>>53898805
ubuntu

Install Fedora.

Cent os is good so long you don't have a nvidia card. If you have nvidia get debian.

Ubuntu

>lol no that's not an "actual" distro that has street cred, I secretly need a timesink
Every distro that has street cred is going to explode itself.

>>53898805
I fully support you changing distros, go with Debian stable, much comfier than Cent imo.
Depending on your system and what your goal is you could start with a *buntu and remove the shit you don't want, otherwise just go with Debian

While your decision is probably wise, all the reasons you are stating in your post are wrong though, you might want to do some more reading and less acting on your next install

>the rolling release lifestyle is not mine. I miss updates and such. I miss updates and such.
This does not make sense in any way

>The last straw was VirtualBox completely breaking (exec format).
Googled this problem and found hits for Fedora, Gentoo and Debian on first page

>Before that, GRUB failed (I used an external drive with GRUB on it as a stopgap that became permanent),
No idea what this is supposed to mean but it does not scream 'proper grub install' and definitely not 'arch' fault'

> and some packages would fail due to it trying to install a python-[module] that I previously installed with pip.
That is a feature and I'm 10000% sure that the reason for this is well-explained by the first hit on google (it was when I used arch)