I use git-annex and Guix (particularly Guix Home in this case) for managing all of my data, including dotfiles. git-annex handles syncing (and backups via delivery to a Borg repo) and version management as git does, while Guix takes care of installing programs and setting up configuration files.
I previously wrote a custom Guix service that utilized Stow as well for managing writable files, but have since replaced it with another custom Guix service that handles some cleanup processes better.
Depending on how much you want simplicity of restoration, this approach might be on the heavier side since it’s concerned with a lot more than just dotfiles. You could replace git-annex with git to simplify the syncing part if you’re only interested in managing configuration files, though. Here’s what my Guix config looks like; the readme file shows how I would set up a system from scratch.
I have for the past half year. I don’t have numbers, but rolling with the NVK vulkan driver (context for the unaware [1]) on mesa’s main branch gets me somewhere around half the proprietary driver’s performance on average, and can be accompanied with stutters if it is a heavy bottleneck (turning down the resolution is an easy way out). Most games I’ve tried are runnable now.
It sounds like you’re looking for more performance with this post though, so you’re likely not going to see improvements taking this route. I would still suggest giving it a try for people that are able and can tolerate the sacrifice. It’s good enough for me (and better in the wayland case) that I rarely swap to the proprietary driver anymore.
Mesa has a tracker issue for games on NVK [2] [3] with reports about game statuses and issues from the past 5 months. It includes playable and unplayable games for those interested in gauging its usability.
Also, for the record, NVK is no longer considered experimental as of mesa 24.1 (May of this year) [4].
[1] https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/nvk-has-landed.html
[2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RuHD3Z_nBKCp618HHC5I9hOu0lqCoFYwQ4FM69M-Ajg/edit?gid=469568508#gid=469568508
[3] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/11066
[4] https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/nvk-is-now-ready-for-prime-time.html