I have a been using it for 2 years and I was playing games without any problems. Thus said, I agree that they need to setup nvidia drivers if they are unlucky to have one.

Don’t go onto specialized distro. Just use the main ones like Mint (which is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian). I would say that Debian is the best one, but it needs to read some docs if you have a Nvidia Graphic card (but if not, it should be easy and super stable). Bazzite, Nobara, etc, are based on distro that are quickly changing (Fedora or Arch), which are really nice in their own way, but as a beginner, you need stability first!

Try this : https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=325 It is Linux Mint, but directly based on Debian instead of Ubuntu!

If you don’t need to do 3D work, you can still use a virtual machine with kvm, it is really fast! (then ditch Windows :) )