But if my client is angry and my boss is breathing down my neck, and I can't work because a thing isn't thing-a'lating, a support path is essential.

Arch is still stable enough for that. The chances of something going sideways is smaller on Arch than on Windows. And unless you're a medium to large company paying Microsoft for enterprise support, you're going to be stuck with forums for community help with Windows.

[–] firelizzard@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Saying the chance of something going sideways is smaller than on Windows isn’t saying much. I’ll pick a distro that’s stable by default, TYVM.

[–] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Saying the chance of something going sideways is smaller than on Windows isn’t saying much

True. I'll grant you that.

I’ll pick a distro that’s stable by default

Arch isn't "unstable" by any means. I've been running ~~Arch~~ EndeavourOS as my desktop distro that I develop on for years and it's entirely reliable. Now I personally wouldn't run Arch on any of my distros (I go with either Debian or NixOS), but there are people who do it and it works fine.

Edit: I said "Arch" but I meant EndeavourOS, which is Arch with some QoL improvements.