nixos is great - as long as the software you need is in nixpkgs, and it usually is. reinstallation is almost never necessary. You can switch your system to the unstable channel, and if you get tired of that, back to stable again, no problem. Experiment with software and remove it without a trace left in your system. If you mess up your config, you can roll back to the previous config in the bootup menu. Your system config is in a text file which you can put into source control if you wish, which allows you to replicate your config onto another machine, or revert to what you had 6 months ago, etc.

+1 for Debian, if you just want a stable, reliable system and don’t care about the latest and greatest features there is no better choice

Debian Stable, in my experience, can stay online for months, even over a year, with very little attention, and still work as well as you left it. You can also install RHEL or a rebuild, like AlmaLinux, RockyLinux, or Oracle Linux, as a workstation distro.

As for the device, my use case is fairly different so I’m not sure what to suggest. Maybe an Intel NUC, or a Framework laptop.

I don’t think it applies here, but I’d like to tell you my perspective in case you find it interesting anyway.

I am a developer and I often need relatively new versions of everything dev related.

Contrary to popular belief - I had the best experience in regards to stability with archlinux. I have it installed both on a PC (when I need to do some Blender or heavy Photoshop work) and on a thin and light Laptop (for a flexible work space and stuff on the go) - and I use both about 50/50 of the time.

To be fair, I am knoledgable in the Linux user libs/apps space and it took a lot of knowledge to set everything up in a reliable way just the way I want and need it. I’d say arch is extremely customizabe and there exists a narrow path where you can make it pretty reliable, but there are also many sidepaths which can be unreliable and break often.

After setting it up though, my maintenance times for archlinux were significantly lower than each of the following

• Windows (Going to ~30 different websites weekly to check for new releases and manually downloading and installing them)
• Mac (homebrew constantly breaking dependencies)
• Debian/Ubuntu (which I was upgrading to the newest release every 6 months and it was a PAIN)

But also take this with a grain of salt, because my so. also has a pretty similar arch linux setup on similar hardware and they have more issues than I do and we don’t really know why :D

Linux Mint Debian Edition would be a pretty solid, pre-customized distribution.

I’ve had great experiences with Linux on Lenovo over the years: would be my first recommendation.

I currently use a Dell Inspiron, while it’s works great, I had to do some extra work occasionally. I love that I can get fingerprint login with it on Linux though.

I love Fedora Sircea, however NixOS seems like a better solution (albeit with a larger learning-curve.)

EDIT: Just looked it up, I guess it was renamed “Sway Atomic”, and iirc they’ve also released a Budgie Atomic version with Fedora 40!