Slackware uses the sysvinit program, but doesn't have System V-style scripts. Which is somewhat confusing, but sysvinit is a basic init program that will just do whatever /etc/inittab tells it, so you can write your startup scripts to work however you want.
Slackware uses what people tend to call a BSD-style init, but it's nothing like the modern BSDs, nor the older BSDs, not really. If you use Slackware, you'll learn how Slackware's init system works, but that's about it.
I used Solus for a while on my laptop. One day a minor kernel version bump caused my display to stay black. I reported it to the Solus bug tracker and they told me it's not their problem, and I should deal with the kernel devs. But of course the kernel devs reasonably tell you to deal with your distribution if they've modified the kernel, which Solus had.
So I installed Tumbleweed and never looked back. I don't miss Solus. It was fine, but I don't trust it now, the way I do trust Tumbleweed.
Others have covered PRIMARY vs CLIPBOARD (the separation of which I find to be extremely useful).
For Vim, you have access to these both via the registers + (CLIPBOARD) and * (PRIMARY). So, for example, to paste from your CLIPBOARD selection, you'd do this:
"+p
(or P). Similar for yanking:
"+yy
for example.
No, you're right that it has scripts, they're just not the scripts used by SysV-style init systems. They have different names, are in different locations, and are executed differently.
I used Slackware for several years back in the 90s, and from that experience I'd recommend against learning it. I mean, with VMs today it's simple to try new distributions, so go for it, but I'd put it waaaaay down the list of distributions/operating systems to try. If you have anything else you're interested, put it first. Slackware is standard Linux so there's nothing really special you'd find when using it, and it's just a painful experience in general. I think some people will argue that it helps you "really learn Linux", but I don't think so. It just helps you learn Slackware's idiosyncrasies, and learning pretty much any other distribution would be more beneficial than that.
Slackware has advanced from when I used it in the 90s, but only barely (they have a network-based package manager now, I guess, although it proudly avoids dependency resolution!)
openSUSE also has a simple FDE setup. Just check a box and enter a passphrase during install. It's not default, but it's about as easy as possible to set up.
I mean, I think most of us understand why GOG's Linux support is miles behind Steam's, but that doesn't change the fact that it is behind. Years ago I bought several games from GOG because of the no DRM policy; but once Steam released a Linux version, and began pumping resources into Proton, the choice for me was easy, and I switched over. I understand GOG's position, but I don't think there's anything wrong with people pointing out how GOG doesn't have the same level of Linux support as Steam does. That's useful information.
Just a quick note, I generally use the packagekit backend (via Plasma Discover) and it works fine the vast majority of the time (including taking snapshots).
The only time I've seen problems with it is when user intervention is required, e.g. if there's some conflict on upgrade. Discover, at least, seems to silently fail, at which point I hit the terminal and do sudo zypper dup.
I'm not sure if Yast works better, as I prefer Discover since it integrates (mostly) seamlessly with Plasma, and using the CLI doesn't bother me. I could see it being an issue for somebody who wants things to "just work" and/or is not well-versed in Linux. So, I agree that it may not be ideal for newbies; just wanted to give some info on the current packagekit status.
I can second Beelink here. I bought a Beelink SER5 for US$380 as a gaming computer for my kids. It's an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H with a Vega GPU, 16G RAM and a 500GB SSD. It probably won't work well with the latest graphics-intensive games, but it's been great so far with a bunch of games my kids like.
That one worked so well that when I needed a new desktop computer for their schoolwork and similar, I got another Beelink, this time a Mini S12 for US$200. It's an Intel N95 with 8G RAM and a 256G SSD. Works absolutely fantastically for its purpose.
Both are tiny and silent.
The Messenger. I saw a post here a bit ago about Sabotage's upcoming "Sea of Stars" which looked interesting, and I saw they'd also done a Ninja Gaiden-inspired game several years back, so I picked it up.
I'm a couple hours in, and I've been really enjoying it. It has a very NES-like feel, while still being a smooth experience, i.e. not held back by the limitations of the NES, just inspired by it. Apparently it kicks into an SNES-style experience later on, so that'll be fun to see.
I'm not sure how enjoyable it'd be to somebody who didn't grow up on the NES, but I've had fun with it so far.
Ultimately, of course (according to the article), he does, sort of, admit it was motivated by race:
I guess he is claiming that saying "people of race X murdered people of race Y because they are race Y" will make kids of race X feel bad? That's the only (tenuous) link I can see here. It's absurd on its face, of course.
According to the article, he really weasel-worded things:
It's weaselly because he didn't outright say that it wasn't racially motivated, just that teachers shouldn't say that it was. Because of some kids' feelings, apparently.
The best bit is his word salad response to the question of why the massacre doesn't fall under his definition of Critical Race Theory:
What does this even mean? It's fine to say that there was a reason for an action, and that the action was wrong... but if you say that the action was racially motivated, that's not OK, because (here's a massive leap of logic) that means race defines a person?
"Let's not tie it to the skin color and say that the skin color determined it" is really just arguing that we shouldn't care about motive. He acknowledges the massacre was wrong, but doesn't want anybody to know why it occurred. I wonder if he's as critical of racial motive when it's black-on-white violence, for example...