Ubuntu is the kids bike with training wheels of Linux distros. Most of us learn how to ride on it. Its comfy and fun. It gets us from point A to B safely. When we are just starting out we love it!

When you ride it for long enough you eventually start to see the big kids on their 2 wheeled bicycles. Which motivates you learn more about Linux. Until you realize that you can do so much more on another Bicycle without training wheels. Eventually you take them off and upgrade to a newer faster Linux distro. 

Ubuntu was my first distro. It will always hold a special place in my heart. They do excellent work at canonical. So it is wonderful for enterprise level businesses. That is, because in that world everyone still acts like immature kids, misbehaves constantly, and IT needs to handhold them. So Canonical support is outstanding for that type of environment. 

From just our initial conversation. I think you are more than ready to explore other distros. Try distrohopping for awhile with virtualbox. 

Just stay far the fuck away from MXLinux, Linux Mint, and NixOS is my best advice to you. The first two are shady as fuck (download and run etherape as roottoo monitor the network traffic after a fresh installation on first boot to discover why). The last one is woke as fuck, their community will censor you if you don't agree with everything insane.  

If you have any questions, need some help with anything Linux related, or just want to explore FOSS topics. Please feel free to reach out to me. It is a passion of mine for over 15 years. 

 Appreciate the thoughtful response. I think I might still need the training wheels for now 🤣, but I see where you're coming from. Main thing right now is just playing around anyway, so I think doing the VM thing might be a good route for me while still having something that generally works.

Anyway, I'll definitely reach out if I have a question 🙏