I’m in the same spot and 95% settled on moving to debian.
xubuntu has been good to me the last 10yrs. But its been about xfce, ubuntu got be part of the relationship because it was easy when i knew very little about linux. that and it can run well on a potato with a bunch of computer parts just duct taped randomly onto it. which is basically what my dumpster dived laptop was 10 yes ago.
/mnt/external_ssd_1/git_repos/reponame
i trust my workstations os to still be working in the morning as much as i trust the chances i even published the stupid branch after making it.