As a first time Linux user pretty much what should I use for gaming.
I have heard good things about nobara. I don't mind doing a little thinkering to have things work but I also don't want to spend hours doing recharch on how to fix things.
Edit: thanks for giving input everyone. I will try Linux mint and if it does not go well will give nobara a go instead.
Edit part two I had to boot mint in compatibility mode because I got black screen for like 15+ minutes and then I couldn't get it to see more than one monitor and 3 hours later gave up....Just put on nobara will load mint to my laptop and try to learn more because I want to but also tryna game :) you will hear more from me
Yeah, if you're planning on doing anything fancy (e.g. RTX, FSR/DLSS, streaming w/ a specific encoding, etc), do some digging to check compatibility on Linux, you may need a newer kernel or something. If you just want a general experience (e.g. mostly playing/using apps on default settings), it's less of a concern.
You need to change steam configuration to unable to enable compatibility for all games, or only Linux/proton approved will work. I agree mostly works out of the box, but eventually is good to check protondb website if for tinkering.
Mint is good, but Cinnamon development is lagging behind and starting to show it.
Last I tried to use it there was bug that caused compositing to impact game performance, it's supposed to not do that and there's a setting to disable compositing for games, but it's been non-functional for years.