Time to leave windows for good. PC crashed after update...after 48 good hours hours of trying to repair and uninstall updates which failed terribly, I've come to the inevitable decision.
Linux here I come.

Any suggestions on which distro I should go with?

Which version were you trying to go to?

I just accidentally updated to 1903 from 1803. I had expected the worst so I downloaded what I would deem as "sensitive" drivers. Then I did the update, installed the drivers, and zero issues. I was fearing the worst. Total non event. This was an asus laptop. What machine are you running?

I asked the same question not long ago. Ubuntu won. I switched and I have no complaints.

@gamsam
Well, Mint is always a good starting point.

Mint > ubuntu for beginners

OS/2 is a good distro. Hasn't been updated in a while though.

@Demolishun the IBM implementation of DOS? (Which was actually built by Microsoft and evolved into NT). Cause that stuff is freaking ancient...

As hardware support is concerned, Linux leaves Windows in the dust. Windows drivers for any particular piece of hardware will work very well while the current version of Windows and it share release cycles, but after that, Windows basically forgets about it in the next version, and sometimes even requires some half-assed, "compatibility mode" to even see it. Linux on the other hand, supports it basically forever.

Remember the Windows mantra: support and forget.

@shoop he is right to complain about the updates. I use a rolling release distribution. It's always up to date on every single piece of software installed. Yet not time consuming or resetting everything shit. Forcing reboots etc. Windows is pretty stable but not the upgrades. They cause havoc. Roleouts are not put on hold for nothing.

I have extensive desktop and server experience. Both BSD and Linux win the the stability contest hands down. There are definitely areas they lose but 24*7 stability is Unix all the way.

@bahua I download latest versions of certain drivers for installing after update. Windows likes to install old ass versions of drivers for some reason.

Better idea: Practice good data organization, recovery procedures, and local/remote backups, then learn to use Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

Because crashes are universal to all of the above, and past a certain point, you seem to end up having to use all of them in some capacity. GL! :D

Never had any problem with pc. If things goes bad.all my projects are on private github.
So i format disk and restore a disk image with all the programming env needed. Then pull and code !

I've never had a problem with Linux. Been using it for about 2 or 3 years now. I've never encountered the problems I had with Windows, on any Linux distros. And if I ever had a problem, it was easily fixable

Try Ubuntu. And add regolith desktop environment. It's just a bunch of i3 config that make it easier to use i3.

You still will need gnome-tweaks to make it prettier. Maybe try Nordic theme. And Paper icons

@shoop

Linux != Windows

You can't just walk into it without knowing anything about it, and expect it to behave like Windows. You can install Ubuntu, pop, elementary, or any of the dozens of other distros that claim to be user friendly, and use them like you use Windows, and probably not have any trouble. But even if everything goes perfectly, you're not going to learn anything that way, about the features and capabilities of Linux that make it a much, much better choice than Windows or Mac. You'll just approach it as, "here is a browser. Here is Spotify. Here is an IDE. Here is how I watch Netflix and play games," without actually knowing anything about it.

Knowing how Windows works is of course optional, and even if you do know how it works, your user experience is only marginally improved, as the number of options and features are extremely limited. Learning more about how MacOS works opens up a lot of exciting possibilities, but knowing how Linux works is a view into monumentally staggering potential, only limited by your own ingenuity and imagination.

@Lucky-Loek OP Is asking for stability not the hemorrhaging edge.

@willhertz the latest release was 18 years ago. That's not stability, that's suicide.

@shoop it really depends on the hardware. I find server hardware have better drivers on Linux. Companies that don't provide Linux drivers often supply drivers for Windows that cause stability problems.
In amount of supported hardware you are right Linux losses that one big time. You still have to check before you buy. Even my Dell XPS developer edition has a finger print reader that is never going to work