No they weren't. I used to play Elite Dangerous and the paddles were used as modifiers, so for example the left paddle held down would change all the face button inputs to distributing energy while the right pad would swap them to common cockpit functions (landing gear, fsd, lights..)
Meanwhile both bumpers and triggers remained as a single function: yaw and weapon groups
Recently had to help a relative who still uses windows, so here's a freebie from Linux:
You can use super + number to launch any pinned program on the taskbar.
For example let's say you have your browser right of the start button and file explorer on the next spot right, pressing super+1 launches the browser and super+2 the explorer
Old school user here, back in 2005ish Ubuntu was straightforward, even had "wubi" to install it as a windows app, the site was friendly and easy to navigate (compared to Debian's).
Another big plus, they shipped the distro CDs for free worldwide, which was a big deal while I was stuck on a shitty ADSL connection that had constant drops.
Mint came a bit later and the big plus was OOTB codecs support. Back in the day that was one of the first walls most users came across, while Ubuntu pushed for a paid mp3 codec (fluendo?) Mint had most audio and video codecs working right after setup.
The UI wasn't that different between the two, considering Ubuntu was running gnome2 (what mate immitates nowadays)
They do for some time now, at least on both workstation and silverblue you get prompted on the first boot and a reminder after a while on gnome-software
It's on my to-research list. I heard some rumblings that tailscale might go IPO. Not that's bad by itself but I have been burned by stuff like that leaving me stranded once they "pivot their operations to maximize investor satisfaction" (aka enshittification)
Have you tried Synching? If you only need transferring files back and forth and no version control or snapshot-like backups, that might be even simpler
Tried OCIS a while back and its way faster than NC syncing files, even the initial sync was so fast I didn't trust it was fully done (but it was).
That being said, OCIS is missing several key features I daily use: namely proper DAV support (contacts, calendar, todo, journal, etc) as well as integrations for stuff like SeedVault for mobile backups.
Here's an idea: on your android device use something like Insular to create a work profile, that way you get its own VPN slot, add your selfhosted-related apps there along with Tailscale. You can keep ProtonVPN on for your other apps, while using TS for your "LAN away from home" stuff. Since Tailscale already encrypts all traffic, you don't have to worry about HTTPS, certs, et al.
Oh no, don't take it as "don't reinvent the wheel"! I meant it in the true sense that sometimes we spent so much effort and focus building something, just to post about it somewhere and getting a reply "Oh nice, it's exactly like X project!".
Currently I'm running NextCloud on prem, so DavX5 and JTXBoard cover most of my note taking and todo tasks, and I guess one could deploy the server-side encryption module on a NextCloud AIO on a VPS and keep everything (probably) safe and private. I'm kinda lazy too, that's why I liked the hands-off maintenance of NC-AIO. I get notifications to update stuff, and I get regular security audits from NC itself.
BTW, never take that "doing stuff already done" is in detriment of helping FOSS projects. There are tons of examples of people randomly tinkering around and accidentally finding some huge fix for other projects. Off the top of my head, some weeb wanted to play Nier Automata at decent framerates on wine and a few years later, here we are with DXVK and all the proton stuff making most stuff playable!
Really interested on seeing this, although if I could make a suggestion, start by scouting around and see if you can adapt FOSS apps, maybe fork them and add/remove features to please your objectives and tastes.
Although I'm eager to see these through, I like projects like murena (/e/OS) that cobble together good Foss projects into a single cohesive ecosystem (without making the word ecosystem gross and vendor locked in like in most cases)
Which version? The daisy wheel or the dual thumb keyboard?
I kinda miss the older circular mode, it was hard to get used to, but it was really quick and precise