This is suuuch a throwback. I miss the earlier versions of iOS. honestly it peaked with iOS 6 and it just feels downhill from there.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, YaST is the deity I pray to
I’m going to suggest one I’m not seeing here; OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I cut my teeth on Tumbleweed for years, and it has the pros of a rolling release while YaST provides the tools needed to have a stable base that rivals that of Ubuntu. Gaming is extremely easy to get set up, and you can choose pretty much any major desktop, although I recommend XFCE.
I’m curious if it would be possible to replicate somehow with a PineTime
Sadly Marketplace is booming. It’s all but killed Craigslist in my area and that seems to be the norm.