Valves choices the last few years are making me more optimistic that a Linux phone ecosystem could grow and improve. Sideloading APKs on an ARM-based easy-to-use linux system? Nice! It is possible using Waydroid etc today, but it is not very polished.
+1 for Fedora.
I started my Linux journey back in 2011 with Arch on my MacBookPro 17". I had a great time and enjoyed the steep learning curve, but around 2018 I needed something that just worked to keep myself from fiddling to much with the OS and get to work on other tasks, and settled for Fedora. The last few years i have very much enjoyed Fedora Silverblue, but there are still a couple of sharp edges around video codecs and the browser. But that is about it.
Fedora keeps me productive!
I also supprised myself a few years back when I ditched Arch Linux (after 10 years) for Fedora! I now use Fedora Silverblue, but would also reccomend having a look at the uBlue variants for different flavoring.
I use TrueNAS, which supports TimeMachine out of the box and I have set up Samba-shares to make it simple for family members to drop files in a shared folder. Some of them also have a personal folder. This works on Linux, Windows and MacOS. I also use Wireguard to make sure they always have access to the share.
TrueNAS has a learning curve, but it is reasonably well documented and if you spend some time up front, it pays of.
I use an HP EliteDesk 800 Mini with two boot disks for redundancy and several disks connected trough USB3. Using USB disks are discouraged by TrueNAS but it has worked fine for several years for my low budget setup.