If you're doing perfectly legal digital backups of books you own make sure to have multiple backups on and off site.
What I usually do is buy a new external hard drive every couple of years (especially when it's full), copy everything over to the new one, and then keep adding to the new one.
A spare hard drive filled with stuff you want to keep and completely unplugged from your system is a good idea in general, especially if you have a computer that never gets on the internet (single board computers and old laptops are great for this).
Linux Mint is a GREAT baby's first Linux distro, specifically with the Cinammon desktop/interface. It's really easy to switch over from Win10, and I even got my wife (who has quite literally said computers run on magic) in to the habit of being able to handle dual-booting for the few things she absolutely needed Windows for (mostly a couple of very specific work things).
Mint+Cinnamon is great if you want a just-works OS running Linux and from there you can branch out in to more specific stuff like Arch (fast AF, but I hope you like building packages). Mint's installer is also a portable version of the operating system, so you can test it out before or even while you install it (though it does run a little slower off a DVD or flash drive).
One of my friends swears by OpenSUSE, and I can't stand it for some reason I can't quite put my finger on.
DistroWatch is a good place to get started if you want to compare different flavors of Linux. https://distrowatch.com/
From there it looks like ZorinOS might be worth looking in to, they just had several driver updates, including 3000-series nVidia cards, Playstation controllers, and a few other things.
you could just unscrew the case and remove the camera entirely
or drill through it
I've had a piece of sticky note held in place with electrical tape on my travel laptop for the last eight years or so (basically since I got it). Haven't had to replace it once.
And that's cool, too. You're not one of those more people, that's all. Hell, neither am I, but anyone who wants or needs online access to stuff should literally just build their own.