I would install it with docker (moreover docker compose) preferably. Easier to maintain and troubleshot. Anyway, for 1, make sure jellyfin has the rights to see your video and music folders. For 2, are you trying to do it from the same network or from outside?

Maybe take a look at paperless-ngx, it will take care of the OCR for you and make it searchable. Just not sure if it will show the path correctly.

Arch is also harder than other distros to learn, that’s why maybe turning to a more used distros like fedora isn’t a bad idea. Fedora is also good for new hardware with it’s rolling updates and will have many tutorials to help you installing things. The only thing gaming focused distros do is ship you with packages and software meant to help you. So for the tests you could try others distros to see what’s easier for you.

That said, you also said you came from Debian, so you could also install a Debian based distros. With Debian 13 out from not so long, it shouldn’t be a problem to run on your laptops as they are older.

CachyOS tend to offer their own modified kernel, for gaming optimization, if I remember well. You may not be running the correct kernel.

When you look at the installation guide of the linux-surface github, there are steps for several distros. Do you plan to use your surface for gaming mainly, hence the reason to install cachy or do you plan to use it for various tasks? It may be easier to make it working on a fedora or, if you really want an arch based distro, on arch.

Your easiest way is to upgrade windows normally and if you dislike all it’s bloated software, just install Atlas OS on top of it. It’s just a software that will go through your windows and debloat it as much as possible. Simple as that. Easier done than reinstalling windows for an LTSC version. I personally have a dual boot with a win 11 with Atlas OS specifically for the software I can’t install on Linux.