ZFR: I've been using it for a few days and quite like it. So far, so good. Some things that could be done easily in Windows are more convoluted here, but vice versa too: a few things for which I had to jump through hoops on Windows can be done with a click.
So, two major things so far:
1) Would any of you here by any chance know a solution to this issue:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=309375&sid=81edfe3451d426923a49eacfd4f994cb It's the single thing which really messes up my experience so far. Having to scroll to the end if I want to run a program that starts with a letter from the end of the alphabet. Is there no way to display all programs at once? It doesn't have to be exactly like the classical windows menu, just a way that gives me a full list without scrolling.
If not, anything similar. Any workarounds, applets, third party tools, anything?
2) About installing programs. I've set up my installation so the 45GB partition is mounted as root, while the 130GB is mounted as /home, because I was under the impression that the root one will just contain the OS, while /home is where all the user's installed programs will go.
However, all programs installed from the Install Manager go to the root partition. I understand that it goes to /usr /lib /etc folders and so on, but this means that slowly but steadily my root partition is getting filled up, while my home partition has... nothing.
I've got only 30GB free on the root one, and I haven't installed any games yet. Once the games start arriving, at this rate I'll run out of space real soon.
Is there anything that can be done that doesn't involve reinstalling from scratch?
For installations: it depends.
What you install from the system's repositories (apt-get install whatever) and from deb packages will install wherever the package says to install (likely placing different files at different locations in the system, whether it be /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /opt/programname, or somewhere else, depending on the kind of file and how the packager wanted it to be). GOG installers, and other third-party installers, will usually either ask you where you want to install whatever it is or just place it somewhere in your home folder (because they know normal users usually don't have write access to anywhere else). Then you have the various container solutions (AppImage, FlatPack, and some other one I forget) that don't really install applications at all, but instead just presents a single file (containing the entire application/game) that you can place wherever you wish.
As for the start menu, now, it was a long while ago since I switched to KDE.
Have you tried just starting to type the name of the application to filter the list? That's how I've launched applications and games since Windows Vista, and I still do the same now. I'm _fairly_ certain I used the same when I ran Mint and Cinnamon.