Since I’m the NixOS guy, I recommend GUIX. 😉

Switch to debian and go outside

I'd recommend rather boring Debian. Archlinux as well if you want to dive deeper.

EDIT: For Debian, you want Debian Testing.

I've been using Linux for 2 decades and I still use Debian for containers and servers and Pop_os for my desktop and laptop. If I was going to run a straight gaming machine I'd probably use something Arch based.

What kind of experience are you looking for? Something that's bleeding edge? Something that's going to give you 99.999% uptime with minimal hassle? Something to give you a hobby?

I’m thinking of switching to Arch but maybe it’s time for something else. Maybe NixOS or Void, Gentoo probably not, I don’t have time for compiling everything. What do you recommend?

I'm a bit biased of course but you sound like you'd enjoy NixOS.

NixOS is immutable but quite a bit more tinkerable than Silverblue. Not quite Arch or Void levels of tinkering but this topic is not as black and white as it may seem.

secure boot with signing with YOUR OWN KEYS

Not yet in upstream NixOS but: https://github.com/nix-community/lanzaboote

systemd (because of MullvadVPN),

Unrelated to evangelising you into NixOS but I'm curious: Why does a VPN proxy software have any hard dependency on a process manager?

Don't sleep on OpenSuSE. It supports everything you're looking for and has options for periodic and rolling release.

You want immutable distros but Silverblue wasn't flexible enough? Why not try NixOS? It's really nice.

I've been using it for two years and I love being able to make changes to my config and having those changes apply to all my computers. It's also basically unbreakable, if my computer explodes I can just reinstall NixOS with my config files and it will instantly be set up exactly how I want it.

Whichever one works best for you.

Now that's an experienced user.

Linux From Scratch 😉

Guix !

Plain old minimal arch to start is a great solution that's not too painful to manage IMO. That is where I landed after not wanting to figure out how to make full compiles palatable.

I prefer doing useful things with my workstation vs playing with the OS itself, so mint cinnamon is my recommendation. Servers are ansible-managed alma. Professionally I'm a Linux systems architect and devops engineer.

The one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the more experience you have with Linux, the less you rely on preconfigured distributions. Find a stable minimal install and build up your own set of base packages, DE, configs, etc.

Only you know your habits and needs and experience is how you narrow down the field.

For me personally, I have found my groove in a minimal Debian install with a first run setup script or two that is repeatable and automatable so I can start with a known quantity for any applicable need I have.

I love arch. I want to switch to NixOS for my home server but I think I’ll be sticking with arch for my main I see no further reason to switch.

Arch is a good choice, Endeavour was my flavor of choice, but these days I use Linux Mint: Debian Edition, which works mostly fine for me (got one minor piece of software I can't get for it).

Since you're experienced with Linux already try a BSD for something new.

every distro is for experienced users, you can tranform arch in ubuntu and vice versa, but if you want sumething different try fedora silverblue, or other nonmutable distro, it's fun learning how to use it(it's what i'm doing with my laptop)

NixOS definitely. The disk encryption with keys you may need do that manually though.

Void Linux was my daily driver for around a year and it was fast, really fast, and had a lot of tinkerability. I highly recommend it.

I use debian as my absolute base and build lxc containers for everything above that with my own kernel, works for me.

I set my own complexity, but debian also doesn't get in my way which works for me.

Ubuntu container for dev work (c++ mostly), arch container for some stuff, few vms for private data.

I use Arch (btw) because of the ArchWiki, and I'm totally comfortable configuring my system how I like it.

But I do appreciate Debian a lot. You can customize things to almost the same extent, but packages come preconfigured with great defaults and designed to better work together, unlike Arch which uses the upstream defaults almost universally.

if you want systemd then void is out of the question, void uses runit.

There are a few options. Like many have mentioned, Nix OS is a wonderful distro with it's own quirks.

If you are looking for something normal, consider Opensuse Tumbleweed and arch linux (or arch based distros like EndavourOS).

just install tumbleweed and never distrohop ever again

I'd recommend go back to arch. I use arch myself and have decided to stop distro hopping. I always end up regretting and come back to arch. The arch install script is quite good now, spares me hours of hunting down what packages to install for a working desktop and configuring of bootloader, etc, that I had to do before for installing arch.

Last time I tried something else was fedora. I liked the seamless experience, but I was annoyed by the very slow updates (why does it take soo long to refresh the repos?), and I missed the awesome wiki and package availability on arch.

Use wireguard for Mullvad

Likely void, gentoo, Slackware, or just do everything on Debian

Gentoo probably not, I don't have time for compiling everything

Just wanted to say I use gentoo and was going to recommend it. Compile times really shouldn't impact you that much as they're running in background and can be configured to not impact other processes. And compiles are very fast for most applications, it's only the few heavy ones that aren't.