dmenu is iconic for a reason, although manually patching it to meet your preferences is a bit too much of a project for people who just want something to work. not wanting to learn C is valid.

i’ve transferred 10’s of ~300 GB files via manual rsyncs. it was a lot of binary astrophysical data, most of which was noise. eventually this was replaced by an automated service that bypassed local firewalls with internet-based transfers and aws stuff.

using google’s office tools is going to be pretty generally acceptable for most people. depending on your studies, you might be expected to use windows software at some point. i would recommend dual booting. depending on your computing hardware, buying a relatively cheap 1 TB SSD from any retailer and installing windows on it is usually the best option. should simply be a matter of selecting the correct boot device from your system bios. for psychologists, my supposition would be that any proprietary software used, if any, would be windows exclusive.

could always give antix linux a shot

well in a cosmic sort of sense, it already is. (android is based on a modified linux kernel). seriously though, check out https://antixlinux.com/ it’s a distro to put on any computer, even ones that old.