Hello. I’ve never had a reader before, but I’ve been very pleased with the T1.
1. You don’t normally completely power down, just press the on/off switch. If you do want to turn it off completely, you can do it through a menu, but there’s normally no need to do that.
2. You can set the screen to show the cover of the book you’re currently reading when it’s off (if you’ve done a complete power down, or if that has happened automatically because you haven’t used it for three days, you get a blank screen).
3. When you turn it on, it shows whatever was there before it turned off, so if you had a page of a book on the screen, it will come back to the same place. No cajoling needed
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4. I don’t know about Linux, but it’s perfectly happy with my Mac/Calibre set up. I did use the Sony Reader for the recent firmware update, and I think there’s going to be another one soon. But I don’t use their software to manage any of my books.