I have always been tempted by Linux, and the past few times I have tried it, I spent days setting it up, only to be forced back to Windows.
I want to be more committed, and create a support network before I format everything and start again.
I use my PC for gaming and work. For work I connect to the system via a vpn client which has a linux version, so thats ok
Games are mostly Steam, though I occasionally play Fortnite with my son, and I am aware Heroic/Lutris can help with that.
The last time I installed Linux (Ubuntu) my second monitor kept switching from extend to mirror. It might not sound like a big deal, but having to change it back every time it went to sleep was a pain, and it never happened on Windows which just worked. I also had some trouble with dark mode, some apps would set the text to white but not the background to black, so you couldnt read anything.
The time before I think I was using Mint, there was an issue with the boot script which made boot up times take up to 15 minutes which again just doesnt happen on Windows.
I dont know Linux enough to be able to sort these things myself, and I have tried message boards, but it can take days for a reply, if you get a reply at all.
I have heard a lot of people are switching to Bazzite, but does it have a desktop like other OSes, or is it just gaming? Its hard to figure out.
Is one of these better for support, advice, compatibility?
I am no expert and can only tell from my own experience: i recently installed CachyOS with KDE, it is an Arch based distro, despite that I, a fresh linux user, think it is really accessible and it worked out of the box. Gaming is not really an issue for me, if issues arise i just check ProtonDB, but that´s really rare thanks to Lutris being pre-installed. You also benefit from the Arch Wiki which, in my opinion, has a REALLY good documentation of any question or issue you encounter with that operating system.
You have to get comfortable with the terminal though, but i think that applies to any linux distro (my only other distro experience is Mint 10 yrs ago)