A couple of years ago I purchased a couple of AINOPE USB type A 6-ft extension cables. They were highly rated at the time, and have given reliable service. Your mileage may vary. Odds of success go down as cable length goes up.

My experience has been similar. I upgraded 5 Win7 computers to Win10. All worked without a hitch. Last week I upgraded a Fedora system and a Ubuntu system. The Fedora upgrade was flawless. Ubuntu trashed itself, so a new install of 22.04.3 was required. I always keep my data on a separate partition from the OS, so there were no other casualties. But Linux does not have a squeaky clean record on upgrades...

Another vote for ProtonMail.com. Very solid, very private, and constantly being improved.

I'm with you on the eraser nib. I cannot work without it. Although some Dell and Toshiba computers also have them, the do not work as well. The IBM laptops WERE tops in quality. Lenovo design and build are not quite as good, but stick with the Thinkpad models and they are plenty good enough. I get lots of use out of my Thinkpads. I'm still using two 2013 vintage i7-based W520 laptops that have 32Gb RAM and just keep running. These were the last Thinkpad to have real keyboards. I also have two recent P-series laptops that seem to be their current line of workstation replacement laptops. My 2nd choice would be Dell high end models. I have to use one for one of my clients. Solid build quality, durable, and an eraser nib that is usable but not a pleasure to use.