I'll try to keep it concise, but it really feels like I've already tried just about everything!!

System Info
Operating System: Garuda Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.25.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.98.0
Qt Version: 5.15.6
Kernel Version: 5.15.69-1-lts (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-3520M CPU @ 2.90GHz
Memory: 7.7 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4000
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Product Name: MacBookPro9,2
System Version: 1.0

Krita Version 5.1.1, the latest on the Arch repo. I used paru to grab my version of Krita from the Arch repo.

Krita has hidden the menu bar. This is a relatively common issue with Canvas-Only Mode and inexperienced users (like me!), so the first thing I tried was toggling that mode with Tab to see if it would reset and give it back. No dice. It doesn't even toggle the mode at this time! Apparently this functionality was causing so much confusion that by 2020, Krita had a patch that added a hamburger menu to the (toolbar? menu area? idk bc i've never seen it myself) to replace the lost functions of the menu bar while it's intentionally hidden for Canvas-Only Mode. Well, I don't have a hamburger menu! (Oh, and this patch was supposed to remove the Menu Bar Disable function of the Tab shortcut entirely bc so many people were complaining about it. This makes me wonder whether the Arch distro for Krita is out of date!)

Closing and reopening the application didn't give it back. Someone suggested closing Krita and then finding any image file, right-clicking and opening in Krita to force it to show again.That didn't do it either.

Right-clicking in the toolbar area doesn't even give a drop-down menu, let alone the ability to open the Settings, so I can't get into Settings to make changes to the GUI!

Alt+N also does nothing. I tried Func+Alt+N and Shift+Alt+N just to be sure it wasn't some weird OS or Latte related quirk. Nada. I looked at all of Krita's default shortcuts and tried everything that seemed relevant. Nothing.

I deleted the kritarc file in my .config folder and reopened Krita as recommended with this issue. Same as before, and it regenerated the kritarc file identically as far as I could tell. I looked into the kritarc file and deleted the line that says "MenuBar - Disabled," saved, reopened Krita and checked the kritarc file. No behavior change in the app and the "Menubar - Disabled" line re-inserted itself!!! Just for kicks, I deleted the gibberish in the "State - AAA" line, but it also all came back on reopening Krita. There was also a kritadisplayrc or something like that which i deleted on advice I cannot track down, and it didn't change anything.

A member on another forum suggests scripting in the Menu Bar's visibility, but (a) shouldn't just editing the Kritarc file do the same exact thing? and (b) I'm an artist not a dang coder!

Not that it matters, but I was TRYING to reach the Filters dropdown menu, which I can't because Krita seems allergic to having said menu now, and there's no other ways to reach it.

I am happy to post more info as requested. Thanks.