I always vote for boredom, which means I vote for Debian. It's a well rounded, reliable and solid OS. It can be a bit dated on some packages but it rewards with very low maintenance. It works. It does what it is supposed to do, which is allowing us to run and use our computer as we see fit.

You want something a bit more up to date? Move to Mint. If Debian still appeals to you, move to LMDE.

I've settled on CachyOS, using Bazaar for flatpaks (I avoid the AUR). I get a rolling os with frequent updates and more or less secure and verified apps. It's been a year, no problem so far.

I had a similar journey and at some point settled for Debian.

I know, everyone around here will tell you how basic that is and how much program versions lag behind sometimes, but I have come to the conclusion that this really doesn't bother me on daily use.

The main wow moment was, when the I noticed my system was running for 5 years and nothing ever broke.

Sure, I sometimes miss the AUR or some of the bells and whistles off bleeding edge distros, but in the end I want my main daily driver as a tool to other stuff, not a project to constantly put effort in.

The beauty of Debian is, its reliable AF, everything you got working once stays working, in 99,99% of cases even with a major version change, its the best documented and tested system and it does everything I need and more.

Plus with KDE plasma and all the native programs, like kdeconnect, kdenlive, kget etc I dont miss out on convinience. (Sure I could still use them on other distros, but I like how it is integrated into a good user experience with the option to tweak everything but without the need to do so)

The main down site imho is that some advanced things which may work in a hacky and time consuming way on arch just will not work on Debian at all, but I seldom have such moments and its a small price to pay for a system that's just won't brake from where I stand.

Fedora is a great choice.

It actually happens naturally, or it should at least. So don't mind anyone. Distrohop until you find yourself settled.

You seem to know enough distros. If none of them exactly clicked with you perfectly, continue your search.

I stayed on Arch-based for more than 10 years and it was suppose to be temporary for me as I was keep saying that to myself. In reality I was settled. So, don't mind others, find it yourself. It will happen sooner ot later.

P.S.

Void is good.

Undoubtedly Void Linux. Rolling but very stable, and a good community.

debian :)

Of course, Gentoo Linux! :)

Why not Debian? If you don't have any specific reason for choosing something else, that seems like the obvious choice.

maybe void? its rolling relase, stable and boring in a good way

Fedora.

Try MX Linux. I've used lots of distros, but I always go back to MX as my daily driver.

Based on Debian. Good mix of non-invasive built-in utilities. Really good GUI package manager. And Yakuake terminal built in.

Personnaly CachyOS has been the one to stop my distro hopping, though I must say, I 'm an arch linux fan, so Cachy did it for me. All of the Fedora based distros I've tried were good at the beginning but felt limited at some point, though this is specific to my use cases. But one that I really liked, and I'm not much of a debian person usually was PikaOS, so I'd recommend trying it out if not already done.

Choosing a distro to stay on is a personal decision, it's not one we can make for you. The real solution to distrohopping is to just keep doing it until you don't feel like doing it anymore. There's a spectrum between (trying new things and being unhappy) and (being lazy and settling). That's a scale only you can feel.

Given the specs of your system, if you want productivity and gaming, I'll suggest Bazzite. It runs Fedora atomic under the hood so it is extremely stable. It comes with everything you need for gaming. Installing additional software is trivial with flatpaks using Bazaar. Overall it meets all your criteria. It has been my daily driver for a couple of years and I think I've found my distro.

I use void btw. No systemd (your mileage may vary depending on the desktop environment) and have not embraced slop, at least yet.

I like Arch for this. Ten years ago I wouldn't have recommended it, but it's been a great decade for me. Rolling distro means not many big changes at any one time. Don't have to reimage to cleanly install newer release. Arch maintainers are excellent, updates rarely cause problems. Not perfect of course, but you get up-to-date software and an amazing community.

CachyOS, it is the way

To be honest, it sounds like you've tried the prime candidates. You probably know better than us which one fits you best. Ultimately, I also think that it doesn't make that much of a difference for an advanced user. You can probably get almost any distro to do what you want.

fwiw: distro hopping is an easy way to stay up to date on the things that are happening in the linux world.

Gentoo.

Flip a friggin coin.

You don't need 5 steps or git if you want to install software. Either add to your Config and do the rebuild switch or if you don't want to have a reproducible config just use this to install a package such as pulse audio volume control.

nix-env -iA nixos.pavucontrol

This site gives you tabs with options on what install method suits your needs

https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=26.05&query=Pavu#show=pavucontrol

I can only tell you that I'm using CachyOS (Arch) with Wayland and the latest Noctalia, which is extremely customizable. I'm very content. My compositor is Hyprland, but Niri or Mango work, too. Noctalia even technically works with KDE, which I also used for quite some time, but I wouldn't recommend using it on top of it. Noctalia (Hyprland) has been a standard installation option in the CachyOS .iso ever since August 2026.

I wouldn't call myself a distrohopper, but over the last 30 years I've daily-driven Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu (and derivates), Manjaro and now landed on EndeavourOS for the last four years.

I enjoy the vast and up-to-date software that pacman and AUR have, but I don't really need the exercise in system installation/building any more. So EndeavourOS it is.

I've tried OpenSUSE and NixOS on virtual machines from time to time. I like, but I feel they'd be in the way for my computing needs at the moment.

Ah too bad you didn't like nix. I was just about to propose a simple home-manager repo which could at least declare your tooling across any distro.

while I don't understand the git problem, since versioning your OS/tooling is a major feature not a headache, you seem too have found a place with debian so go ahead.

I've used Ununtu and then Debian for a long time. I was playing with the live distro of the latest SparkyLinux and could imagine using it. Does anyone have opinions about Sparky?

Honestly, I'm not really sure if anyone can help you here. Sounds like you're already quite experienced with linux and know what you're looking for and what you need.

Most people seeing your requirements would probably say Fedora, as it's pretty up to date but still stable. I might recommend debian testing if you want slightly more cutting edge.

Frankly, I think you know best what you need and you should see what fits you :)

Fedora. Always have been a Arch user, but swapped to Fedora just to test something, never come back. It's fast, simple, and basically unbreakable.

If you're a good Linux user and keep your packages up to date; always say GuhNome; and trash M$ every chance you get, you'll be given an .iso in the afterlife with the perfect distro. But not before.