Get a big mainstream distro and stop tinkering with it.

Desktop:

• Aurora, Bluefin, or Bazzite

Server:

• uCore

Zero maintenance for any of them. Not just low maintenance, but zero.

• yet another vote for Debian Stable
• second the comment on: if you need a newer kernel for hardware reasons, use backports
• Xfce
• stick to flatpaks when dealing with wanting to try out a new program (if you like it, then make the decision to use apt or not)
• don’t confuse “hasn’t been updated” with “hasn’t needed to be updated”

If you like debian and just need a newer kernel you could just add backports to your debian install then install the kernel during the install process.

Ubuntu. It's boring but it all works.

Debian stable + XFCE for me. Missing newer packages though. I'm interested in what problems you had with Fedora

fedora has been this for myself. maybe tweaking every now and then to fix whatever edge cases I've run into but it's the least painful distro I've used so far

Debian XFCE or Xubuntu LTS.

xfce is stubbornly slow at introducing new features, but it is absolutely rock-solid. Hell I don't think they've changed their icon set in some 20 years.

Debian and *buntu LTS are also likewise slow feature updaters that focus on stability.

The thing with Debian is that yes, it's the most stable distro family, but stable != "just works", especially when talking about a PC and not a server (as a PC is more likely to need additional hardware drivers). Furthermore, when the time comes that you DO want to upgrade Debian to a newer version, it's one of the more painful distros to do so.

I think fedora is a good compromise there. It's unstable compared to RHEL, but it's generally well-vetted and won't cause a serious headache once every few years like Debian.

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is my pick.

I've got two study laptops and apart from Tailscale giving me some grief very recently with DNS resolution, I literally haven't had any problems with either machine. Both have been going for 1.5 years.

I like the LMDE route for the DE already having pretty decent defaults and not requiring much tweaking from the get-go. Xfce (as it ships by default in Debian) absolutely works, but I end up spending an hour theming it and adding panel applets and rearranging everything so that it... ends up looking similar to Cinnamon anyway, because default Xfce looks horrible in my opinion

I am a longtime fan of Debian Stable, for exactly that reason. I installed the XFCE version using the custom installer about 8 years ago and have had very few issues.

Initially my GPU wasn't well supported so I had to use the installer from Nvidia, forcing me to manually reinstall the driver after every kernel update. That issue has been fixed in recent years so now I can just use the driver from the Debian repos.

I installed the unattended-updates package about 2 years ago and it has been smooth sailing since

Debian stable is as hassle-free as you'll get.

It sounds like your issue is more with having to migrate to a new laptop. Firstly - buy laptops that are more linux compatible and you'll have fewer niggles like with sound, suspend and drivers.

Secondly - use "dpkg --get-selections" and "--set-selections" to transfer your list of installed software across to your new laptop. Combined with transferring your /home directory, user migration can be speeded up.

fedora with gnome for me.

My desktop has been running debian for 5 years no problem including 2 major debian version upgrades, and a new(er) GPU.

I had an old laptop that ran the same debian install for 8 years. All upgrades in place, no reinstalls.

boring, and works. Stable + backports should cover the majority of people with new hardware support needs.

Peppermint , based on debian (also a devuan flavor). "Everything you need and nothing you don't"

Ubuntu. Or, get a Mac - which is even more “boring”.

You're not going to believe this, but I've found Arch is it. My desktop install was in December 2018: Sway with Gnome apps. Save for Gnome rolling dice on every major update, it's been perfectly boring and dependable.

PopOS is very stable as a desktop. It also keeps up to date with packages better than base Ubuntu in my opinion.

I've been running Manjaro for the last 4 months and it's been incredibly reliable and smooth. I haven't done any serious tweaking beyond installing a realtime audio kernal. I run updates every few days and I haven't had a single issue so far.

Edit: what's up with the down voting? If there's something incorrect with recommending Manjaro in this context, I'd love to know why, since I'm still relatively new to Linux.

My Arch Linux setup on my desktop and my servers are low-maintenance. I do updates on my servers every month or so (unless some security issue was announced, that will be patched right away) and my desktop a few times a week.

Nearly anything can be low-maintenance with the proper care and consideration.

For your constraints I would use just use Debian, Alma Linux or Linux Mint and stick with the official packages, flathub and default configuration on the system level. Those are low-maintenance out of the box in general.

Xubuntu LTS. I've been meaning to switch to Debian Stable when something breaks, but it's my third LTS on the desktop and 5th on the laptop and there was just no opportunity. I also learned to avoid PPAs and other 3rd party repos, and just use appimages when possible.

You can have a kernel from Testing or even Sid, I believe, but yeah, it's what we want to avoid - tweaking.

LTS is released every 2 years, for reference.

avoid nixos

As others have mentioned, Debian stable and Xubuntu are my default recommendations for anyone who wants a simple "just works" kind of system. Debian if they want it to be as clean as possible, Xubuntu if they want some creature comfort right out of the box.