As always, this is an opinion based post and you can agree or do not agree with such suggestions.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word “Linux” in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I recently managed to install Gentoo (mostly thanks to the gentoo matrix room) and I just love it.
Gentoo is one of my go-to’s that I come back to time and time again.
I don’t mind spending my time with Gentoo as one can have very stable systems with it (as per your choosing), and if one uses a half decent machine to do all the building, it can supply more lowly machines with a current repository of binary builds.
Yes, it has it’s headaches from time to time (similar to the mention above about Arch and what happens if you don’t update for some time), but nothing insurmountable.