Arch has been consistently more breaky for me than Ubuntu. It is fashionable to bash Ubuntu but I have found it quite polished as long as you don't try to color outside the lines.

I have used FreeBSD on the desktop since 1996. I am not a system guru. I have never used an install guide. I only ever used the guided installer and just let it run. It has always just worked. But there is also nothing to be gained by using FreeBSD...because coloring inside the lines on FreeBSD means using their polished tools to manage your system. I never ended up exploring my system much because I never had to...sysinstall did it for me.

Indeed in the late 90s when Linux distros were immature, I recommended FreeBSD to people who wanted a "just works" approach that let them continue to be as systems-stupid as me.

I see Ubuntu as the best current manifestation of what FreeBSD always was for me...the quickest, friendliest path to get a unix-like OS on your computer with lots of good defaults and hand-holding.