[graemep]

Simple solution. Do what you would do with a Mac and buy a computer with Linux preinstalled.

> not need to worry about differences between different distros and death by a thousand small gaps between them

Why do you care about small differences. Just pick one.

> cycle between different package managers looking for an up-to-date version of a software that I need - not need to worry about differences between different distros and death by a thousand small gaps between them

Why do you need the very latest version of software? Yes, a traditional stable distribution will not have the latest versions of everything in its repos but I think that is fine.

If it is a problem for you use a distribution that uses flatpack or snap. That is very like MacOS.

I have installed many versions of Linux over the years, and some might take a few hours to setup but I have never spent days fixing stuff.