Yup, I jumped around a lot early on, but Debian was home. It’s hard to break if you follow the Debian way, and it’s definitely stable. I still use it for server and lab stuff, because I can write a doc and come back in 18 months and is still largely reproducible.
I’ve used a LOT of distros over the years, and Arch is home now (technically Cachy at the moment), but Debian is probably my second favorite. Fedora is 3rd, for user friendly polish.




Arch is absolutely easy to break. But it’s also easy to not break.
I’ve been using it for years, only reinstall when I get a new computer (could image, but meh) or when I’m changing desktop environments. This last time when I switched to KDE, I installed Cachy. It’s fine, but it’s a bit less control that I’d rather have. So when I switch back to Cosmic, Lab WC, or XFCE I’ll go back to Arch.
And to be clear, the loss of control isn’t entirely loss of control. It’s defaults that I don’t like, built up by someone else. It puts me into subtractive mode to remove and replace, whereas with Arch proper it’s more fully additive, installing and configuring what I want on a very very streamlined base.