ontop of other user comments where it boils down to trust in the maintainer and code reviewers of the project, another reason depends on the use case that you plan on using your Linux system. for example, if I were to setup a nextcloud server, i’d generally go with alpine for it’s lightweight design, or Debian for it’s stability. I wouldn’t necessarily use Kali Linux, because with those features it also uses a lot of resources for it to function, and I don’t need that for a server.

in terms of my personal device I generally build those from the tty and add other modules (like DE, utils, etc…) to give it more functionality. Much like my servers I like to have my laptop optimized – take as minimal resources as possible – which is a rather controversial take after seeing users bash at me that I’m not taking advantage of all my memory. anyways, I don’t think there is a specific distro that has everything that I want. I want a system that works that doesn’t use 2 GB from the DE alone and that is accomplished by adding the modules myself.

I don’t trust any other sub-distro other than myself. I generally go with one of the corporate base tty installer (arch) and I build the system from that. I’m not going to switch to say cachy OS for it’s aesthetics, or ease of use, I couldn’t really care less.