I started on Debian with XFCE. I figured if there were so many distros based on Debian, then I might as well just use that so I’d be able to configure things myself and learn more about how the OS works.

Anyway, you know the section in the Debian wiki called DontBreakDebian? I did not follow that advice. It went poorly. I’ve since learned from my (many) mistakes and have been running Fedora KDE for a while now.

I use Firefox + uBlock Origin on Android. You can still install add-ons for the app the same way you do on desktop.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/

It’s a KDE widget called global menu, but I believe there’s also a GNOME extension that will do the same thing.

Debian with KDE. I’ve had this set up on my laptop for a few weeks to see how well Debian stable would work as a daily driver with Flatpaks and/or Nix packages mixed in. I’m really liking it so far, so I’ll probably migrate my desktop over to a pretty similar set up soon. Right now it looks pretty similar visually, but is running Fedora 39.

I get what you’re asking, but this seems akin to stealing an ATM and then when the bank calls the cops you ask “but how would I even get inside? This is thick steel, there’s no way to get the money out of there without using my debit card anyway so idk what the big deal is.”

Like you’re not entirely wrong, but for one thing the bank has every reason to suspect you might try to break in anyway. But more importantly, stealing it is a crime in and of itself. So the “because the employer said so” angle is absolutely valid here and more than enough reason to not do this because trying to load a separate OS that will give you root privileges to the device is shady af and will 100% violate whatever contract OP had to sign before they were given that laptop unless their IT dept is completely incompetent.