I'm thinking about a Linux laptop with FOSS software for my business actually, Lemmy's relentless horde of pro-Linux propaganda has won me over

(OK I've always liked FOSS I've just never taken the jump)

I had to step away from it because packages are just too old.

That's how I feel about arch, it's not "stable" but the few issues I've had they typically have it fixed with an update within hours.

I do have to clarify when I switched to arch from windows my entire computer was brand new and practically no other distro booted or if it installed it dumped me to a black screen.

After running my server on archlinux with the stable kernel for 7 years I did install Debian on my new server. Zfs just required an older lts kernel than I could get on arch without a ton of hassle. I didn't need it on my Mac mini with an external hard drive plugged in. From my experience it's not very different to maintain compared to arch but it's nice having built in automation instead of writing my own.

Man it's weird using a system of what I can guess is a bunch of bash scripts on Debian to set things up compared to just using the tools built into and written for systemd.

Have you tried Debian?

You can choose KDE as desktop environment during Debian installation, or replace whatever DE you installed at any time.

MX ?

I think you're looking for Debian. If you want newer packages, run testing instead of stable.

KDE Neon?

Busta!

Me, because I cannot understand how people can miss the facetiousness of this meme template with such confidence

Ah, I see you've met the product owner.

Today I learned there’s a Debian edition of mint.

https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

debian nightly release

For normal desktop users, yeah Debian Stable + Flatpaks is a winning combo for picking the software that you want to be cutting-edge and leaving the rest to rock-solid stability. Normally Linux distros keep a full ecosystem of packages that interop and depend on each other, but solutions like Flatpak have their own little microcosm of dependencies that can be used independently of the host distro. There are also Debian Backports for when you want native Debian packages that are more cutting-edge but still compiled to work with your older base system. Backports are not available for most packages but sometimes the important ones are available, like the Linux kernel itself. You can also try to compile your own backports, but you'll be responsible for updating it.

1. No better time than the present
2. Yes there are ways of acquiring the latest packages even on Debian stable. Usually I end up compiling that stuff myself
3. If you're at all unsure if you want to deal with Debian not pushing the latest and greatest updates you do have options such as running Debian Testing or MX Linux (which itself is based on Debian Testing)