@nicd I use Arch, which I think is ideal for this use case.

Ubuntu is on a pretty old kernel, and with Arch you can also install pre-built Proton versions (some games are better on different versions).

Some people prefer Nobara (Fedora based) which is lower maintenance.

@nicd I installed #Bazzite indeed. Works great! Steam and lutris allready installed.

@nicd Any distro you like will be the best for you. Personally, that's Manjaro, but that's not necessarily the right one for you.

Many people like Fedora, but I find it annoying. Most guides online are tailored towards Ubuntu, so that's a good place to start. Pop_OS is backed by System 76, and it's based on Ubuntu, so that's also a good place to start.

My tip would be: Try a few, see what you like, stick with that. And don't go for the omnipresent "Best Linux distros for gaming" articles. Unless you go for something really old, you'd be hard pressed to see any noticeable performance difference between any modern major distros.

@nicd I installed Debian on my AMD mini PC. Steam and Proton stuff worked mostly without issues or extra manual installs. For regular users I would suggest Ubuntu or Mint.

@nicd Cachy os
https://wiki.cachyos.org/configuration/gaming/

@nicd I've been running Linux Mint for years on my old gaming PC. Would probably go with Bazzite now, since I don't need to tinker much on the desktop these days. And Steam Deck has been a very nice experience with SteamOS for me.

If you end up with someting else than Bazzite. I recommend that you install Steam directly from your distros package manager's repos if possible. Steam is also available via flatpaks and snaps, but you might encounter some weird issues due to sandboxing.

@nicd just install Ubuntu & Steam. It just works. I think SteamOS is/was based on Ubuntu.

@nicd I would go with Ubuntu, Fedora or Linux Mint. Out of those I would probably recommend Fedora since it has been most stable for me.

I recommend those three since those have a lot of users, are user friendly and most software have support for those.

I don't think I had issues when installing games from Steam. Out side Steam games had some issues like Battle.net and Epic Games (but were solvable).

There are a lot of solid flavors that are probably better if the focus is gaming like Kubuntu and Nobara, but since I have not personally tried them I cannot recommend them. But I also think "base distros" are better starting point for linux beginners.

@nicd Just Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora.

Ubuntu has this habit of defaulting to snaps for its package system which I find rather annoying, but other folks like it so _shrugs_.

Fedora will probably have more up to date packages if you prefer that.

I personally run Debian and quite enjoy it. I've had very few issues with it for playing games and absolutely no issues using it for development work.

The BIGGER question you should look at is Gnome or KDE. Take a look at some screenshots of the two and decide which you think you'd visually prefer. Both work just fine so it's more of a personal preference on which you prefer.

Gnome is more MacOS-like and KDE is more Windows-like.

KDE is WAY more configurable but you may find yourself down rabbit holes for hours tweaking visual things to fit perfectly to your liking.

Don't worry about spending too much time looking for a "gaming distro". Any distro will run Steam and work well with AMD+AMD hardware. As for installing "all the goodies", it's generally just a matter of opening the provide software store and searching for "Steam". If you want to play around with something like Bazzite go ahead, but don't feel like it's a requirement to play games.

Lastly to "the way of installing", just download the ISO of whichever choice you go with, grab a USB flashing utility, and reboot into that USB drive. https://etcher.balena.io/ is generally a popular choice for writing to USB drives.