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dire problems, including those that accumulate over time
That’s not a thing. You create problems over time by experimening in what is, effectively, production load. If all you ever did was install any distro and kept it up to date - not much can break. Granted - shit happens, but it’s incredibly rare.
As an example - I’ve set up my mail server in May 2019. Chose archlinux, because I never wanted to go through a big upgrade. The only exta software installed there is mail-server related. Direct from the repos. I’ve become confident enough that now there’s a nightly cronjob to update the system with a hook to reboot if kernel or init gets updated.
In all those 5 a bit years I’ve had one issue where I hqd to revert a kernel update.
Another example is tang on an ubuntu server. This was at a previous workplace, but essentially it’s a piece of software from the repos. Originally installed on 16.04, has gone without reprovisioning all the way to 22.04. I’ve now left the company, but I hear it’s still running.
Upgrading an ubuntu desktop fleet with a myriad of custom software, on the other hand… let’s just not talk about it.
I’m a syaadmin now, but self hosting nextcloud is what got me my first IT job. I now host a bunch of stuff (even email!), lemmy included.