CachyOS. Hands down the best for you.

• Gets updates as soon as they come out which is important for gaming and software development

• Really good performance, has access to a huge amount of software

• Beginner friendly, automatically creates snapshots (backups) in case you mess up

• Has a simple to follow wiki with lots of useful info. Also it lets you install all the gaming packages you need with one button click.

No offense to people on this site but every time this thread pops up there are a lot of terrible recommendations being thrown around. Don't bother using base Arch linux if you're new to Linux. Don't use random niche distros like MX Linux. Debian is very barebones and requires you to manually set up a lot of things that come by default in other modern distros. And finally IMO don't use an immutable OS unless you know what you're getting into, as many people get burned by how hard it is to install applications on them.

I was previously using a GTX1080ti with a Ryzen 5800X.

Like you I dabbled with linux but could never get things running to the point where things just worked without constant recurring issues. At one point (during the burning crusade era) I had World of Warcraft running on a Linux system.

I've been using Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04LTS for around 18 months now as a daily driver. I use Ubuntu because it's stable and I can modify the kernel for my current FrigateNVR docker container. I use Cinnamon because I don't like searching for stuff and am used to the XP and 7 style desktop.

I still have dual boot setup mainly because I have some crypto wallets that I need to move to a client on Linux but haven't booted windows in months. I do some gaming, a ton of video editing, and manage my smarthome/network and devices which includes flashing esp devices from my Linux computer. Does a Steam Link work? No clue but I use an old laptop as a thin client with the Steam software allowing me to stream games from my desktop with no issues so as long as it functions with current games etc. I don't see why not.

For programming... well it's Linux so yeah I'm sure it will do that and more if you get the right tools.

My stepson uses ChimeraOS for his gaming system which is a Ryzen 1600 that overclocks like a beast (I used it before the 5800X and was putting numbers out that were trading blows with a Ryzen 1700X with it) and a RX7600 with 16GB of RAM. He had used that for about 5 years now and the only issue was support got messed up for the RX480 8GB that I had put in it and the network goofed so I had to remove the connection and then add it again.

If you like to mod games you'll probably want arch linux as it's heavily modular - you choose everything. You can use the archinstall script to get you setup or follow the installation guide.

I think most distros would work for that usecase. I would recommend Linux Mint, Fedora (although Nvidia drivers are more annoying there), or (K)Ubuntu. Have a look at desktop environments too, as they are very important for your experience. Some of the major ones are Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, and Gnome. Mint works best with Cinnamon, Fedora and Ubuntu let you choose which ISO you want to download.

My recommendation for new Linux users is to keep it vanilla: Mint (Debian), Fedora, or Arch. Flavor of the month distros are going to come with a lot of baked in opinions from the parent distro that may make troubleshooting more difficult if you try to treat it like that. Sure CachyOS is Arch based, but it has a custom kernel and other things. People will argue the point, but I think vanilla is just better. I also worry about distros that have yet to sufficiently establish themselves and the kind of support you can expect from them going into the future. Nothing is a bigger Linux deterrent than getting dragged into distro drama as maintainers fight, argue, fork, and drop support.

Mint: Beginner friendly. Some might recommend Debian, but I've always found setup to be a bit tedious. Mint has been around long enough to prove itself and has a well-established community.

Arch: Don't let the reputation get to you, this is a perfectly fine distro to start with if you are a person of moderate to advanced skill level, especially since the archinstall script makes actual installation much easier. If you like the idea of the Arch wiki acting as a kind of instruction manual for an OS that you haven't seen in years and hand-picking a lot of your software while making small adjustments in config files to get most things working (clearly documented in the wiki!), this is a good choice. I avoided it for years based on reputation while I fought with Ubuntu and I'm angry at how much I let community opinion deter me when this was the correct choice for me all along.

Fedora: Less to comment here as I don't have a lot of personal experience, but from what I understand it's a good compromise between Debian and Arch. A bit faster to update but not bleeding edge. Considered a bit more stable than Arch.

The most important advice I can offer is twofold,

1. Just make the switch. Once you get a better idea of what you need and what works and doesn't for you, you'll be able to make a more informed decision on if a more specific distro would suit you better.
2. Linux is not Windows. You'll never be able to replicate your workflow and feel 1:1 and you can't/shouldn't consider that a failure. Be prepared to make small adjustments but I do think you'll find the effort worth it overall.

I use Bazzite. The Mullvad VPN gui app works on it, but you will have to either add the Mullvad repo and layer the package, or install the local .rpm file (using rpm-ostree), and manually update it whenever there is an update.

Sounds complicated, but it really isn't.

If you want to use the aur, all you need to do is create an Arch distrobox (everything you need to do it is pre-installed, including a gui app for distrobox if you don't want to do CLI). You can then "export" anything you install on the box to your host OS to be opened with one click with no noticeable overhead.

And yes, you will be able to play your Steam games on the TV with Linux. Probably better and more easily than with Windows nowadays.

I'd recommend a glibc edition of Void. Dev tools and libraries aregenerally up to date; there are exceptions like some zig related stuff but you can generally work around such issues with anyzig. Also has a framework for custom builds via xbps-src in the package repo. Packagw management is very easy via xbps, and purging obsolete packages is trivial.