... Their backup tool is so good that as my old laptop started to die I was easily able to transfer my entire setup to a totally different computer and pick up exactly where I’d left off

you must have read my mind because this is exactly why i'm on the market for a new distro. lol

i put fedora on my laptop w the intention that it'll be temporary so that i'll have something i can trust right now and knowing full well that fedora iterates quickly. their migration tool has never worked for me and now i have to update again. i'm looking for something that has a longer term iteration like debian has, but shorter than debian.