Title is quite self-explanatory, reason I wonder is because every now and then I think to myself “maybe distro X is good, maybe I should try it at some point”, but then I think a bit more and realise it kind of doesn’t make a difference - the only thing I feel kinda matters is rolling vs non-rolling release patterns.
My guiding principles when choosing distro are that I run arch on my desktop because it’s what I’m used to (and AUR is nice to have), and Debian on servers because some people said it’s good and I the non-rolling release gives me peace of mind that I don’t have to update very often. But I could switch both of these out and I really don’t think it would make a difference at all.
I agree, only release schedule really matters, package managers are easy to learn… I don’t think the AUR is that special either, I’ve always found everything I needed no matter the distro, but maybe I don’t have exotic requirements.
I’m fine with most distros, though I don’t bother with the fast rolling ones anymore, I did for a few years but I don’t see the point for me. I’m happy with Fedora or an Ubuntu derivative and major updates are one command which is trouble free unless you’ve changed something in a non-standard way.
Now using Pop 24.04 as it’s on a stable base and I code COSMIC stuff, oh and they update kernel/nvidia/mesa on a regular basis (I use hybrid Gfx, Intel iGPU and NV offload). I’ll probably stick with PopOS or Fedora COSMIC spin/copr moving forward.
Use case for me is coding and gaming.