For me

Mint

Manjaro

Zorin

Garuda

Neon

  • LFS surely teaches more, but not by much.

    Portage lets you see down into the proper guts of Linux deployment. It’s much more applicable knowledge than almost any other distro. Plus, the install and maintenance teach non-specific fundamentals as well.

    LFS gives a bit more learning and an utterly impractical OS for real life.

    Gentoo teaches slightly less, and gives you an extremely robust and flexible OS.