I'm a long time Windows power user, and have downloaded many useful programs over the years to help with development, but have recently switched to Linux for privacy reasons. I don't like the fact that Windows' drives are unencrypted since if my PC is stolen people could see all the code I've been working on and possibly even use it in their own work and pass my work off as theirs.
I have considered doing full-disk-encryption with Veracrypt or using Bitlocker, but don't trust both of them, since I had a drive corrupted by Veracrypt and couldn't get back into the filesystem. As for bitlocker: I don't trust Microsoft to protect my files since they are an NSA Prism partner and probably have Bitlocker backdoored. My threat model is such that: if my filesystem can be accessed by NSA, then it can also be accessed by smaller threat actors with little effort.
In terms of Linux: I can do partial disk encryption with LUKS and have all my intellectual property secured with that, but what tools should I be using in Linux? I prefer the JAM stack, so apart from VSCodium and XAMPP, what other tools should I be installing?
If you've already made your choices for code editing environment (and extensions) and a specific backend stack, what remains is some front-end specific extensions for your chosen browser (Firefox or Chromium) like Web Developer, Firebug, and Postman.