If you want something solid you can depend on, especially when you forget to update and don't really need the newest features, Debian will carry that need. I love that distro and it's good to have installed as a backup tool even if you don't think it's a good main choice for you.
OP: I've tried mint tea, what other drink do you suggest?
You: if you want an interesting cocktail, try a mix of ayahuasca and peyote.
OP asked for a distro to tinker with 🤷
Here's a puzzle box for you to tinker with 
what? 
App bugged out and double posted, can't delete it.
Did it make you shit yourself?
Guix as an OS made me shit myself, yell at the computer many times, and curse David from System Crafters for ever showing it to the world. And that's with almost 10 years of Emacs experience, a loooot more Linux experience, and good enough scheme to muddle through.
It's great as a supplementary PM though. And when used in that way you get everything guix offers appart from system configuration, but you get to use other PMs, like the ones required by the programming language you're using.
Worthy comparison then.
I like endeavor os. It's a pretty easy way to get started with arch and it comes with some cool space theming.
This ones my favorite too. Basically just a pretty installer for arch, that helps you pick a desktop.
Guix, slackware, void, PCLinuxOS, vanilla debian
Non linux: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, HaikuOS
I love garuda. Zen kernel is god sent.
What does zen kernel do?
it is a optimized version made by a group of kernel hackers, according to phoronix the stable arch kernel is thr best, it performed better in most situations, so it is the specific use kinda of thing.
if u want want to delve into custom kernels and optimization i think you should try your luck compiling your own kernel, where you can weed out parts you don't need, apply some optimizations confings and compile to target your cpu exact model
The issue with these kinds of tests is that Zen kernel never claimed to be faster. It is supposed to be more responsive, especially under heavy load. Which is basically impossible to test.
Thank you
Something simple to the tune of pop!_os and linux mint - Manjaro
No fuss, just great experience and freedom - Debian
What are your requirements? How well can you work with Linux and how much do you love to tinker? Do you want always the newest software or should it be stable for a long time? Or something between?
A distro to just tinker around I guess
And probably lightweight
Then I guess something based on Arch Linux. Either Arch itself or Endeavour OS. Endeavour is pretty nice. Also using Podman/Docker can be a lot of fun, try toolbox.
I like KDE so I've been using KDE Neon which is just Ubuntu with KDE's stuff coming from it's own repo, so you get updates early. I don't like it that much so I was thinking on hopping to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (rolling release) or Fedora KDE when Plasma 6 is available.
I got some free computers from my workplace, and I am considering installing Crystal Linux (an easy to use Arch-based distro in beta I learned about from DistroTube) on them and giving them to my mom and half-brother. I'm going to see how well it goes and if it works well for beginner Linux users. I'll let you know if I get any feedback.
arch
Try Nobara, it's Fedora but with sane defaults. IMO it's the best of the (relatively) stable distros. The main downside is that Fedora will remove x11 support in the future versions.
I've recently moved from Arch based distros because I was tired of having to fix minor crap all the time. I went through Debian, MX, Mint, and Opensuse during that period.
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