pasdechance

Key word being "some," obviously.

* Straight-up Debian is not always recommended as a desktop distro. I use Debian Testing as my desktop distro, though, and have had no problems. I did use Debian Sid, which works like a rolling distro in the sense that it does not need to be reinstalled for major version updates. I managed to mess it up during an update by carelessly pressing 'y' without reading what was written in the terminal.

* I have used Manjaro in the past, and it was fine. Just take it easy with packages from the AUR and everything will be OK. And remember: Manjaro != Arch. I tried Arch and used it for a long time. Not a single issue. Quite seamless, great wiki.

* I tried MX for quite some time. It might be worth looking at because you can access some newer packages through backports and the built-in tools can be helpful setting this up. I found it to be just as fast and seamless as Arch. MX is semi-rolling and Debian-based.

* Right now, I see a lot of people talking about Fedora as a great desktop Linux experience. It is one of the few major distros that I have never tried. Several of the big Linux YouTubers recommend it for Desktop use.

If I were you, I would stick with what works until it doesn't work. If you keep digging around, you'll start spending more time keeping your dotfiles in order than actually enjoying the distro. I stuck with Ubuntu for years until my hardware couldn't keep up with the demands of the DE. I lived in a minimal, tiling window manager for a few years. Like you, I like how Debian and apt work. So, my first pick for you would be MX.

Other options:

I too, being of pretty average intelligence --- probably not above --- am shocked by the stupid things people say and do as well. Maybe what you are experiencing is normal, like giardini says [1]:

> Half of all people have an IQ less than 100

That might be hard, you know, because of screenshots.

I am not at all a pro on this, but if you look at the track record of some of these options you might be able to come to a conclusion. Signal, for example, has been subpoenaed a number of times and likes to repeat that they know about first and last connection, and that's it. But, Signal uses a phone number for registration, so some people might be put off by that.

Matrix is used by some government bodies (in France, I beleive), but you might want to host your own server (I don't know if admins have access to messages or not).

Briar "doesn't rely on a central server - messages are synchronized directly between the users' devices." [1]

Cwtch is one I've never heard of, but I like the buzzwords mashup of "decentralised P2P Tor Onion routing metadata resistant"

Session also proposes variation on that theme, and doesn't ask for a phone number.

I feel like this is a tough question that is up for debate.

I also watched that Matt Walsh thing. A little vomit-inducing, but a great example of manipulative documentary techniques ("experts," scary music, "gotchya" ambush interviews).

I usually consume a number of documentaries, but this year I think I only watched...

Frozen Planet II