It really depends. I like using live boot arch since it just gets me into a shell that I can chroot with really fast and I don’t have to worry about any graphical elements coming into play. Of course if it is something like a laptop then that is a totally different story.

Generally though I keep luks encrypted usb drive with a full install with most everything you would need for those situations complete with a fully set up and remote managed environment over tailscale so I can keep my preferences up to date and even remote in from another device of my choice. It makes the whole recovery process suck a whoooole lot less.

Nahh. Just use a live boot of the distro of your choice.