I’m at work and I don’t have time to give you a proper reply, but you can start from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9tb1gTTbJE

The beauty of Linux is that you can use pretty much any distribution to game and they’re all equally suited for it since you can install pretty much anything you want.

You don’t have to use SteamOS although you can. Different distributions have a different philosophy and are different levels of beginner friendly. If you want something that just works, Mint is a good option. Mint is basically Ubuntu but with a lot of configuration out of the box. Ubuntu is a good option as well. But you don’t really need to worry about which is best for gaming.

Microsoft includes Ubuntu in the Linux subsystem for Windows. I don’t think they are involved beyond that. Doesn’t really mean anything except you can use Ubuntu (and some other distros) inside Windows. This is only really meaningful if you’re trying to do Linux work but your employer forces you to have Windows.

Nvidia supports Linux but they refuse to open source their drivers. I don’t have any nvidia hardware so maybe someone else can speak to this better. But I believe the proprietary nvidia drivers are notoriously buggy and out of date. AMD support is much better. There are open source drivers that work great. I’ve never even had to think much about my graphics card. People I know who use nvidia have more trouble. So this is good for you.

A good jumping off point would be to first choose a distribution and make a bootable USB drive with it. Most will have a “Live” version of the iso (the install file) that lets you boot in to it without installing anything. So you can boot in to it before installing abs poke around, see if you have any hardware issues before committing. If you want to proceed, Google dual boot Linux/Windows and follow guides. Make sure you backup any data on your computer case things go wrong. It’s possible to accidentally bork your Windows partition.

I would encourage you to do some experimenting in virtual machines before making a move on your hardware. I’m not familiar with Windows tools in this regard, but something like VirtualBox allows you to go through the installation process and test out configuration options without risking breaking your bootloader, etc.

I don’t have a certain answer to your first question, but I’ve had great gaming experiences on both Arch and Debian. One of the biggest advantages to Arch is the wiki, which you will probably find yourself using no matter which distro you end up on, as it has good documentation for a lot of different applications.

Ubuntu is a fine choice if a distro, but I wouldn’t assume that there is greater application compatibility with Windows. Portability has way more to with the application than with the OS, so if there are certain applications you cannot do without, you need to start researching their Linux compatibility. There is also a compatibility layer you may have heard about already called Wine, so look into that, too.

AMD has better open source driver support with it’s hardware than Nvidia. I don’t know so the details on this, but if you have an AMD GPU, that is generally more desirable at this time.

I would encourage you to try out all the most popular distros in VirtualBox, and go from there.

My suggestions:

1. start with whatever distro you think looks cool. It doesn’t matter. Obv don’t start with one that has a reputation for being challenging, like Arch or Gentoo. Personally I started on Ubuntu, but that was 15 years ago. If I were to start today, I’d probably start on Mint? Maybe Endeavouros? Idk. Check distrowatch if you want to know what’s out there.

2. No matter what you choose, you, like everyone else, will end up trying all the big ones at some point. It’s fun. You’re not getting married, it’s just a place to start.

3. take it slow. You don’t need to switch all at once, and it’s probably bad if you do. Linux takes work sometimes, and there’s not always warning when trusts going to happen. So have a fallback, something stable you can use when you just don’t have time to fix things. I still use Windows for video games (mainly because Bill Gates is a piece of shit who did and still does everything he can to destroy knowledge sharing and open source).

4. To exit Vim, hit escape a few times and then type :q enter.

5. alternatively, don’t exit Vim. You shouldn’t need to. It’s all you need, not just in computing, but in life.

which one is best suited for gaming? I do a couple other things as well but I would expect that any OS could deal with those. I know vaguely about proton / the steam deck improvements that trickled down, but don’t know if and how that affects different Linux versions.

Recommendation answer: I’d probably start with Pop! OS. It’s a good starter distro with a lot of very useful things configured nicely for new users out of the box.

Useful knowledge answer: Most distros are identical for gaming. Steam can be installed on basically any of them. As long as your graphics drivers are correctly setup on whatever you choose, you’re fine.

I read some days ago that ubuntu is being used by Microsoft, does that mean it is more compatible with their other applications?

Nope. Microsoft apps aren’t purposefully written to be compatible with Linux at all - If WINE (windows compatibility layer, also used by proton) can run it, it’ll run on any Linux distro. Microsoft is just using Ubuntu for WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux, a developer tool) and their cloud servers.

I also read that amd is better suited to linux because nvidia refuses to support it, which would be a happy coincidence for me because I just recently built a fully amd computer, is that actually true?

Nvidia works fine on Linux - I run an RTX 3080 with no problems. The main reason AMD is considered better is that AMD’s graphics drivers are open sourced, meaning they are generally better-maintained and yes, better-supported by the company specifically. In other words: You’re less likely to have problems on AMD, but Nvidia works fine if you have it.

And lastly, provided there is even a definitive answer to my first question, where should I look to get started? I have never dealt with Linux before but would consider myself reasonably tech / computer savvy.

Linux can do something that Windows cannot: “Live boot” environments. That’s a fancy name for “the installer runs within a functional, read-only installation of the OS”. You can download things, install applications, poke at stuff, etc. but your changes are only stored temporarily in RAM, and don’t actually change the boot media.

As such, the easiest thing to do to get started would be these steps:

1. Get Ventoy. This will let you boot to Linux installation+live media by just copying ISO files to a USB drive.
2. Install Ventoy on a USB drive of your choice (bigger is better)
3. Download a few distribution ISOs - I recommend downloading the ISO for each of these distros: Pop! OS, Linux Mint, Manjaro, and Nobara.
4. Copy the ISOs to your Ventoy drive
5. Boot your computer from the Ventoy drive (many will do so automatically), and choose one of the ISOs you downloaded.

Bam! You’re in a Linux environment. If you wind up wanting to install it, there’s an icon on the desktop of each of those distros for doing exactly that. Most will even walk you through the process of dual-booting.

Caveat: if you dual-boot, the bootloader installed by Linux will become responsible for the boot process - So your Windows installation can/could still be broken by it if something goes wrong during installation. Make sure to create a known-good backup first =]