and Putin’s big plan.Russia always claimed that it cannot be isolated.
Russian propaganda is loving it. They predicted the outcome and it is a fact now.
Western propaganda predicted outcome did not materialize.
I’d like to see how far into negative territory this comment will go into. Truth is not a sweet lie..