wolfsite: I've used Manjaro and Garuda in past attempts but these always "Worked till they didn't" with programs that just stopped working one day for no reason or the updater just failing to install updates in both the GUI and Terminal (I understand Garuda isn't focused on general usage but I just wanted to give it a shot).
I use linux daily, be it on my flashed chromebook or remote access.
In my experience, programs don't just 'stop working'. I mean they can crash, i tend to have kTorrent or Pidgin crash sometimes, but that's never a big problem. But to suddenly stop working is weird.
You comment on updating, why are you updating? Once in a while after a major release, to add a feature you desperately want/need, or a major security bug fix, sure. But i don't bother with the nightly updates to programs to get the latest versions. If anything i'm still using the last ISO i downloaded something like 3 years ago and it works fine, except for the forced updating of Firefox ESR to make some sites work that i need.
In fact i keep specific versions of programs like Image Magick since i have scripts that work correctly based on certain outputs, and they change.
The only program i've ever had issues installing, was WINE, and that was after i uninstalled it, then there was some leftover tidbit preventing a proper install unless i did a clean wipe. (
Thankfully not a machine that slowed me down at all).
I've also found using Mint and the other related ones that apt is a wonderful tool for just getting the software i care about up and running; Though i don't use that much so maybe that's a problem on my end. Being a programmer, GNU tools, DMD, notepad++ or Scite, a few optimizers like optipng jpegoptim, AdvanceCOMP compression tools, WINE (
for those 2-3 programs i need), OpenOffice/LibreOffice and i'm good to go for the most part.