I have been using Arch Linux with i3wm for around 5 years for work, on my ThinkPad. I am fairly comfortable with pacman and setting up a distro. I have previously tried Mint, Manjaro, KDE Neon, Elementary, and MX Linux, all for the same use case (Work: where I need a browser, Slack, and a MongoDB GUI).

However, I have been using Windows on my desktop that I use for gaming and the Adobe suite (photoshop and illustrator mainly). With the increasing enshittification of Win11, I want to migrate full time to a Linux system on desktop as well. I prefer a more stable experience on this machine so I chose Pop OS (other suggestions are welcome. I like Plasma). I need some help getting started (I did some preliminary trials on a VM where I was able to run a small game off GOG, but the part I need help with needs some trickery wrt different disks).

PC specs:

• Ryzen 3 3300X
• 16 GB DDR4
• 1 NVMe boot drive, 1 SATA SSD for games, 1 HDD
• RX 570 8 GB

My copies of Photoshop and some of my games are pirated. I'm planning to run a Tiny10 VM for the Adobe stuff but the games will need to run on bare metal linux, off the NTFS formatted game drive. Edit : Most importantly, Content Manager and mods for Assetto Corsa need to work (not pirated), with my Thrustmaster T128

I would be grateful for a guide for this.

I really like the simple, stock - ish layout on my home screen, which rules out a few popular suggestions like Niagara.

• I liked Lawnchair, but development is dead. Even the new alpha hasn't been updated in a year or more, and is missing features.
• Neo Launcher perhaps came close to being the most ideal, but it is buggy as hell and also hasn't been updated in a year
• Nova is what I'm using now, but I hate that it does not remember the drawer groups for each app once they're reinstalled. I work as an app tester and having to sort work apps manually every time drives me up the wall

Does anyone here have any suggestions?