Worrying too much about not running a “noob distro” like ubuntu (and getting carried away with distro hopping to whatever the fringe flavour of the month is this month) when there’s no real reason not to for most.
ubuntu is noob friendly and configurable to do pretty much anything.
unless you have some reason not to run it, start there until you find one.
2c.
Debian. All of the major hypervisors are supported without new kernel issues.
This is my experience, but installing VMware on Fedora/Arch is tedious sometimes, and VirtualBox requires “extra” work in some instances. Everything jst werkz on Debian.
If you go the Fedora or Arch route, be sure to add your user to the group vbox or something and load the kernel modules before starting. REBOOT, too. Despite the hype you have to reboot Linux now and then 
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Load_the_VirtualBox_kernel_modules
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Accessing_host_USB_devices_in_guest
What don’t you like about Arch, or why are you still distro hopping?
I don’t understand the hatred of distrohopping as long as it doesn’t get in the way of you having a usable machine. If you’re curious and want to try lots of different things, go at it; but I recommend using a VM or a separate computer. That way you always have a working OS.
I would rather encourage you to be curious and try new things, rather than say that you should settle down and stick to what you know; as long as it isn’t impeding your day to day.
You’ll eventually discover that the differences between Distros is very minimal, and you can pretty much do everything on all of them. My distro hopping urges have evolved from reinstalling OS on my computer over and over, to running a different distro on every computer; and I try something different every time I get a new computer.
The people that frequently distro hop are looking for a one stop shop solution, a perfect harmony of everything working that has every nook, cranny, and feature they could ever want.
They’re chasing a golden unicorn, something that doesn’t exist.
No one does this, they jump in with both feet and hit concrete, then complain that there wasn’t water to break their fall.
Very much the premise of ‘the illusion of choice’, in my opinion. A minuscule, tiny fraction of people actually take advantage of something being “open source”. They install a theme and call it “choice”, but you can do that on proprietary operating systems, too.
Inb4 everyone in this forum replies saying they changed source code on the kernel and are running their own custom Linux (which would make it proprietary to you, if you didn’t push upstream yeah? Oh how evil of you)
Then they’re doing it wrong. Distrohop if you’re curious, but if you want everything to work then fix what you already have.
dont call me no one or ill anon
I use my own kernel and its published on GitHub.
In all seriousness though, if the OP doesn’t have the time to ask a proper question, I don’t have time for a proper answer.
Every response to this thread is based on speculation
It’s because of improper speculation that we have Spectre
My primary need is gaming. No distro works for gaming.
Every distro works for gaming as far as gaming works on linux
There are 3 types of games:
Those that work natively on Linux, Those that can emulate well, And then those that have yet to be emulated/ported.
I have just set up a VM so I can run the latter, but the first group has some good content, which I’m sure others can chime in with.
For native games, it seems mostly strategy, indie and maybe RTS.
I guess FPS’s are pretty under-represented
Proton and wine/lutris pretty much cover the gamut of Linux gaming and as far as I know they work the same on every distro. You might find some things are easier with more bleeding edge distros.
If gaming is your only concern there is a particular distro that is fairly compatible with everything.
They call it windows.
I mean to say, no distro is the best at non native games, but the Solus team did some stuff for the steam integration layer?
Otherwise I think most of the other distro’s are pretty much the same?
What are your problems with gaming?
I have played plenty of games on Linux with very few problems. I’d ba happy to help if you can give more info.
The best method I find is to take a board with a grid of some sort on it, put all the available options into separate paces in this grid, next find a sharp object and throw it toward this grid, where the sharp object lands is your answer.
The final and essential step to make this work is to erase all knowledge of other options from your mind.
Thanks. I actually installed fedora last night before you posted, first thing I found after 888 updates, is that a reboot as required. While this is something I normally do anyways there was no putting off the matter, the kio slaves had an uprising.
I appreciate the other tips as well.
@GardenData61371
I play all of my games on linux so I’d be happy to throw my hat into the ring as well when it comes to finding answers to problems.
if ‘no distro’ works for you
there doesn’t seem any point to suggesting another distribution
which distribution that you have tried has worked best on your hardware?
and what didn’t work that maybe could be fixed?
link to vmware?
… because distro hopping is wasted time that gets in the way of just having a usable machine 
Sure, depending on your backup/restore regime, it may not be a LOT of time, but for the most part, outside of learning purposes (you can just as easily do inside a VM without trashing your host OS)… it’s wasted time that you could be putting towards something actually productive.
If you’ve got a reason to hop, by all means, go for it.
But until you do, you’re just hopping from one set of (possibly much easier to solve on a “noob distro”) issues to another for the most part.
edit:
to clarify my stance. I recently hopped from Ubuntu to Fedora 29. There were reasons - by default has more recent kernel/etc. Also, its got more in common with CentOS, which is what i run servers on at work now. But it’s definitely a trade-off - making commercial software work with it is a little more work than ubuntu. But its the set of compromises I’ve made.
Neither option is perfect - and if you’re looking for “perfect”… you’ll be looking a LONG time.