I agree with a bunch of the comments here but wanted to add that there’s a decades-long legacy of good FOSS/Linux support on Thinkpads. Before any of these companies existed, Linux was running pretty reliably on Thinkpads.

I do like the newer options with these newer manufacturers, but I won’t be getting rid of my Thinkpads any time soon. I’m running a Framework now too.

Have zero issues running Fedora 38 Sway Spin on mine.

How does the immutability come into play with Nitrux vs, say NixOS?

Have you tried installing the respective agents inside the VMs that assists with the guest interfacing?

• In VMware: VMware Tools
• In Hyper-V: Linux Integration Services (LIS) or hyperv-daemons
• In VirtualBox: Guest Additions

These generally help with the mouse input lag and host-guest interfacing that can be sometimes slow in virtual consoles, etc. I don’t know to what degree you consider ‘perfectly smooth’, so you may be talking about something beyond that but I hope it helps.

I’ve read that systemd-homed can do encrypted home directories but I haven’t tried it, much less on WSL but that may get you to achieve the encrypted home directory at least.

Personally I don’t think I would have a need to encrypt all of WSL, but maybe that also makes sense for your case.

ArchWiki example: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd-homed

I’ve used Arch, Manjaro, and Endeavour. For ease of use it’s between Manjaro and Endeavour and I’d pick Endeavour. Arch is great too. When you’re ready to go deeper, give it a shot.

I did an in-place upgrade of a three-node cluster from 7.4 to 8. Followed the upgrade docs and it worked without a hitch.

I haven’t but would be curious to follow your journey. I’m running a NixOS VM (in Proxmox too) but still learning the basics. My goal initially was a simple utility VM. Separately I’ve also been moving my Docker host VMs to increasingly better setups and NixOS seems like an interesting next candidate.