I need a distro that can work right out the box without too much hassle to configure it, which one would you recommend?

agreed with debian, it's by far the most stable and no bullshit system i've ever used. however, BIG condition: do NOT install .deb files manually. that's an extremely easy way to break your system. use what's in the repos, and if it's not in the repos, use something like flatpak (not sure how well it works for debian since i haven't used it).

in general though, if you want a stable linux system, just don't try to install stuff that isn't packaged in official repos.