ewenak

The distro choice isn't that difficult, as if you have experience with Linux you know what you need, and if you don't, just choose any beginner-friendly distro (probably Ubuntu flavors and Mint).

~~If~~ When the script gets too complicated, AI could also convert it to Python.

I tried it once at least, and it did a pretty good job, although I had to tell it to use some dedicated libraries instead of calling programs with subprocess.

There is the "very magic" mode for vim regexes. It's not the exact PCRE syntax, but it's pretty close. You only need to add \v before the expression to use it. There is no permanent mode / option though. (I think you can remap the commands, like / to /\v)

There is also https://www.map.signalbox.io/ for the British mainland (not sure if it's the right word, I'm not from there).

Idk I set up the initial state of the universe so that the disk contains the right data at the right moment

Yeah, really, I only know awk '{ print $SOME_COLUMN_NUMBER }', nothing else.