Linux distribution support lifecycle is rarely a problem in reality from experience. In fact stability at that level probably hurts you in the long run because

Linux distribution support lifecycle is rarely a problem in reality from experience. In fact stability at that level probably hurts you in the long run because the disparity between your old and new world is massive then. What is a problem is quality control. A lot of "stable" Linux distributions are buggy crap which has all sorts of weird problems and they are problems which I've had for 19 years. Also there are problems with stability which is due to people only doing the sexy work like rewriting the desktop environment every 6 months rather than fixing the bugs in it. tl;dr: please concentrate on quality and stability, not longevity.