Ubuntu LTS

Ubuntu LTS has been much smoother--these have not been issues. Which is why we're still on Ubuntu LTS for a majority of the machines.

my video/audio editing workstations are all ubuntu lts because fedora is too much maintenance for that use case for me. ... So Ubuntu LTS is way better than Fedora for my use case

Ubuntu LTS is another solid choice.

good options for LTS are: - Ubuntu LTS

That may make Ubuntu suitable for best 'out of the box' experience if you're using a laptop with one of those OEM options

For someone who explicitly wants to install the distro and mostly leave it alone, I'd lean Ubuntu LTS. Fedora would absolutely be my next suggestion though.

Your main requirements seem to be “stable, established, relatively up-to-date, and I don’t want to manually maintain my kernel/Mesa,” and Ubuntu fits that better than Debian Stable IMO.

tiene el equilibrio perfecto entre estabilidad, vanguardia y compatibilidad total con todo tipo de hardware y software. La única distro con la que no he tenido que preocuparme por mis equipos con Nvidia. Instalar y listo. Por supuesto vete a por la versión LTS con escritorio GNOME.

Stay with the most used ones and you will be fine. Ubuntu lts