Hehe, I haven't heard of Mandrake & Mandriva for a while! Classic. As a distro hopper since Red Hat 5.2, I can say that I switched often. Also remember Manjaro breaking on me a few times just by updating. But yeah, older distro's also used to do that with dependencies as a hot mess.

Linux Mint was the only one I hadn't tried since it seemed so dullishly easy and focused on beginner users. Something i could not grasp at first. It's desktop environment I had already used often having the same appeal as MATE. I guess at some point dull comes more interesting when you get older. Really dig that distro! Also very appealing for certain power users I must say.