I'd go with Alpine Linux, Void Linux or Arch, if you care about getting things done and especially if you plan on development.
I would not recommend Ubuntu or Debian, mostly because dealing with old packages can be the reason you waste great amount of times.
I'm writing this on Arch Linux. My oldest files (that I created) are from 2008, but I think I've been using Arch Linux longer than that. Before that I was mostly using Gentoo - basically since it got some popularity, so very early. I'd recommend Gentoo, if you don't mind compiling. I do, so that's why I don't use it.
Other than Alpine (which is the base for many Docker images) those OSs, so you want to use something else there, but all of them have the great benefit of being minimalist and do a relatively low amount of customization, meaning that software works how to author intended.
On RedHat/CentOS/Fedora, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, as great as these systems might be you tend to have many, many specifics, potentially making it a bit annoying when you want your software to work somewhere else. At least that's my experience. They are an option if you are sure to exclusively use those, but other than with Fedora, which I wouldn't recommend on the server you end up with fairly old software.
You might also want to take a look on one of the BSDs. They are really great for whatever you are doing, but their major caveat is desktop hardware support. You might be lucky or not. If you try TrueOS, a for desktop "distribution" of FreeBSD you might be lucky. Oh and doing Android development on there isn't the most pleasant. For everything else it actually has a lot of benefits. For example dtrace being a first class citizen means that debugging is so much easier, especially when it's something you didn't run in debugging mode.
All of them support virtualization and allow for battery management.
I'd make a list of distros/OSs that look interesting and _use_ any of them for at least 3 months. Don't make the mistake of essentially just trying how their installer is. After all you want to have an OS where you are productive and not run the installer. ;)
Oh and one more thing: Don't listen to hypes regarding OSs. What works for you is in my experience and incredibly personal choice. If it doesn't work for you (which you will know after 3 months) kick things of your hard disk. Don't waste your time on trying to run a system just because everyone else uses it. There just is too many people that only try the top ten linux distros, which are all really similar, because they think that one of them has to fit and that the others all all bad. That's certainly not the case. There is successful developers and companies (plural there) running any of the top 100. Look often you read about OpenBSD here and how it is only on spot 86 on distrowatch.
A better measure is how old it is and whether it is still actively developed. If it is older than ten years and there is developers working on it there probably is a good reason for them investing their time.
I would not recommend Ubuntu or Debian, mostly because dealing with old packages can be the reason you waste great amount of times.
I'm writing this on Arch Linux. My oldest files (that I created) are from 2008, but I think I've been using Arch Linux longer than that. Before that I was mostly using Gentoo - basically since it got some popularity, so very early. I'd recommend Gentoo, if you don't mind compiling. I do, so that's why I don't use it.
Other than Alpine (which is the base for many Docker images) those OSs, so you want to use something else there, but all of them have the great benefit of being minimalist and do a relatively low amount of customization, meaning that software works how to author intended.
On RedHat/CentOS/Fedora, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, as great as these systems might be you tend to have many, many specifics, potentially making it a bit annoying when you want your software to work somewhere else. At least that's my experience. They are an option if you are sure to exclusively use those, but other than with Fedora, which I wouldn't recommend on the server you end up with fairly old software.
You might also want to take a look on one of the BSDs. They are really great for whatever you are doing, but their major caveat is desktop hardware support. You might be lucky or not. If you try TrueOS, a for desktop "distribution" of FreeBSD you might be lucky. Oh and doing Android development on there isn't the most pleasant. For everything else it actually has a lot of benefits. For example dtrace being a first class citizen means that debugging is so much easier, especially when it's something you didn't run in debugging mode.
All of them support virtualization and allow for battery management.
I'd make a list of distros/OSs that look interesting and _use_ any of them for at least 3 months. Don't make the mistake of essentially just trying how their installer is. After all you want to have an OS where you are productive and not run the installer. ;)
Oh and one more thing: Don't listen to hypes regarding OSs. What works for you is in my experience and incredibly personal choice. If it doesn't work for you (which you will know after 3 months) kick things of your hard disk. Don't waste your time on trying to run a system just because everyone else uses it. There just is too many people that only try the top ten linux distros, which are all really similar, because they think that one of them has to fit and that the others all all bad. That's certainly not the case. There is successful developers and companies (plural there) running any of the top 100. Look often you read about OpenBSD here and how it is only on spot 86 on distrowatch.
A better measure is how old it is and whether it is still actively developed. If it is older than ten years and there is developers working on it there probably is a good reason for them investing their time.