Please let me know what you find for jellyfin with arrs and VPN. I have found that the VPN always interferes with jellyfin and other stuff and haven’t been able to figure out gluetun.
I accidentally clicked on one of the similar IPs links without realizing and someone with that ip happened to have gotten some of the same stuff I did. I was briefly quite worried.
Going straight to Debian isn’t hard. LMDE might have newer packages, IDK. I used Debian 12 for a bit and still use it on my server. Mint offers a great stock experience but Debian has a hard to explain vanilla coolness if you will. I would also recommend considering OpenSUSE if you haven’t looked at it.
I can’t tell if you are saying only ripping content helps preserve it or that seeding does too. I download things but seed them as long as possible. (Technically until I run out of disk space, but that hasn’t happened yet and I think I will upgrade before it does.) Considering how many pirates download things and keep seeding, I think the pirates that don’t help preserve stuff could be the minority.
I used to like Debian based (and still do; I use it on my server with no intention of switching) but Opensuse is great on the desktop and supports 32 bit. Even tumbleweed is rock solid.