If you used pandoc hen you were programming your thesis. ;-)

It depends on what you want to achieve.

Vi and it’s descendants are brilliant editors for a programmer but not for writing prose. So stay away from them. ;-)

Do you want just to write text without being distracted by an overwhelming gui or are you fine with the hint at options?

Do you want to write in a terminal?

How much do you want to format while typing? By typing the format commands into the text or by clicking on buttons or ctrl-key magic?

Do you need version control?

For each of your combination of answers there are different solutions.

I used testing for ages, it is really stable. Only the phase after a feature freeze for the release of a stable version can be a bit shaky. For some weeks I just change my repos to the stable version.

That is standard in all of Debian, just get it as a flatpack.

You can’t delete a mail you sent me, nor put your hand written letter to me in the bin. I can keep both and I can keep your name and addresses in my little black book. So there isn’t even that level of privacy in the real old fashioned communication.

And communication over the Internet was always the subject of storage. Your mail may be on the backup tape of a mail server. Your usenet posting is on archive.

So the assumption that the fediverse can forget….

Debian testing until it gets stable, then stable until I get envious of new stuff then testing again. For about 20 years, can’t really remember when I switched from SuSE.

But a functional ecosystem keeps the water clean. You can have either a complete system with complex food chains or chlorine.

But after what time is it an ecosystem that has to be protected? We have here the “Lüneburger Heide” with a lot of protected species and take great care to keep it a heathen. It is an artificial landscape and was woodland before all the trees were chopped off to cook salt in Lüneburg. It was kept clear by sheep. Shepherding on an open plain is now unprofitable and if we would stop now to pay the shepherds a complete ecosystem would vanish and be overgrown by bushes and trees. That would hurt biodiversity and tourism. But it would be the natural environment for northern Germany.

Any body of water is an aquatic ecosystem. You’ll have algae after some days and fish after a year or two.