So what happens is that changing the keyboard language comes together with the CPU upgrade from Intel® Core® i3-1315U to Intel® Core® i7-1360P. That's what you pay for*. I agree with you that they might have done a better job at conveying what's happening. For whatever it's worth, I didn't immediately notice this myself. Therefore I tried to contact them in hopes of resolving the issue. They responded very quickly (like within a couple of minutes) and explained what was going on. Props to them for that!

virtualization

Honestly, I don't know. Though, I'd reckon there would be any significant difference between distros.

stability

Depends on what you mean with stability. If you meant it like how "stable" is used in "Debian stable", then it would be any distro with a release cycle that chooses to not continuously deliver packages; but instead chooses to freeze packages and hold off updates (besides those related to security) for the sake of offering a relatively polished experience in which the behavior of the distro is relatively predictable. Some distros that score good on this would be Debian stable and openSUSE Leap. It's worth noting that Distrobox, Flatpak and Nix allow one to have newer packages on these systems if desired.

If, instead, you meant that the distro is less likely to break upon an update, then it's important to note the following:

• While you shouldn't expect breakage to happen in the first place, unfortunately it's realistic to expect it every so often (read: 0-2 times a year on non-stable distros).
• If you have a lot of packages, then it's more likely that at least one of them causes some breakage.
• Technically, every update is a potential 'breakage-moment'.
• Packages that haven't been installed through the official/native repos are more likely to cause breakage.
• Relying on Distrobox, Flatpak and Nix for (at least some of) your packages should benefit the stability of your base system.
• (GRUB-)Btrfs+Timeshift/Snapper allows one to create snapshots one can easily rollback to in case of breakage. Therefore it's worth seeking out a distro that configures this by default or set it up yourself on whichever distro you end up using (if it isn't included by default).
• So-called 'atomic'^[1]^ distros are (generally speaking) more resistant to breakage, but (arguably) they're less straightforward compared to traditional distros. It's still worth considering if you're adventurous or if your setup is relatively simple and you don't really feel the need to tinker a lot. Don't get me wrong; these atomic distros should be able to satiate ones customization needs, it's just that it might not be as straightforward to accomplish this. Which, at times, might merely be blamed on lackluster documentation more than anything else.^[2]^

As for recommendations you shouldn't look beyond unadulterated distros like (Arch^[3]^), Debian, Fedora, openSUSE (and Ubuntu^[4]^). These are (in almost all cases^[5]^) more polished than their respective derivatives.

speed

Most of the distros mentioned in this comment should perform close enough to one another that it shouldn't matter in most cases.

If you're still lost, then just pick Linux Mint and call it a day.

1. More commonly referred to as 'immutable'. Atomic, however, is in most cases a better name.
2. If you're still interested, I'd recommend Fedora Silverblue for newcomers and NixOS for those that actually know what they're getting into.
3. I believe that one should be able to engage with Arch as long as they educate themselves on the excellent ArchWiki. It might not be for everyone, though. Furthermore, its installation (even with archinstall) might be too much for a complete newbie if they haven't seen a video guide on it.
4. Ubuntu is interesting. It has some strange quirks due to its over-reliance on Snap. But it's worth mentioning, if you don't feel like tinkering.
5. With Linux Mint (and Pop!_OS) being the clear exception(s).

I have used vim/neovim for years and cannot go back to a non-modal editor. But TBH I got sick of its configuration. You need far too many plugins and config to get things into a sane working order to be usable on a day to day bases for any type of development. It takes ages to learn and become as productive as you were before and a lifetime to refine.

Interesting. Though I can definitely see where you're coming from. Uhmm.., have you used any of the Neovim distributions to make maintenance easier?

For the past year or so I have switched to helix and don’t plan on going back to vim/neovim as my main editor ever again.

Both Helix and Lapce have certainly piqued my interest as FOSS alternatives to VS Code. However, both have issues related to how well their current Vi(m) implementation is. As you've touched upon it; Helix' keybindings and 'sentence-structures' are different to those found on Vi(m).

Furthermore, neither of the two have existed long enough to be able to profess any statement regarding their longevity. Like, there's no guarantee that I can keep using either of the two 20 years into the future. While no program is able to 100% guarantee that, undoubtedly, the track records for both Emacs and Vi(m) testify that -if anything- they would be the most likely ones to survive 20 years down the line; like how they've done for the last couple of decades.

I appreciate the input, but I simply don't want to invest in a program whose future is very unclear to me at this point in time.

I've already written another comment here. But I just noticed that you have edited OP's text to include that you were new to Linux. Which changes the rules of the game so much so that a simple edit of my other post wouldn't do it justice for the sake of visibility. Btw, perhaps you should have told us that earlier 😅.

So previously I had named Arch, Fedora and openSUSE Tumbleweed. These distros are still definitely worth the trouble. However, instead of Arch directly, you might wanna opt to an Arch-based distro. They often come with an installation that's done through a GUI, which you might perhaps conceive as being more intuitive. Though, there are some that argue anything Arch-related is not suited for new users. Personally, I don't buy into that. But there's definitely some truth to it in the sense that other distros might be better suited for some new users. We don't know what 'type of new user' you are, therefore we won't be able to answer that for you. However, my gut feeling tells me that you've got some potential to start out with (an) Arch(-based distro) right out of the gate. Though, I'm not very confident (yet)😅.

With that out of the way, I think the following is important to note as well:

• If you want to avoid X11, then you have to use Wayland. Which, in turn, implies that you've got to use either GNOME or KDE as your desktop environment. Unless, of course, you want to try out a tiling window manager (like Sway or Hyprland etc) right out of the gate as well. Which, again, doesn't make it easier for you to start using Linux 😅. It's definitely worth it eventually, but perhaps it's better to not make it too hard on ourselves from the get-go. Coming back to GNOME and KDE, fortunately they're very well-supported on the previously mentioned three distros. So you should be fine regardless. As to which of the two suits you best...? Well, that's very personal. An oversimplified overview would be that GNOME is polished and 'limited in regards to customization out-of-the-box' while KDE allows you to customize to your heart's content at the cost of polish. GNOME does have support for extensions that allows it to be easily customized beyond what KDE allows one. However, this comes -once again- at the cost of polish 😅. It's best to make your own mind with this. Use both of them, and come to judge them yourself.

• So I can't but notice that you're sensitive to your digital security (which is good thing 👍), but that you'd like your distro of choice to do the heavy lifting; which is totally fair. In that case, I would argue that Fedora and openSUSE Tumbleweed are better suited than Arch(-based distros), because they're distros that take security very seriously. Heck, they're the only popular 'upstream'/'independent' distros that have managed to configure SELinux for use on their distros. On Fedora this is done by default regardless, while on openSUSE Tumbleweed it can be installed at a later point. (IIRC openSUSE Aeon/Kalpa (old MicroOS Desktop) shipped with SELinux by default, but the linked article suggests otherwise 🤔.) In contrast, while you can make it work on Arch, it's not officially supported. AppArmor is still great though*.

• If security is indeed important to you, have you perhaps considered using so-called 'immutable' distros? Btw, the name 'immutable' is not entirely correct as in most cases only some parts (mainly related to base system components) are read-only during runtime; changes to said base system components (through either installing/remove a package or upgrading) happens atomically and often times requires a (soft-)reboot to actually take effect. Some 'immutable' distros even manage to be reproducible and yet some actually manage to be declarative as well. The security-benefits for this can't be overstated. If you're interested in 'immutable' distros, then it's worth mentioning that both Fedora and openSUSE offer them through Silverblue/Kinoite/Sericea and Aeon/Kalpa(/Greybeard) respectively. The exact implementation of 'immutability' across Fedora's and openSUSE's offerings are different. However, I won't go over that for the sake of brevity 😅.

Please feel free to inquire if you so desire!

Why does Linux do that’s “better” than Windows? That’s not meant to inflame anyone. More so what do you personally like better.

Linux offers me freedom and control over my systems far beyond Windows (or any proprietary OS for that matter) does. This allows me to:

• Setup a system of which its parts have been deliberately chosen by yours truly to satisfy my particular needs and my needs only. And I can make it obey whatever I will. It won't do a thing I didn't require of it, nor will it overrule any of my configs at a later point in time.

• Not have any spyware injected by the OS. Thus offering actually good privacy by default (for a change).

• More 'modern' ways of maintaining a system are only properly supported on Linux. Fully declarative systems like NixOS/Guix have yet to show up for other OSes. Furthermore, while the likes of Android, iOS and macOS do have 'immutability' (at least) sprinkled to them. Windows has yet to show the capabilities of their CorePC. One might even argue that it's uncertain if it will come out in the near future as CoreOS (10X) didn't see the light of day either. Linux, on the other hand, offers a plethora of 'immutable' distros that should suit ones needs regardless.

What can I expect to find as a casual observer?

Perhaps not much of it honestly 😅. Sure, you should find a gratis system that just works and doesn't hoard your data. Updates go smoother, it'll have improved performance on older devices. And if you actually know what you're doing, then it'll have better performance on your newer devices as well. Installing software is just one command away by default. But some of the more advanced benefits might rely on a more profound understanding, which you may or may not be interested to indulge yourself with.

I'm not very well-versed into all of this, but if what you're referring to is technically known as Unified Kernel Image, then you should know that unfortunately it's currently not supported on systems that rely on ostree; thus unsupported on Silverblue. A lot of work has been gone into this over the last year, but I'm afraid we're still (at least) two major releases removed from proper UKI support. For regular Fedora, consider referring to this excellent guide.

Yup. "Due to how lightweight coreboot is, it will offer better performance and lower power consumption. For example, the LabTop Mk IV combined with coreboot will deliver approximately 8% more performance and around 20% longer battery life (with a record of 13 hours and 42 minutes for general use)."

What exactly does uBlue do differently to Silverblue, which makes it easy to modify those parts?

Perhaps I should've been more precise/accurate. The images offered by uBlue are relatively vanilla but "batteries-included" images of Silverblue/Kinoite etc that include the essentials from RPM Fusion among others and ensure that your system continues to function optimally regardless of ongoing issues related to mesa/Nvidia or whatever. So by themselves, they don't do anything special necessarily in terms of modifiability except for having baked in functionality for receiving cosigned OCI images. Which is where the fun begins with the template provided by uBlue making it very easy to create your own custom cosigned OCI image that is modified to your liking and which is continuously pulled from whenever your system does a rpm-ostree update. As the changes don't happen at the client-level (read: your device), but instead before/during 'base-image initialization', one is able to apply changes to e.g the aforementioned /usr directory simply by creating those (modified or not) files in the github repo of their custom image. The linked template is far from exhaustive as one is able to customize it beyond that for which one could refer to the Bazzite or Bluefin images to see the possibilities.

Note that the template of uBlue is only possible because Silverblue/Kinoite etc supports it. So one is able to forego uBlue entirely and create their own image from scratch (as long as it satisifes some criteria). The beauty of (the template provided by) uBlue is that it enables every mortal to engage with that system as it has been made remarkably easy. Heck, I didn't have any prior experience with git or Containerfiles, but I was able to spin up my own image in like two hours or so.

Let's not forget to praise Snapper as well.

You can install Distrobox on Fedora (or any of the distros that support it), create a Debian distrobox on your Fedora install, and within the Debian distrobox you can use apt-get to install whichever Debian package you like. Or..., you could make an Arch distrobox and even install stuff from the AUR. Or really any package from any of your favorite distros as long as it's supported.

So taking your other comment into consideration as well, I suppose the following would be the easiest good setup:

1. Install Debian Stable using the image for a minimal network install onto a secondary device or onto a partition of your main device (multi-boot). Make sure to only include the stuff you think you'd need.
2. Install all of your favorite tools within that Debian Stable installation.
3. Use the excellent penguins-eggs package to make a live image out of it.
4. Install the live image onto your favorite USB with whichever tool you like; personally I enjoy using ventoy.
5. Profit :P .

If my proposed solution doesn't quite fit your needs, then please feel free to correct me!

(Manjaro keeps breaking itself for a laugth)

Are you perhaps using the AUR more than you should on a Manjaro installation? Just for your information; because Manjaro holds back packages for a couple of weeks, any package from the AUR might conflict with those 'outdated' packages and thus cause some breakage. If you really need those packages, then you should consider container solutions like Distrobox to resolve this. Note that trying things like installing a custom kernel won't work through Distrobox.

So the main options probably consist of:

• Just plain Arch; archinstall has made it a lot easier to install. Furthermore, after everything is set and done, it can literally be Manjaro without outdated packages and less bugs etc, or actually whatever you would like your Linux installation to be. Setting up is the most daunting part though. Fortunately, the Arch Wiki does an excellent job in providing a resource at every set of the journey. Recommended if you're not scared of setting up your system from a blank slate.

• Any other Arch-based distro, really. There are a ton of recommendations found in the other comments and there's even more if you check out Distrowatch for Arch-based distros. If you kinda know what you'd want from a future system, but can't be bothered with setting it up directly from Arch, then this might be recommended based on the specifics of your demands and to what degree existing distros align to that. For whatever it's worth, I think Garuda Linux is an interesting option for those that want to move on from Manjaro. Similary to Manjaro, it's opinionated on how your system is/should be configured. That's why it's also one of the few Arch-based distros (like Manjaro) that offers -out of the box- the means to rollback to a working system whenever anything unfortunate befalls your system, Garuda achieves this through coming pre-configured with Btrfs+Snapper. It should be noted, though, that Garuda is considered bloated by some. However only you can decide for yourself if their offering is bloated to you or not. So check out its Xfce edition -or any that sound interesting to you- for yourself, if you're interested. If you think it's interesting, but are still too much bothered by the bloat, then perhaps their Lite versions are more to your liking.

There are a lot of options beyond Arch-based distros. However, as I don't know what made you gravitate towards Manjaro in the first place and what you've come to (dis)like since, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly you'd like. If the AUR has been your main reason for using Manjaro in the first place, then it's important to note that Distrobox also grants access to the AUR from any of the other popular distros out there. So you're not confined to just using Arch(-based distros) unless you really need some custom kernel that is somehow only available in the AUR.

• If you checked out Manjaro for its unsuccessful attempt at providing a stable rolling release, then you should check out the most successful attempt with openSUSE Tumbleweed. It has a respectable amount of packages and enables users through OBS (OpenSUSE Build Service) to extend this significantly. Its installer offers the option to go for a minimal installation.
• If rolling release has scarred you, but you still want up-to-date packages, then consider Fedora. Huge community, AUR-like repo in COPR and once again a very respectable amount of packages make it definitely worth a mention. It offers the so-called Fedora Everything ISO (Network Installer) that acts as the installer for minimal systems.