Linux

Definitely give it a shot, especially if you already know C. Getting your laptop set up the way you want can take some time at first but libinput makes it easy. I've never had issues with Arch on my desktop + lenovo thinkpad, and I update it two or three times a week. It's honestly surprisingly stable for a rolling release, unless you don't know what you're doing. There has been a couple times where I've messed up a binary file and had to arch-chroot in from the install medium in order to fix things. This was on me and a learning experience. The Archwiki documentation is the best source of information on the internet. I use it constantly. The AUR is never ceases to amaze me. It has nearly anything you need, even proprietary software. I am always amazed when some obscure legacy software that I need has already been compiled into a package build on AUR. The PKGBUILD files are concise and easy to understand in case you need to make changes to keep up with updated software.

Also it allows for complete control over every aspect of your desktop environment. It makes things so much easier. Despite what most people say I think systemd is great. You can easily view your services or daemons and have complete control. It makes using my OS a breeze and I am able to pump out scripts, or even run projects through hypervisors quickly and efficiently. I will likely never go back to another OS or distro for that matter, so dive in!