The problem with most apt-based distributions is I've found that a lot of packages are out of date.

Try out a pacman-based distribution some time. The idea of a rolling distro is great in my mind and most of the packages in the repo are up to date. If something is missing there is usually an AUR.

If you use zsh with oh-my-zsh then you're going to have a much easier time finding whatever you need to install. Pacman has an autocomplete written up for it.

Also, everything is near-perfectly documented in the arch wiki.