fedora atomic desktops (silverblue, kinoite, and derivatives like bluefin etc) are really great. They are as up-to-date as fedora, with an additional layer of stability provided by its atomic and image based nature.

I have a gentoo desktop but for a convenient middle ground just put Debian on my laptop. It’s stable, things just work out of the box, maintainers/devs are competent, they haven’t drunk the snap/flatpack kool-aid…

Switching to Testing is always an option but I’ve not found the need to do that yet when I can install programs from a deb package or just compile from source and install it in ~/.bin in my home directory.

From anecdotal experience I can only tell you that not once have I witnessed a showstopper bug on Arch. I recommend using btrfs and snapshots to really make sure however.

I'd say Fedora is the middle-ground. You get up-to-date software in a stable distribution with daily security updates, and fixed OS upgrades each year.

Debian with Flatpak and a Distrobox container running Arch is pretty good if you want a stable desktop with rolling packages.

Opensuse tumbleweed. The packages go through a testing process unlike Fedora AFAIK.

I'm sure I'll get shouted down for this suggestion by the haters, but I'm going to make it anyway because it's actually really good:

Use an Ubuntu LTS flavour like Kubuntu. Then, add flatpak and for apps you want to keep up to date, install either the flatpak or the snap, depending on the particular app. In my personal experience, sometimes the flatpak is better and sometimes the snap is better. (I would add Nix to the mix, but I wouldn't call it particularly easy for beginners.)

This gets you:

1. A reliable Debian-like base that you only have to upgrade to new releases every 2 years
2. Up-to-date apps, including confinement for those apps
3. New kernels every 6 months (if you choose - you don't have to, though)

Garuda. It's an Arch derivative that creates a snapshot of your system every time you update. That way, if the update breaks something, you can just roll your system back to the last working snapshot.

My recommendation would be Debian + Flatpak & Appimages (or + Snaps if you're the devil). Super stable, but also access to the latest.

Fedora is also a middle ground too, but they're pushing flatpaks heavily so it might not matter anyway since Fedora + flatpak and Debian + flatpak are about the same.

Fedora, Ubuntu etc. use up to date packages if you're using flatpaks and snaps. Nix I suppose fits the bill better but it's a harder distro to "learn" than arch imo

How about Rhino? Rolling release of Debian Sid iirc

I've been using Arch for a year and nothing has broken. Did have to "fix" a lot of stuff after install because it was my first time using Arch and didn't realize all the other stuff I had to install... Mainly to get my Nvidia GPU to work. But a few hours later and it's been rock solid since.

IMO Debian is already pretty far middle-ground. The packages are new enough for my personal usage.

Debian Testing.

Void linux

Fedora is pretty good there, but I wouldnt use the DNF variants.

The atomic variants though totally rock. Atomic Desktops, IoT, etc.

The atomic model deals with all the troubles you would have with so new packages.

OpenSUSE slowroll would be a better middle-ground, but I have had strange broken packages and they dont have a useful atomic model, as it is not image-based.