Yes you should.
If you can't be arsed with the setup, which is understandable, give Antergos a go. It's really just an installer + some defaults for Arch, it uses the Arch repos etc..
I wouldn't use anything Ubuntu based these days, the vast majority of their software (i.e. virtually everything outside 'main', which is most desktop software) is unmaintained, which means bugs and security holes. And even the stuff that is maintained is so *old*. Any derivative of Ubuntu obviously compounds this problem.
Distros kinda matter less than they used to since more is done in the core components now. For example hardware support is entirely down to kernel version these days. So I'd rather go with something robust and up-to-date than a ropey derivative cos there's really no point.
Really though, I do think you'd like Arch. Once it clicks, which honestly doesn't take long, it's so much *easier* than any other distro. Easier to maintain, easier to fix, easier to update, much easier to add weird software (it'll be in the
AUR).
The manual Arch installation process is *technically* completely unnecessary (as Antergos demostrates). But what it does is gets you to that point where it all clicks *quicker*. It leads you around the important config files and makes it clear what they do so, once you're installed, you *understand* what you have. An Arch installation takes me literally 5 minutes now (cos I install it on everything I can get my hands on).
And virtually any problem you hit will be in the Arch wiki. A big part of learning Arch is learning to check the wiki. In the unlikely event that it's not there, it'll be in the forums. The community is amazing.
Oh and one of the best things about Arch is the package manager, pacman. It's really simple to use and *so* much faster than anything else I've used. Fuck it, I'm doing a recording as I don't think you believe me
:YHere.
I realise that's, objectively, a pretty fucking boring video. But y'know.
Ok, pretty hefty update some pretty big/complex packages - Chromium, Calibre, Rust, Mesa, Steam and its runtime, Network Manager etc.. Obviously the download portion is limited by my shitty internet but the update portion is so much faster than on even Debian, let alone anything rpm based. And then it's done, system fully up to date. I never get any of the cyclical dependency *bullshit* I *always* get on Debian based systems.
Ok so...
WMs/DEs
I fucking *love* i3. I don't particularly care for tilers in the abstract, I just love i3 in particular. It's liberating; going back to anything else feels fucking *archaic* - clumsy, inefficient and crude.
Posts like this echo how I feel so I'll just link that and not babble on. I get that it's not for everyone.
It's *extremely* easy to try though. Just install the i3 package and then choose it in your login manager or add it to .xinitrc if you don't use a login manager. If you don't like it, remove it, no harm done since it's a completely modular and stand-alone package - it doesn't burrow its way into your system like DEs can.
If I weren't using i3 I'd be using Gnome 3.x. I agree with Smithy, there's not much reason to use anything else if you want the full-DE everything-done-for-you approach as Gnome is miles ahead of anything else. It's intelligent and robust. It does have its idiosyncrasies but most of them can be worked around if they bother you. It's a really nice, *coherent* desktop. Looks nice, too, with something like the Arc theme and Numix icons.
KDE's currently very good but you have to spend a lot of time wrestling it into doing what you want, it's clunky as fuck by default.
Xfce's a fucking mess.
i3 4 lyf.