You're wrong. It is precisely because the packages are "fresh" that it supports the latest hardware. You get the latest kernel (I'm currently running on 5.0.4, released 2 days ago!), so you get the latest support! Now Fedora is also a good choice if you don't want to install everything yourself and want a serious distribution (hint: mint is not a serious one). But if you REALLY want to improve your linux skills and stop being a noob, try this at least once: linuxfromscratch.org You'll learn plenty. Then you can install Arch, or any other really, but at least now you'll know why ;)