Not only package manager - init system, wiki, display manager, community support, package freshness vs stability also play their role. There are many other points that are important too.
It’s easy to change display manager (except the case of keeping multiple of them to test out, if they are big and complex, like Gnome and KDE - there are conflicts).
Some distros may have worse support for specific display managers, but I cannot say as my experience was relatively smooth for Debian, Manjaro, Arch, Endeavour and Artix. In Ubuntu I had some issues, but I could live with them for a time being because I couldn’t change the workplace OS.
But for init system it’s usually PITA. Many packages, including critical for system operation may have dependency on systemd, for example.
In case of Artix Linux there are separate versions of packages for each init system that’s supported, if package has dependency on the init system.
Arch, because the documentation and support is really good. And it ‘just works.’
When it comes down to it, the only difference between distros is basically just the package manager right?
Not only package manager - init system, wiki, display manager, community support, package freshness vs stability also play their role. There are many other points that are important too.
I was going to mention wikis etc but that’s not really part of the distro that’s running on your PC, it’s part of the surrounding ecosystem.
Can you not change the init + display manager on other distros?
It’s easy to change display manager (except the case of keeping multiple of them to test out, if they are big and complex, like Gnome and KDE - there are conflicts). Some distros may have worse support for specific display managers, but I cannot say as my experience was relatively smooth for Debian, Manjaro, Arch, Endeavour and Artix. In Ubuntu I had some issues, but I could live with them for a time being because I couldn’t change the workplace OS.
But for init system it’s usually PITA. Many packages, including critical for system operation may have dependency on systemd, for example. In case of Artix Linux there are separate versions of packages for each init system that’s supported, if package has dependency on the init system.