I made it through college as a Mac user in the mid 90’s which had a lower market share than Linux does now. If I was a college now I’d probably get a reasonably powerful business notebook and run MacOS, and Windows in a VM so I wasn’t left wanting.

I’d just go Tumbleweed

I think were still pretty far away from a true Linux phone it seems we’re in the Linux desktop circa 2002. Unless you’re willing to deal with alpha software its still best to flash a ROM.