A couple people recommended Fedora spins but I'd recommend just sticking with the big distros (that have up-to-date graphics drivers readily available - so not Debian.) A lot of the gaming-focused distros are only saving you a few terminal commands and increase your risk of running into issues; they're good, but they may not be as 100% stable as you'll find in major long-running distros like Fedora or Mint.

I have settled on Fedora with KDE Plasma. Here's basically everything I copy pasted for gaming:

# install steam, discord, nvidia drivers
sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm -y
sudo dnf config-manager --enable fedora-cisco-openh264 -y
sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf install steam discord akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda

# install bluetooth Xbox driver
sudo dnf install git dkms
cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo.git && cd xpadneo
sudo ./install.sh

I also had to enable Legacy X11 App Support through the settings gui so that Discord could receive push to talk presses without having focus.

I ended up with nobara ( KDE ). Though if i had to reinstall I might give bazzite a go.

No hate for nobara though. It's working fine gaming wise. Had a gfx issue once after an update, which was resolved by just running the nobara system updater.

I have some issues getting devpods to work. But that is completely unrelated to gaming :D

If you are interested in gaming, Bazzite is built on top of a Fedora distro but adds default installs of Steam and (optional) Nvidia drivers and tweaks. It's got a cool immutable root setup. You should be able to stay pretty up-to-date, but can roll back the entire OS if an update breaks something.

Linux has lots of flavors; and just like ice cream, you can have a scoop, see if you like it, and try another one later.

I’ve been through so many Linux and Unix flavors over the years, it’s borderline absurd. But what was great is that I found a flavor just right for me and my needs, like finding your ideal car. Don’t worry about making the right decision on a flavor at the start, just dive in.

Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, Pop! OS, Manjaro, elementary OS, Zorin etc are great starting points. You’ll hear people bigging up Arch, Nix, Gentoo, Slackware, Void, etc. There’s are all great in their own way and very well might be the right thing for you but don’t feel pressured to jump in the deep end (unless you love that thing, then be my guest - Arch was a lot of fun getting it up and running for the first time).

The best decision I can suggest is learning about mount points and having a drive dedicated to your files and simply mounting that drive inside your home directory. It means you can wipe and try another distro wherever you like without having to copy your files off and on over and over again.

I ended up with nobara. I might give bazzite a go at one point, but more out of interest. Nobara is treating me just fine!

Huh. Interesting. I'll give that a try too then :)

That's my strategy as well. I just don't know how many of us there are that are that committed vs the people who are "temporarily irate" and then go back with their next purchase because its "easier".

Unless it’s arch lol.