looking for half-stable Linux distro

Debian

Yeah go straight to the source.
Or LMDE for a mix of stable foundation and some ease of life tweaks.

Can you please like write the points in a list and not with these weird // in between? Lemmy uses markdown

- this (that space between line and text is important)
- is 
- a list

* this
* too
* forwhateverreason

``` before and after something : codeblock

*italic*

**bold**

***both***

Sounds like Debian is your answer.

Just to clarity the relationship between Red Hat, IBM, and Fedora, Fedora is only sponsored by Red Hat. They make all their own decisions, and while they receive financial support from Red Hat and Red Hat owns the Fedora trademark, their decisions and development are independent of Red Hat (and by extension IBM), with the single exception that they cannot risk violating the law (i.e. copyright infringement), else it risks Red Hat legal trouble (and Fedora would risk losing their sponsorship as a result). Red Hat benefits from Fedora's development by the community, given that Fedora is RHEL's upstream, hence why it continues to sponsor Fedora. But it isn't Red Hat that is in charge of Fedora's development, it's FESCo, which is entirely community elected, and does not stand for the interests of Red Hat, but rather for the interests of the community.

Eliminating Fedora from contention in that regard is essentially like eliminating Debian because you don't like Canonical, who makes Ubuntu, a downstream of Debian.

Add on top of that the fact that IBM and Red Hat are major contributors to the Linux kernel, and you absolutely cannot avoid connections to them while using Linux. I mean, that's quite frankly a ridiculous exclusion criteria in the context of Linux. If you're looking to avoid an operating system OWNED by Red Hat or IBM, then Fedora should not be included in that list. Neither of them have any say or pull in the development of Fedora, which is a completely community-driven project (no, owning the trademark doesn't change that fact; if Red Hat tried to take over, the Fedora community would simply fork the project, rebrand, and continue on their own). Besides, Red Hat has no interest in controlling Fedora, because it doesn't benefit them. Their only interest is in enterprise applications, which is not a good use case for Fedora. The only operating systems Red Hat actually has any control over are RHEL, CentOS, and any derivatives of those operating systems like Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, and such (though Red Hat's control over derivatives was only the result of those projects being downstream, not actual ownership).

So with that in mind, I'd recommend the Fedora KDE spin if you want a normal, stable, snap-free, no DIY required distro with KDE, or if you want the immutable version, Fedora Kinoite is what you'd be looking for. And Fedora has the major advantage over Debian-based distros of actually receiving package and kernel updates regularly, so you can stay up to date and enjoy new features, all while maintaining stability.

Fedora Kinoite is absolutely the best immutable distro fitting your criteria. Anything else will have a much smaller community and less support as a result. rpm-ostree has great documentation, and all of the Fedora Atomic Spins have a huge userbase available in case you ever have questions.

Second that.

No matter if atomic or regular, Fedora has a good automatically preset rollback mechanism for when an update breaks something.

They also have good Wayland support, awesome new packages, BTRFS and more.
This is a great comment because I didn't know this distinction. You've OKed Fedora for me when I thought I needed to boycott them because of RHEL's shenanigans.

Opensuse Tumbleweed is pretty stable, even though it's a rolling release

Jumping on the OpenSUSE bandwagon. I use it daily, have been running the same install of Tumbleweed for years without issue. I'm using KDE Plasma which it let's you choose as part of the installation which fulfils that requirement for you as well.

If you're familiar with Redhat you'll feel at home on it. Zypper is the package manager instead of yum/dnf and works really well (particularly when coping with dependency issues.

I've worked with heaps of distros over the years (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, old school Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky, Oracle, even a bit of Alpine and some BSD variants) and OpenSUSE is definitely my favourite for a workstation.
I second opensuse, there is also a non-rolling release option, i think.

My tumbleweed has been exceptionally stable, updates without problem.
Getting the arch experience in software support (has a "community repo" as well) but in a stable way and there is never the need to use the terminal, if you don’t want)

Love it, recommend it.

For more stableness check out the slow rolling version or the immutable versions (both in "beta" state)
Slowroll. You change to it from Tumbleweed and its not completely finished but should already just work.
- Tumbleweed is stable enough
Stable as in reliable and not as in unchanging

I've been running Linux Mint Cinnamon for years. It's the stablest, most dependable distro I've ever run. I've installed it, updated it and major-version-upgraded it many times on many machines and it never broke.

It's basically Ubuntu with the features that make Ubuntu shite removed (basically Unity and snaps) and a no-nonsense, GTK-based Win95-like desktop environment tacked on.

I've been on mint for ages but when I updated my RAID this year it originally wouldn't recognize it. I eventually got it recognized but it capped the 16TB drives at 999GB for some reason. For fun, I went up the chain to Ubuntu... Same thing

In frustration I went to Grandma's house with Debian and it worked perfect out of the box. I'd spent hours researching it but the best I found was a potential RAID related bug (lvm, specifically, I think) introduced in Ubuntu that, of course, filtered into Mint. Even fdisk reported the physical drives as 999GB in Mint/Ubuntu.

I still don't know the exact cause but I got it up and running so I'm a Debian guy now, I guess.

Granted, my use case isn't super normal since I'm using a BIOS RAID1 (and we all know how fun BIOS RAID can be) with full disk encryption.

Worked out in the end but it made me sad to ditch Mint
- can be a bug in your bios too
Mint with KDE? this makes no sense. This would be Ubuntu, maybe with Kubuntu Backports. You should be able to remove ubuntu-specific stuff like snaps easily.

-it should be more or less stable, comparable to Ubuntu with or without LTS

Ubuntu was based on Debian, which touts its stability

-it should not be related to IBM to any way (so no fedora/redhat)

Debian has no afiliation to IBM, they're not even loosely part of each others' "partners" programs

-it should not feature snaps (no Ubuntu or KDE neon)

Debian doesn't use snaps (welcome to the greener side of the fence btw, fuck snaps)

-KDE plasma should be installable manually (best case even installed by default)

Debian uses KDE as one of it's default install options when installing the OS, and it can be installed later with tasksel (or by just getting all the packages if you want to do it the hard way)

-no DIY Distros

Debian has a barebones headless option, but the installer defaults (which come with the whole DE and oyher convenienve packages) are pretty user-friendly

In summary, I have no fucking clue what OS you should use.

P.S. newlines on lemmy are either done by using two spaces at the end of a line
and then pressing enter
(make sure your phone doesn't autocorrect/one of the spaces away like mine does) or by pressing

Enter twice (without the double spaces), so there's a

blank line in between

Debian is the GOAT

Definitely Debian. Or Mint if you also like the cinnamon desktop (which is similar to KDE's in terms of default look).

Cinnamon has no real Wayland support, along with all the fancy stuff like perfect fractional scaling, multi refresh rates, HDR support, and whatnot. At least Wayland support is important
- They didn't specify that requirement. For instance, I have zero need for any of that and therefore can keep on trucking on Xorg until Wayland reaches my DE of choice in a stable form.

Opensuse. It comes in different flavors including tumbleweed (rolling but tested), slowroll (slower rolling), leap (stable), and micro / leap micro (immutable). It is not owned or funded by redhat although it does use rpm. Its installer is the best I have ever seen for managing software before installation and will let you select KDE.

Of course debian.

However pure debian needs some love before you can use it.

If you want to use steam. Enable 32 bit arch.

If you want to use flatpak. You need to install it and add the default repo.

To install kde plasma you need only a single apt command.

I personally run debian-testing/Trixie.

I dont get Debian. It is so manual, everything needs to be done manually. They default to ext4 which is old as balls, their updates are not automatic (and apt-automatic is painfully complicated to configure) even though on a stable distro you can easily differentiate between security and feature updates.

Everything that might be nicely preconfigured on Opensuse or Fedora is manual on Debian.

And... you get years old packages, without any of the fixes the developers added in the past.

As a semi-rolling Distro Opensuse Slowroll sounds nice. I think it already works, you change repos in Tumbleweed and thats it.
- The testing branch is at most 3 weeks old. I get new software, not the newest. Kde plasma has a auto update function that works on bootup. (though I usually go into sleep mode and therefore update often by hand.)
  
  Yes debian is pretty plain and empty but once configured it works. Sure I would recommend Mint to people who don't like to configure. However the Mint(debian) version is lacking a lot and there is no testing branch you can safely run of.

I never understood the IBM/Redhat hate being directed at Fedora. Imagine being against using Debian because of the Ubuntu Amazon fiasco that happened years back.

Probably because of what happened to CentOS. Who owns the Fedora trademark? How independent is Fedora really?

I am not saying anyone should avoid Fedora, I can just understand why someone would.
- Just to clarify, I'm not trying to stand up for Red Hat in any of the following, just explaining the relationship between Red Hat, CentOS, and Fedora. My stance on Red Hat has historically been neutral, but recently is erring towards negative after the IBM aquisition. My stance on Fedora has always been positive.
  
  Probably because of what happened to CentOS.
  
  Red Hat bought out CentOS in 2014. They took over their trademark, hired their development team, and placed Red Hat developers on the CentOS team. CentOS was downstream of RHEL, so Red Hat had an invested interest in it, since it actually resembles RHEL.
  
  That's an important distinction: CentOS was downstream of RHEL, and could be used to replace it in enterprise applications. Fedora is upstream of RHEL, and not suitable for enterprise applications (too many package and kernel updates, everything changes frequently, short term release lifetime, etc.). When CentOS was discontinued in favor of CentOS Stream, it no longer had the same value in enterprise use as RHEL, and its competition to RHEL was mostly eliminated. Again, the most important distinction there is that CentOS competed with RHEL, which is why Red Hat took it over and killed it.
  
  Fedora is entirely community managed and developed, with FESCo being community-elected and making decisions in the interest of the community, not in the interest of Red Hat. Red Hat sponsors Fedora, but that relationship is merely financial. It provides money to the Fedora Project because RHEL is downstream of Fedora, and benefits from its continual development. Fedora does not compete with RHEL, so Red Hat has no interest in controlling Fedora, nor could they if they wanted to with the way the project is managed.
  
  Who owns the Fedora trademark?
  
  Red Hat, of course. But again, Red Hat does not have the means to control the development of Fedora, and they would get nothing but backlash from trying, and gain nothing from it. If Red Hat tried to take over Fedora and were somehow successful, the project could easily be forked and rebranded, with the community currently managing it taking over the new fork and developing from there. Fedora would become stale, and Red Hat would have to manage it entirely, which they clearly don't want to do in the first place. The only significant difference would be that the new Fedora fork would not be sponsored by Red Hat, and development would slow down as a result. But again, this has nothing but disadvantages for Red Hat. Red Hat benefits from the Fedora Project's active development, and since it doesn't compete in their market, they get nothing from destroying it.
  
  How independent is Fedora really?
  
  That depends on what aspect of independence you question. Red Hat has no control over the development of Fedora, as that is managed by FESCo. So in that way, Fedora is completely independent. FESCo and the Fedora Project don't develop for the sole interests of Red Hat; they develop for the community. Of course, Red Hat still benefits from that development regardless, but RHEL specific development is handled by Red Hat, not the Fedora Project, and changes to Fedora from Red Hat developers that would stains against the interests of the community would not be approved. The members of FESCo were elected because the community trusts them to make decisions the benefit everyone.
  
  Financially, the Fedora Project is quite dependent on Red Hat. That's where the vast majority of their funding comes from. That funding is given to the Fedora Project because its development is mutually beneficial for both the Fedora community and Red Hat. That fact won't change anytime soon. The testing, bug fixes, security patches, and feature upgrades from the Fedora community are incredibly valuable for Red Hat, and without a consumer desktop platform to test those changes, Red Hat would be greatly disadvantaged.
  
  I am not saying anyone should avoid Fedora, I can just understand why someone would.
  
  Personally, I can't. At least I certainly can't understand if their reasoning had anything to do with Red Hat or IBM. The Fedora Project is independently developed, and does not seek to satisfy the interests of either of those companies. I can understand someone not liking how frequently the kernel is updated, but then again, you don't have to update immediately if you don't want to. I can understand someone being apprehensive because there is some software available on Ubuntu or Debian, but it isn't released for Fedora. I can understand someone not liking the dnf package manager; it is quite slow. I can understand someone not liking the folder structure of Fedora over Debian based operating systems. But I cannot understand someone disliking Fedora because they hate Red Hat or IBM. As fas as the end user is concerned, Fedora might as well have nothing to do with Red Hat or IBM. Yes, RHEL is downstream of Fedora, but that doesn't affect Fedora in any way, it's downstream, not upstream. Fedora is, always has been, and always will be a community driven project that primarily has the interests of the community in mind. The Fedora Project doesn't care about what Red Hat wants or does with RHEL, as it doesn't affect Fedora in the slightest. CentOS was destroyed because it competed with RHEL (or at least Red Hat believed that it did), and Fedora does not. If you don't like Red Hat then don't use RHEL, CentOS, or any of their downstreams, but don't falsely associate the development of Fedora as being at risk of damage by Red Hat.
  
  Anyone who avoids Fedora because they dislike Red Hat or believe it is at risk from Red Hat is misinformed at best.

You can't avoid IBM/RedHat - they contribute to the kernel and many, many other parts of Linux eg systemd. I have no idea what you mean by DIY distros, what a peculiar adjective in this context. Linux itself is DIY. Life is DIY.

That said, voidlinux is an independent distro without systemd or snaps based on runit for init and xbps for package management. It's also a STABLE rolling release.

I have no idea what you mean by DIY distros, what a peculiar adjective in this context. Linux itself is DIY. Life is DIY.

Pretty sure what they meant is no distros where you have to manually curate and possibly even build every sodding package, like Linux From Scratch, Gentoo, and maybe to an extent Arch. I presume they want a disto that flashes to a live USB, walks through a wizard, and boots up out of the box fully functional in minutes, no fuss required.
> You can’t avoid IBM/RedHat

Let's just leave it at that, we can't avoid code published by them, it is everywhere. Both of those are subject and clear collaborators with agencies of the state that protects their existence.

It is 100s of times better than MS, ok, yes, it is. Still, "we" have a long way to go, away from "them".

@StrangeAstronomer @Luffy879

Debian testing or nixos

Get a Debian and break it a leg.

Have you tried Mint? It's super stable. It's the least DIY distro ever. You CAN use snaps, but why would anyone want to? I believe there's an image that comes with KDE, but Cinnamon is a great desktop.

Linux Mint is hands down the most stable linux distro out there and has been for years. zero tinkering needed. everything just runs no questions asked.

My only grief with Mint is the most recent update where they changed the software centee and now it's slowed to a crawl. Why they would do this is anyones guess.

I'm recommending MX until such time that Mint sort their crap out - unfortunately I doubt they will, seeing as this change of software center was to resolve some other issues they (but not is end users) though they had.

MX is basically debian but with a lot of improvements. Sure it might have a bit of a learning curve for those primarily used to Ubuntu based systems, but it beats running any of the other Ubuntu distros by miles since they all struggle with the crap Ubuntu puts on top of Debian.

Manjaro is another great option if you don't want to deal with debian based stuff, and KDE is the default DE with most stuff under reasonable control. You can also use all the Arch resources if you ever run into trouble so it's a lot less of a headache than what I've experienced running OpenSUSE (i want to love OpenSUSE but I just can't).

Linux mint is just Ubuntu with opinionated Ubuntu crap removed. Is there Linux Mint with KDE?
- not at all. mint offers a bunch of features 'exclusive' to mint as an integration with their system. of course it's all open source and you could install it on any other system. but the key important factor with mint is that everything 'just works' with a fresh install, no customization necessary - which is something that can't be said about any other distro, including Ubuntu. it is the only distro i recommend for non-pc users as there is no chance they will brick it.
  
  regardless, KDE is just a DE. you won't get the same mint experience of course, since it isn't officially supported (and indeed, only cinnamon offers the complete mint experience), but installing KDE on mint is easy enough if you insist on using it.

people will read stable and instantly comment debian

Jokes aside, given that you said in a comment that it's for non-tech-savvy people, I'd say Linux Mint, partially just because it will look familiar if they've seen any Windows PC.

They mentioned KDE
- As far as I know you can install Mint with KDE

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Most stable rolling, in my opinion.

Even compared to Slowroll?
- Slowroll is still experimental.

don't shit on my kde neon like that :(

kde neon doesn't come with snap packages, it only supports it so that the user can install snap apps if they want to.

it's a great distro and i highly recommend it

I've been using it for the past year and can confirm, snap is an option but not forced on you like the *buntu family. It even comes with Flatpak and Flathub installed by default (and does not force that on you either). You have freedom of choice.

OpenSUSE is good. If corporate scares you off, there's OpenMandriva Lx or Mageia.

OpenSuse seems like it would meet your needs. OpenSuse Kalpa might be one to look into since it's immutable and features KDE Plasma

I would recommend Fedora Kinoite.
Yes, you said no RedHat stuff, but Fedora is 100% community run.

Especially when you use the Kinoite-build from universal-blue.org, everything should work ootb and is very reliable, while also being semi-stable in terms of update frequency

Second that. Ublue kinoite-main for a painless experience.

Personally I would even recommend Secureblue kinoite-userns but only if you have no problems building Firefox yourself, using Chromium, using Brave, or maybe using the Flathub official Firefox.
- Your link to Secureblue is invalid, it points to subdomain of the user's Lemmy instance.

Debian? Just make sure you use backports, containers or flatpak if you want newer software.

I read this as:
Looking for a Half-Life Linux distro

i would use that
- Gets abandoned before the third major version

OpenSUSE. snapshots build in. nVidia hosts its own Leap or Tumbleweed GPU repo you can add for trouble fee GPU use. GUI for almoat all config tasks you might normally do at the CLI. Stable...and rollbacks ahould you make a mistake

What does a DIY distro mean? Is typing archinstall out of the question?

With diy distro I meant arch, gentoo, and nixOS The distro is meant to run on a PC which is mainly used by non tech sawwy people. And even tho I will be doing all administration tasks on it, I would like it to be as easy to manage themselves as possible, so they become familiar with Linux more.
- The distro is meant to run on a PC which is mainly used by non tech sawwy people. [...], so they become familiar with Linux more.
  
  In this case I always suggest trying out Linux Mint. It is not "too heavy" and not "too specific/niche". It's a good all-purpose distribution for desktops/laptops where basic maintenance can be performed by the user.
- If it will be used by non-tech savvy people, why do you care about snap and IBM? Do the people care about that?
- My mom and grandma are using Manjaro. With grandma I'm the only one doing the updates of course, but with mom she usually can do it herself just using pamac-tray. If that fails a phonecall is usually sufficient. Once in a few years I have to come and do something by myself
  
  And when that happens I work with a distro that just works, instead of some broken crap
  EDIT: I tried having Mint on their computers. Big mistake, it's as broken as Debian and Ubuntu
  
  EDIT: Xfce is very nice in such cases. It looks familiar for them while being manageable for me
- I dont see how e.g. arch would be super hard to maintain.
  There is a nice GUI program for installing programs and updates. (like many modern distros)
  If you dont want to set everything up, go with Endeavour or Garuda.
  
  I find rolling release to be easier to maintain and keep up to date than non-rolling.
  Specially if you want up to date packages for desktop use.
- Could you elaborate? Children, family members?
  
  I would recommend Fedora Kinoite from ublue for anything you dont manage yourself. Even if it breaks and your damn kernel doesnt boot, you can just reboot, choose the old version and have a working system.
  
  All changes can be reverted using rpm-ostree reset and updates on ublue versions are done in the background.
  
  Ublue takes the Fedora base and adds packages they cant, like restricted video codecs or drivers. Give it a try, I broke every other distro before and dont want to use something else anymore
- The answer then is OpenSUSE Leap or SlowRoll. OpenSUSE has YastGTK GUI for all config tasks ( think windows command center ), they won't have to use CLI for anything, and if an update does go weird ( which is very rare due to their automated QA ) then you have inatant rollback at the boot menu

OpenSUSE TW

it should be more or less stable, comparable to Ubuntu with or without LTS

It’s very stable and I’ve never had issues

it should not be related to IBM to any way (so no fedora/redhat)

It’s supported

no DIY Distros

It’s developed by SUSE.

it should not feature snaps (no Ubuntu or KDE neon)

It uses flatpaks

KDE plasma should be installable manually (best case even installed by default)

OpenSUSE is one of the few distributions that uses KDE Plasma by default.

Isn't TW the rolling-release variant?

Maybe I'm just scarred from years of IT, but I would avoid recommending any rolling release to someone if they specified "stability" and were likely fresh out of the Ubuntu/Green Ubuntu kiddie pool.

Just assume that they mean they want to set it up with minimal user interaction and then never, ever, ever have to change settings again.

There are only 3 options I can immediately think of, for you:

Debian

OpenSUSE (Leap)

Slackware

They are ordered from most to least likely to recommend for your criteria i.e I recommend Debian, alternatively Leap, and if you don't like either you can try Slackware, but Slackware is closer to a DIY distro.

As a long term slackware aficionado, I agree that it meets the criteria. But it also is significantly different from other distros in enough ways that you may find yourself relearning things you took for granted. And that is off-putting for a lot of users.
- that is offputting for a lot of users.
  
  I wanted to like Slackware, I really did, but you're right. It is significantly different and not necessarily in a good way (I'm not bashing Slackware, I'm just saying that Slackware is quite archaic in the way it does things, and that's not always the best way of doing things).
Opensuse Slowroll is a way better approach than Leap. Same for Debian, I would use Kubuntu and desnap it or something, as updates every 2 years is simply outdated quickly.

KDE doesnt work well with "stable" Distros.

what does half stable mean?
stable os with fresh applications?

if thats what you are looking for,
maybe debian with flatpacks for fresher softwares?

or if you also dont like flatpack, maybe
debian with nix

Half stable = well tested, not artificially held back, not untested

Opensuse Slowroll

Mint LMDE Kde flavor

Two come to mind. Have fun distro hopping :)

https://distrowatch.com/spiral (Debian based)
https://distrowatch.com/opensuse (Has a rolling release choice)

Regarding your post formatting, you need to put a space between the bullet point and the first character of the line:

Like this (hit view source/view markdown on my comment to see)

When you start getting super specific about which distro you want, I think you should start looking towards a DIY distro.

Alpine Linux.

stable ✅
technically comparable to Ubuntu ✅
not related to IBM ✅
doesn't feature snaps ✅
KDE plasma ✅
not DIY ✅

WCGW

yet another vote for Debian
or if you’re going immutable (“atomic” is a better name) then wait for Vanilla OS’s Orchid to be released (currently in Beta) – a little more user-friendly than NixOS (although that will depend on the documentation)

VanillaOS is unstable as hell. Also their atomic model is not image-based but uses a regular package manager underneath. This makes it way less controlled, transparent and resettable than Fedoras model.

I think Opensuses is similar, they also dont use images I think.

kde neon don't use snaps

@Luffy879 If someone comes from Windows and has little experience with Linux Mint LTS with XFCE4.
https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=313
With MX Linux (Debian based) you can create a live ISO with all packages and flat packs and then create a live USB stick with persistence (requires double memory on the Linux partition For the ISO)
https://mxlinux.org/
you can make installs from the usb after creating it.
Distrochooser
https://distrochooser.de/

Psst... Try nixos 😹

Linux mint. It's based on Ubuntu but they also snapped out the snaps.

Debian Stable as base OS, then activate unstable repos in a sandbox/container. Maybe even Distrobox for newer Apps.

disable repositories, updates https://github.com/aarnt/octopi, https://ctlos.github.io/, https://endeavouros.com/.

Just use Fedora. It's very up to date and it's upgrades are flawless.

My record is 15 upgrades (before getting a new system). It's even been fine through Intel -> AMD CPU swaps.

Sorry, the closest i came up aren't good solution but may help in your search.

Vanilla OS 2 (based on Debian) but it is under Gnome DE and in beta phase. Very begginer friendly. Maybe once it go out from beta it will supports other DE ? So check it around 6th month later or 1 year ?

But the problem is that their community is very small. If you want something stable, it's better to look for bigger community so you can benefit from their support and user's problems

There is fedora kinoite but you don't want anything related to IBM. That was the best compromise i can found.

NixOS but i don't know it. I'm affraid it will be a DIY distro at the beggining with the config file. But it will probably meet all your criterias.

Or the same OS from my steamdeck :

Steam OS ? It's an immutable OS based on Arch and support KDE by default. Full support of flatpaks. Only downside, i dunno if it supports other machines than the steamdeck. Nor if it uses the latest linux kernel. Maybe some variants ?

Same recommendation as usual from me :) pepparmint OS , Debian base extra on top

Debian as others are saying is a great choice

But I'll still shill arch, I've literally never encountered a problem with it other than my first time installing manually being a learning experience. Not sure if it counts as a DIY distro bc you can definitely install with a script

If you use arch, you should do the "automatic snapshots" thing with BTRFS, grub and pacman hooks. That is important to have a version to rollback to, as its Arch.

I would recommend void, alpine (kde plasma auto installer may still be broken for some users, works for me tho, also musl so if you need appimages or some very specific applications don't use it.), alpaquita (much stable alpine with glibc if you need appimages), slackware (current only, it is stable rolling, and their point release features very old kernel and packages so I wouldn't recommend it, paldo (stable rolling, gnome by default but plasma installable.), gentoo (if you have time to compile, why not it as stable as rolling can get without it being openSUSE), openSUSE (easiest rpm based (Oracle fork) but still IBM code nonetheless)

What about Pop!_OS? It fits all the criteria. It's an Ubuntu distro by System76 (known for their computers that run Linux) that foregoes Snaps for Flatpaks, so you get Ubuntu's reliability/stability without the Snaps. It does default to its own spin on GNOME, however you can install an alternative desktop environment just fine.

Solus. Snaps optional.

Omg you just described slackware. Join us!

Siduction
openSUSE

An immutable distro with a heavily customized KDE desktop is Nitrux. Check it out at nxos.org

Gentoo.

It's rolling release, has stable and testing packages, and users can choose between them per-package (or globally) and it runs or is easily made to run on pretty much everything.

no diy

Seems that Slackware is what you are looking for.

Slackware current.