Typically you want stability and predictability in a server. A platform that has a long support lifecycle is often more attractive than one with a short lifecycle.

If you can stay on v12.x for 10 years versus having to upgrade yearly yo maintain support, that’s ideal. 12.x should always behave the same way with your app where-as every major version upgrade may have breaking changes.

Servers don’t need to change, typically. They’re not chasing those quick updates that we expect on desktops.

Yeah, and that's the take I assumed to hear based on what was said.

However, for something like ARM and the use case this particular device may have, in reality you would _want_ (my opinion) to be on a more rolling release distros to pick up the updates that make your system perform better.

I'd take a similar stance for devices that are built in a homelab for running LLMs.

Depends on what you're building an ARM system for. There are proper ARM servers out there; server work isn't the exclusive domain of x86, after all.

For homelabs, that's out the window. Do whatever you want/fits your needs best. This isn't the place where you'd likely find highly available networks, clustered or highly available services, UPS with battery banks, et. al.