I am not sure if I'm ready for that. I've been working on installing gentoo onto a laptop, and I can't get it to boot, so I don't think I want something that difficult. I like using the command line, but that thing (source based distros), it scares me.

I have heard that Ubuntu had spyware that sent information to amazon. Also I have heard that Ubuntu has a lot of unnecessary software aka bloat. Was that just desktop ubuntu or also ubuntu server?

That was the desktop version. I think they changed that "feature" to be opt in after the outcry.

I thought rolling release distros were bad for servers.

it's for homelab. most of stuff we do at homelab is the stuff we tend not to use on production :D

But what about a source of income? I want to contribute to open source, but after all we live in a capitalist society and people have to get a "real job" (read: writing spyware for microsoft) in order to buy food and shelter and to live, instead of writing code for free.

I use that mapping all of the time, it is also helpful to use

inoremap <esc> <nop> as this helps you train your fingers to stop using <esc>