And another “two cents”: do want fancy graphics effects, or do you just want a stable, functional OS? I’ve been using Peppermint OS as my main desktop OS for years. It’s light on resource usage and not preloaded with unneeded software. You can install whatever you want from the Ubuntu repository.
For specific uses, I use other flavors of Linux: Parrot OS KDE for pentesting, Security Onion for network monitoring, and Debian (with no GUI) for things such as UniFi controller and Nexpose (a vulnerability scanner).