You are technically correct (I know) but I would argue that distros that come with a certain DE usually have their experience built into it. Sure you can install gnome in kde neon but don’t expect anything to work, if it does it’s mostly by accident.
This is true for distros that cater to “simple” users that want to install and be productive of course, not for those like Debian or arch which cater to users who want to build their own experience.
I disagree that the UI/DE/WM is a good way to evaluate a distro. One could make any distro look and feel like any other.
In my opinion one should look primarily at three factors:
From there just choose either Debian or Arch and install the UI you want with the DE/WM
You are technically correct (I know) but I would argue that distros that come with a certain DE usually have their experience built into it. Sure you can install gnome in kde neon but don’t expect anything to work, if it does it’s mostly by accident.
This is true for distros that cater to “simple” users that want to install and be productive of course, not for those like Debian or arch which cater to users who want to build their own experience.
Also check hardware support.
Doesn’t that solely depend on how new the included kernel is?
Please notice that I spoke about the configuration of the DE/VM, I have learned a lot about DE/VM confug from looking at different distros
I’d say it depends if you are a technical user or not.
I agree on the package manager. I got so used to rpm style from SuSE that I have a hard time with Debian based systems.