I love Debian but I don’t recommend using it. Stable is mostly ancient software, and Testing is like a less stable Ubuntu or Mint.

Arch linux has the new archinstall script which should make it a lot easier to install if you want to stay arch-based

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall

I’ll compare the 3 you listed, but disclaimer that I’m no expert.

• Linux Mint: Ubuntu based, and will be very similar to Ubuntu, but with a different DE, software shop, default apps, themes, etc. Cinnamon uses less RAM than Ubuntu’s Gnome.
• Debian: Ubuntu’s base. Debian stable is very “stable”. Imo, though, this is not great for desktop. You’ll be dealing with years old software. You can use debian testing. It’s similar to Ubuntu and Mint. Ubuntu has more stuff added (pre-installed software) and PPAs, etc. I personally prefer the other two options to Debian.
• Fedora: short term release cycle, so you’ll get packages with recent versions, but it is still stable. You’ll be supported by Red Hat. Fedora is pretty solid.

I personally like Fedora the most on your list. If you want the least maintenance / manual work distro, Linux Mint is best on your list.

However, I’d advise you to try vanilla Arch or EndeavourOS. You like Manjaro but don’t like the big updates breaking it. Vanilla Arch will not have those problems. EndeavourOS is very similar to vanilla Arch, but with a nice installer.

But Arch is probably a bit more maintenance than the options you have listed.

Use EndeavourOS, which’s pure Arch Linux so you won’t ever have problems with updates, it’s easy to install. I am running the same installation for years now without issues. Can only recommend!

Absolutely, use Debian!

Gentoo, it’s fun.

I would strongly suggest you to try MX-Linux. I too was in a similar situation as yours 9 months ago and now I use MX xfce and I haven’t encountered one bug like I used to do on Ubuntu based distros

Ubuntu LTS. Get work done and enjoy life.

If you want focus in your work and not in your distro features just use Debian.

I absolutely agree with this and like to add the following. The ‘updates’ argument is spot on and there are in my opinion only two ways to do updating that are viable:

1. Rolling releases that update as soon as upstream pushes an update (that’s basically what Arch Linux, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Void Linux are doing)
2. Backporting security patches, this is a lot of effort and as far as I know only SUSE, Red Hat, Canonical, and the Debian community are doing this reliably.

Anyone else who claims to have a ‘stable release’ very likely doesn’t do either of these or ship something the aforementioned are shipping (maybe repackaged, themed and (in Manjaro’s and Mint’s case e.g.) held back for a while for no apparent reason.) My advice for beginners would therefore be: Pick a distro that provides with a release cycle that you like: 1. very slow, only security patches in between releases: e.g. Debian, openSUSE Leap 2. frequent releases, very close to upstream release cycle: e.g. Fedora 3. rolling release: openSUSE Tumbleweed, Arch Linux (the latter has a rather steep learning curve).

Stick to the aforementioned upstream distros for the following reasons: 1. Security 2. Ease of getting help (huge communities, good wikis/manuals, close to upstream) 3. Longevity (as we’ve seen, these one-man-distros like Antergos or SwagArch, … can and will disappear at any time) 4. You will be actually more helpful to the Linux community (you can and should file bug reports to the packagers, if you find a bug in a ‘distro’ that neither has own packages nor a bug tracker if you find a bug your only hope is that it will be fixed upstream, if it exists there at all).

Most ‘downstream distros’ are nothing but a ‘themed install’ with ‘preinstalled codecs’ Debian/Fedora/openSUSE do not provide ootb for legal/ideological reasons. Most of the time you can replicate their look and feel by installing a new theme and changing the wallpaper and a few settings. My adive: Go for vanilla openSUSE/Fedora/Debian/Arch and change those things yourself. It’s a good way to learn stuff that is not too hard to learn and you will have a more reliable system, too.

source: u/xaverh on https://libredd.it/r/FindMeADistro/comments/cyn0hw/why_you_shouldnt_use_manjaro/

I also agree with @Aiwendil@lemmy.ml, you shouldn’t distro hop and try to fix your issues

IMHO - Fedora is the new Ubuntu from a usage standpoint. It “just works”, is rock solid and has up to date packages, kernel and window manager. The kernel is important too because cutting edge hardware wouldn’t work without a compile.

Thank you for the feedback people. You make a good case for Fedora, as people have before - seems to be a good distro.

I was inspired to ask this because of the browser privacy article someone made. It made clear which browsers are private and which are not, and that’s good. I just hoped something would come along that would give me a guaranteed smooth Linux experience, as Firefox user profiles and Falkon do for privacy.

“Distro recommendation” questions aren’t usually very useful…all you get is everyone recommending the distro they use. It’s unlikely you can get anything useful out of the answers.

I wanted something with support and with people that care for the code

Applies to pretty much every major linux distro that isn’t a derivative and also some of the derivatives that do more than just add some cosmetics (unless you specifiy a bit more in details what you mean with “care for the code”).

Also all distros can be configured, there is no real reason to switch from something like ubuntu because you don’t like how the “Files” manager works to another distro…you could get pretty much the same on ubuntu as other distros offer and in most cases easier than by doing a reinstall. Really, you are better off trying to fix an issue you have on one distro that distro hop at every little problem you run into…

I think you must be doing something strange that you are having upgrade problems no one else has. I have been running Manjaro for 4 years now with minimal update issues.

Are you by any chance installing a lot of obscure software via AUR?

Debian all the things.