First pick a desktop environment, currently KDE, Gnome and Cinnamon are the best.

• Gnome: Opinionated design like apple
• KDE: tons of options.
• Cinnamon: A bit fewer options than KDE but still a lot.

All of them are very robust and have a massive user base.

Then pick a base to operate on. Fedora, Ubuntu and Mint are all good options.

• Fedora and Ubuntu are good for newer hardware and 99% of the time just works.
• Mint just works all the except for newer hardware.

Nvidia GPUs are not a big issue but you have to install the proprietary driver yourself for best performance and fewest bugs.

My pick for you is something your friend uses if you have a friend on Linux otherwise Fedora KDE or Kubuntu.

Haven’t had a problem on Bazzite. Intel i9 and nvidia 3060.

There’s a lot of info in these comments and a ton of it is good.

I will say that the best advice is to boot from a USB and try out a system for a bit. You can easily swap around that way without a commitment.

I will also say that my opinion is to start with Mint. It’s similar enough to windows in layout/workflow to feel familiar and is “boring” in a stable, easy to use way.

Use it and learn Linux. I say learn, because it doesn’t matter what the OS looks like as much as how it works, and Linux (any flavor) works differently than windows. Learn those idiosyncrasies and then of you decide you want to try something else then you’re up to speed to move on and judge a different system with a baseline.

From my experience running a setup with a RTX 3080, I recommend CachyOS. It has all the latest Nvidia drivers out of the box and you can download additional gaming packages in the “Hello” window. You can try other OSs but I found this one to be the most capable and versatile for me. As long as you make backups regularly and customize your experience with caution you’ll have a good time.

Any and all advice anyone gives you is going to be heavily weighted by their personal experiences, which is not bad, but also may not be your experience. Truly the best thing to do, if you are willing, is to try a bunch.

Download several different distributions. Get as many USB sticks as you reasonably can. Flash a different distro to each drive. Boot to them one at a time, and try them out. See what you like about one versus another. Hopefully you find one that just “clicks” for you, and then you actually install it to the computer. From there, if everything works, great - enjoy your computer. However, if you immediately run into problems, just go install your number 2 favorite and see if those problems exist there. There’s a reasonable chance they won’t.

Good places to start:

• Mint
• Debian
• PopOS
• Fedora (check out their “spins”, there are a lot of flavors of Fedora)
• Bazzite
• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
• Cachy
• Endeavor
• Garuda

(There is a thing called Ventoy which kinda lets you use several distros from one usb stick, but I’ve also seen several distro’s instructions warn against using it so maybe it isn’t the best choice for a new convert). Also, obligatory stay away from Manjaro. It isn’t worth it as a new convert…

Since you specifically mentioned gaming and streaming, a great option for you as a beginner is Nobara.

It is built specifically for gaming and streaming and has many of the tools pre-installed and makes DaVinci Resolve setup really easy (is a challenge otherwise lol). It’s based on Fedora, heavily modified kernel for performance and makes Fedora ready for gaming out of the box (which is why I discourage Fedora for gaming as a beginner, that takes a lot of set up for gaming and nvidia).

Nobara is also great for beginners because it comes with some brilliant GUI options - apps that let you click onto the specific drivers, packages you might need and the Welcome app includes options step by step of what to install. You will mostly use such an app for updates, so it takes away a lot of the fear of the terminal (but you can still use no problem). It also includes some great options for streaming apps you’ll need.

Also comes with KDE as its main suggestion (Nobara version of it or pure KDE, very little difference, basically the same with a few extra Nobara icons added i think). KDE is a fantastic DE, the workflow is similar to Windows out of the box and you won’t be unfamiliar with it, great one to start with. Plus its so customisable so you can get it looking very different from windows if you wish (which i did with mine).

They have a great Discord too if you wanna ask any questions about specific games or issues. It’s basically Fedora but gentler learning curve and everything you need ready to go out of the box

any modern distro should work so if you want þe go to beginner distro try mint!

I started with a Steam Deck. Now I’m running PopOS on my Framework 13 and Bazzite on a home theatre PC. I’ve had far fewer issues with them than any flavor of Windows.

I can’t go back. I won’t.

The desktop environment you choose is really down to what you prefer:

Like trackpads? Gnome

Like the Windows desktop (and/or like customization)? KDE

Like windows XP flat UI or brutally simple UI? Cinnamon/XFCE

Want to dive into the unknown cutting edge? Cosmic

Just use Fedora.

I have similar specs and use pop!_os with no problems. I’ve found it to be great for gaming.

For us dummies that are just getting started, and most of us are only doing it now because gaming has kept us on Windows, it would be nice if there were a Linux distribution that was singlularly focused on gaming.

I use open suse. It’s fine https://news.opensuse.org/2025/01/16/gaming-on-linux-how-os-stacks-up/

Start with Linux Mint. It’s similar in vibe to older Windows, (think Windows 7/10)

You can use the GUI for everything, even major version upgrades, driver installations, and Kernel changes.

It comes with everything you need to get started, and their software portal is easy to use and get stuff from, including gaming staples like Steam, OBS Studio, etc.

Debian, it’s 30+ years old for a reason.