Distros like Debian and Ubuntu also suffer from issues with compatibility with newer hardware due to their older kernels. This is part of why distros based on Fedora and Fedora Atomic (such as Nobara and Bazzite, respectively) have seen popularity.
Also, gamers at least want the latest drivers. Not the ones from three weeks ago. The latest ones. That's why everyone is recommending Arch-based distros for that purpose. I'm currently on Pop, and waiting months for Mesa updates is no fun.
I find Fedora hits a nice sweet spot between compatibility/updates and random breakage, especially since they backport KDE versions along with kernels.
I have tried Debian, but I found that the software on the main version was out-of-date, and the testing version eventually broke during an update (which is when I abandoned it.) It's not something I'd recommend to a new Linux user.
The question is, do you really need the newer versions? If so, maybe check availability via backports or extrepo.
From my perspective a solid OS that stays out of my way most of the time outweighs the slight disadvantage of working with older software versions. YMMV.
On that I agree. I run Fedora Atomic and I'm not switching to any other non-atomic distro ever again. Once you get used to the papercuts, the old model of overwriting system files and hoping for the best is antiquated to say the least. (And no, I don't care for NixOS, sorry)
I'm still wishing very hard for a serious and battle-tested Arch-based atomic distro, so I can chuck Fedora and its RPM packaging model into the flaming sun.
Stable with back ports works well for me. I have not upgraded to Trixie yet and have 6.12, which handles dev work, Steam, and llama.cpp (ROCm) without issue.
