I just spun up a HTPC on Debian 12+XFCE. It “wasn’t too bad” but it really was more time to configure it than under Ubuntu. Totally worth it, to me. With XFCE I’m getting the desktop I want, not the desktop Gnome thinks I should have. I have the features I want, and any feature I don’t want is easily banished.

But, I must admit, getting to that final further from perfect Ubuntu/Gnome configuration probably took 1/4 as many “tech flex lifts” in vanilla Ubuntu as the Debian+XFCE install took. For Debian, I had to get sudo working for my default account - which involved a “su root” and otherwise running some programs directly out of /usr/sbin - easy stuff, when you know how. I also had to configure for auto-login with more than a simple checkbox in the installer process. The XFCE launcher panel configuration is “powerful” - meaning: more hands on. Then there’s an annoying XFCE trait that I finally figured out, something about when the EDID connection glitches you get spurious “Monitor Settings” dialogs popping up. I forget if it was that one, or something else, but when I was trying to configure the dialog properly, one of the tabs wasn’t showing until I resized the dialog window bigger - something that seemed like it shouldn’t be necessary but definitely was because I looked all over for that configuration option, didn’t see it due to the “hidden” tab issue, and finally got a clue from a blog post mentioning the need to resize the window to get to it… Canonical does polish off more of those rough edges, in Gnome. Then they make you wait for snap update activity by default - I’ll polish my own rough edges, thanks.

The good thing about distro hopping is refining your setup to the point that “burning down the desktop” becomes a relative non-event, your important personal files are elsewhere - nothing of value gets lost if your desktop SSD goes Ollie North: “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t recall…”

After 15 years, aren’t you questioning: how far out on the bleeding edge do I need to be?

I mean, if the absolute most advanced bleeding edge is “where it was at” five years ago - isn’t a stable system that’s up to speed with where the good things were five years ago even better?

Mint is easy. Easy is good.

Even if you can configure your way through Arch to a killer custom system, is that really what you want to do every time on every computer in your life?

My advice: run a server (any server) or three, and keep your important / personal stuff there. It can be as simple as a Raspberry Pi with a big external SSD. The PC you use as a desktop environment should be easily built / configured from the base distro into whatever customizations you want, and you can either work with your personal files on the server, or mirror copies of them to your desktop system as appropriate (things like “living documents” should be primarily stored and backed up on servers, things like photo collections etc. can be stored on the server, but copied to the desktop for easy access like rotating wallpaper or whatever.)

If (when, really) any one of your systems goes down, it shouldn’t be a big deal. If it’s a server, restore from another server mirror / backups. If it’s your desktop, install a new desktop and get your customizations off a server.

Of course this is an ideal, but keep in mind that SSDs are not “forever” devices, they do wear out and each single copy of your data will be corrupted some day. Spinning rust is even less reliable, in my experience, although I have one 2TB hard drive that has been online for more than 10 years now. It’s mirrored, twice, on SSDs.

How do I dislike Ubuntu, let me count the ways:

• Desktop whiplash: Gnome, Unity, no Gnome…
• snap pushed into the default distro, long before it’s a net-positive (and it’s still not a net positive, IMO)
• You want this security update that somebody else published? Yeah, we want your money.

I’ve used Ubuntu heavily since 14.04 through 24.04… my new system installs are going Debian 12 with XFCE, and yes - I did evaluate Xubuntu, I’m actually typing this from an Xubuntu machine right now that’s planned to be getting Debian if it ever needs a re-image.

Ubuntu wasn’t a bad choice, still isn’t a terrible choice, but if you’re going to have to strip out snap by hand and deal with security updates by hand after 4-5 years and install a “niche” desktop version to get out from Gnome’s rather inflexible view of things, might as well just go to Debian and be done with whatever “new deals” Canonical comes up with in the future.

I have a collection of about 8 machines around the house (a lot of Raspberry Pi) that I ssh around to from various points.

I have setup scripts named: ssp1 ssp2 ssba ss2p etc. to ssh into the various machines, and of course shared public ssh keys among them to skip the password prompt. So, yes, once you are “in” one machine in my network, if you know this, you are “in” all of them, but… it’s bloody convenient.