Cool. I will be watching to see how your journey goes.
Oh, one thing with that pipeline command. There are two variations of it, which may or may not have anything to do with what you are seeing, but I remember when I was getting it set on my system that one version did nothing and the other fixed the screen tearing problem. May make no difference but if you can still edit xorg.conf you might try flipping from one to the other.
The difference being the addition of "Full" in the second variation.
ForceCompositionPipeline vs ForceFullCompositionPipeline
I've been wanting to experiment with other versions of Linux and maybe setup a REAPER only drive. I think to do multiple installs of Linux though that I will likely buy a four bay IcyDock to put in the front of my machine so I could eject all the drives I use currently and pop in a fresh SSD that is all by itself, where nothing weird or unexpected will happen on other drives.
One of these
ICY DOCK 4x2.5 SSD units is what I'm thinking.