dude i use i3 and arch as a daily driver. for work too. and i LOVE it even if it can get a little janky.
but you cannot with a straight face tell me a user new to linux will find it comfortable to use. let alone people used to other tools like graphic designers (try telling THEM to switch to gimp and inkscape, or even worse to try to use the adobe suite with wine, and see the response you get)
we linux weenies can make our desktop and tools comfortable for us. the average person will ask you where chrome is and give up after you try explaining to them what a flatpak is for the third time.
Mostly agree with the premise of this post, but you don't necessarily need to use a language that causes segfaults if you look at it wrong (It Is Undefined Behavior(tm)) to "go back to your roots" (though from what I've seen you've been enjoying C a lot OP, so that's good too), any language works when you don't have The Business breathing down your neck.
Write a little VM in Rust, or C#. Hell, try doing a SPA in pure JS without npm (or any other package manager) or any frameworks or even libraries, only native custom components, it's surprisingly fun.
postman tracker was already shared somewhere around here, i recommend checking that out
ofc it's nowhere near the level of clearnet but i've had good luck finding technical books as a test
download speed was pretty abysmal when i tried it a few years ago though so i didnt bother with anything bigger than 1 gb or so (took a few days to download a sizable book compilation)
please please please please please please please please please please please please please please pl-