I agree that Ubuntu and co. feel far less stable than they used to. I recently installed Ubuntu on a work laptop and had a ton of problems: interface locking up

I agree that Ubuntu and co. feel far less stable than they used to. I recently installed Ubuntu on a work laptop and had a ton of problems: interface locking up under heavy CPU load when compiling, insane amounts of RAM utilization, unexpected problems with software updates. My wife installed Ubuntu on a laptop a few months prior, and had a similar experience. Recently I switched to NixOS and she to Arch, and it’s stunning how much better everything runs. All of my issues disappeared, and everything is super smooth now. Definitely neither NixOS nor Arch is for the non-tech-savvy, but it seems we may be in a time now where you’ve got to search out the more minimal distributions if you want an actually pleasant, stable Linux install. I have heard good things about Manjaro in that regard.