Linux

I think an important consideration is which desktop environment you want to use as you're more likely to get better graphics support with a distro that defaults to your favourite de.

I used to use Mint, but I recently switched to OpenSuSE as I have decided I prefer using KDE. I could install KDE in Mint but I had a few graphical glitches and annoyances with it's apps being designed for cinnamon/gtk. Meanwhile no issues with OpenSuSE. I also have an Nvidia card and AMD CPU.

The other thing to consider given your graphics needs is a more gaming focused distro. I use Nobara on my living room PC which I use for gaming; it's pretty good although that machine is an AMD iGPU. I have considered moving that to OpenSuSE for consistency with my desktop but I like it as it is tbh.

I tried Mamjaro in the recent past - it's nice but I didn't like the Arch packaging system. The AUR is good but I've found everything I want via other routes on other systems, and Mamjaro failed on me soon after I started using it. May have been coincidence buf I decided I couldn't use a system like that - I just didn't want to be problem solving so much on my daily driver.

I've also tried Fedora. I really didn't like that system - again it was the package management system and the BTRFS file system caused me endless issues.

I like OpenSuSE's Yast and Zypper package management tools. I also like the debian Apt package management system.

Last consideration: Debian systems have a lot of support available due to it being the base to lots of derivatives like Ubuntu and it's own derivatives like Mint etc. OpenSuSE has less of that generic support - it's there but it's not the same scale, ubiquitous support.

Use the AppImage for FreeCAD, it will probably have the best performance. You can try Flatpak if you want and compare but definitely not the snap.

Davinci Resolve will depend on the graphics drivers. If you have Nvidia you should be good to go, just pick a distro that has excellent integration with Nvidia drivers with zero fuss and tinkering.

Godot is Linux native software so I imagine it will work great on any distro, but keep in mind having recent enough packages for it.

"dnf -C ..." may change your life!

Choose the OS you want and then use Distrobox to create a CentOS or Fedora environment for Resolve. It will see all the packages it likes.

Absolutely do not use Manjaro.

My favourite on your list is EndeavourOS. You can use pacseek to manage your packages if you really hate pacman ( though you should be use yay on EOS anyway ). If your really want a GUI, use yay to install pamac ( yay -S pamac or yay -S pamac-gtk probably — I cannot remember the package name and I am on my phone ).

If you like Debian, use Debian. The packages in Debian 12 are not old yet. Regardless, the package problem is solved by Distrobox.

I have debated using Debian as a base with access to Arch packages via distrobox myself. I may try VanillaOS for that. You would need to pick a different package source if you do not like the pacman commands.

What DE do you order? An alternative to Debian would be LMDE. That gives you the Debian stability and compatibility with some of the friendliness of Linux Mint and a more up-to-date desktop.

I dont get the "alt" do you want CentOS (which doesnt exist, but I think Stream is better anyways) or Fedora?

Run Davinci resolve in a container, no internet access maybe, fixed dependencies that dont update. Ublue has a container image that you can run with podman.

sorry if i might repeat someones answer, i did not read everything.

it seems you want it for "work" that assumes that stability and maybe something like LTS is dort of the way to go. This also assumes older but stable packages. maybe better choose a distro that separates new features from bugfixes, this removes most of the hassle that comes with rolling release (like every single bugfix comes with two more new bugs, one removal/incompatible change of a feature that you relied on and at least one feature that cripples stability or performance whilst you cannot deactivate it... yet...)

likely there is at least some software you most likely want to update out of regular package repos, like i did for years with chromium, firefox and thunderbird using some shellscript that compared current version with latest remote to download and unpack it if needed.

however maybe some things NEED a newer system than you currently have, thus if you need such software, maybe consider to run something in VMs maybe using ssh and X11 forwarding (oh my, i still don't use/need wayland *haha)

as for me, i like to have some things shared anyway like my emails on an IMAP store accessible from my mobile devices and some files synced across devices using nextcloud. maybe think outside the box from the beginning. no arch-like OS gives you the stability that the already years-long-hung things like debian redhat/centos offer, but be aware that some OSes might suddenly change to rolling release (like centos i believe) or include rolling-release software made by third parties without respecting their own rules about unstable/testing/stable branches and thus might cripple their stability by such decisions. better stay up to date if what you update to really is what you want.

but for stability (like at work) there is nothing more practical than ancient packages that still get security fixes.

roundabout the last 15 years or more i only reinstalled my workstation or laptop for:

• hardware problems, mostly aged disk like ssd wearlevel down (while recovery from backup or direct syncing is not reinstalling right?)
• OS becomes EOL. thats it.

if you choose to run servers and services like imap and/or nextcloud, there is some gain in quickly switching the workstation without having to clone/copy everything but only place some configs there and you're done.

A multi-OS setup is more likely to cover "all" needs while tools like x2vnc exist and can be very handy then, i nearly forgot that i was working on two very different systems, when i had such a setup.

I would suggest to make recovery easy, maybe put everything on a raid1 and make sure you have on offsite and an offline backup with snapshots, so in case of something breaks you just need to replace hardware. thats the stability i want for the tools i work with at least.

if you want to use a rolling release OS for something work related i would suggest to make sure no one externally (their repo, package manager etc) could ever prevent you from reinstalling that exact version you had at that exact point in time (snapshots from repos install media etc). then put everything in something like ansible and try out that reapplying old snapshots is straight forward for you, then (and not earlier) i would suggest that those OSes are ok for something you consider to be as important as "work". i tried arch linux at a time when they already stopped supporting the old installer while the "new" installer wasn't yet ready at all for use, thus i never really got into longterm use of archlinux for something i rely on, bcause i could'nt even install the second machine with the then broken install procedure *haha

i believe one should consider to NOT tinker too much on the workstation. having to fix something you personally broke "before" beeing able to work on sth important is the opposite of awesome. better have a second machine instead, swappable harddrive or use VMs.

The exact OS is IMHO not important, i personally use devuan as it is not affected by some instability annoyances that are present in ubuntu and probably some more distros that use that same software. at work we monitor some of those bugs of that software. within ubuntu cause it creates extra hassle and we workaround those so its mostly just a buggy annoying thing visible in monitoring.