I think any distro will do really. I'd go for something that is friendly to new users, if you're not very familiar with Linux in general. For example: Linux Mint. Here is an example on how you can get your installation setup easily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyT4wfz5ZMg

Regarding your Valve Index. It will likely work, but don't expect it to be very easy to get it running well. I'm currently on Arch Linux with red team hardware and a Valve Index. For example, you will need to ensure the udev rules are set properly: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-devices. New issues occasionally arise, see: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues. Currently, it's not switching audio devices automatically, so I use pavucontrol (with PipeWire) to switch that manually.

Ublue Bazzite.

• Chris Titus showcase video
• Chris Titus, usage on main PC
• Chris Titus Livestream
• Interview with Jorge Castro
• Review specific for SteamDeck
• a ton more videos but I dont know the quality

Bazzite is fundamentally different as it is based on Fedora Atomic Desktops. This is huge.

The OS is worlds more stable and reliable.

They use Fedoras base and add all the gaming stuff to it, to work out of the box.

I use Aurora, coming from Fedora Kinoite (KDE Atomic) and then uBlue Kinoite.

Bazzite, it's an immutable Fedora-based distro, so in the unlikely event that it breaks, you can just revert back to whatever you had before.

Nobara is similar, Fedora-based but not immutable, which means you can tinker with it, but possibly also break it. Made by Glorious Eggroll, the guy behind the GE versions of proton and wine.

Mint is a more general-purpose distro, based on Ubuntu (which itself is based on Debian), but it's very user-friendly and does just fine with games.

Manjaro is fine, it's the one I put on my mom's computer because she needed a Windows program that I found in the AUR. It was pretty decent for the four games that she plays lol (The Sims 4, AoE2, Neverwinter Nights, and Prince of Qin). It's Arch-based, but not bleeding-edge like Arch, so it's ostensibly more stable.

As far as the Index goes, idk about that, as I don't own one. However, I just DDG'd "valve index on linux", and quite a few guides came up, so it shouldn't be too hard to get it going. Plus Valve is a pretty Linux-friendly company,

Anything with a recent kernel is fine. If you're not very experienced, I'd recommend something like Fedora or OpenSUSE (both semi-rolling releases so you'll get new kernels, graphics drivers, etc. but less likely to break for no reason than arch/gentoo derivatives).

Manjaro is fine if you don't use the AUR, but arch/manjaro repositories on their own will be inadequate, and it will be so easy to get what's missing from the AUR, which will eventually break something. This is because Manjaro holds back arch Linux updates for a week or two for "testing" purposes, but the AUR expects precisely the latest arch packages. If you're thinking about Manjaro, do EndeavorOS instead. It's the same thing (arch Linux with a more user friendly installer and relatively sane default apps/configs) with infinitely less hassle. Plus there's really no point to using an arch-based distro without the AUR imo.

Garuda is also cool, I haven't used it myself, but it's supposed to be another preconfigured version of Arch more targeted towards gamers. YMMV, I'd probably just stick with EndeavorOS.

If you want an Ubuntu or Debian derivative, I'd go with Pop!OS. It's basically Ubuntu without all the Ubuntu bullshit (snaps ludicrously out of date packages, etc), and they keep the kernel and video drivers pretty recent, unlike stock Ubuntu. Plus they have a cool desktop environment. Currently it's a fork of GNOME, but they're working on rewriting it from scratch and are making great progress, which will be interesting once it's more developed.

I prefer a distro with a nice name

That's honestly a really good distro picking strategy for someone just moving to Linux.

What works best for gaming nowadays?

Depends on your system/setup. Though, you should be able to get it to work on most distros (eventually). Consider checking out https://linux-hardware.org/ to see which distros are known to work for your new laptop. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that Bazzite is the most hands-free solution for most people. However, other good options include Linux Mint and Pop!_OS.

Is manjaro good for that?

I really wonder where newcomers get to know about Manjaro 😜. Manjaro does a bunch of good stuff and has in the past been great for providing a platform by which Arch Linux (Manjaro is based on Arch) could be (relatively) easily consumed. However, Manjaro has since tarnished its own branding (see Manjarno). Hence, I find it hard to recommend it ever since.

I’ll also do some book keeping, writing et cetera but I don’t think it’s much to worry about.

You should be fine unless you need specific software (that's not available on Linux) to do those things on. For most software there are decent alternatives; https://alternativeto.net/ might be a helpful resource in that regard.

I also hope to use my Valve Index on it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any experiences on that. Therefore I abstain from giving any further comments. Wish ya good luck with that though!

The usual suspects are Bazzite, Garuda, Nobara. But you can game on every distro. To give proper advice, some info on your hardware would be needed.

Ive used Nobara before and was pretty happy with that. Like bazzite it is made for gaming and mostly just works out of the box. I haven't used bazzite though, so I can't say which was better in my experience. But VR was still a hassle to set up for me

I've used Manjaro for many years now, and it works very well for Steam IMO. When I chose Manjaro I checked ProtonDB to see if there was a trend where some distros had higher success rate for Proton games on Steam, and it seemed to me there was, and Manjaro was one of the best.

But maybe if I had checked other games I'd have other results IDK. But generally if a game has good score on ProtonDB it will work for me with my Radeon RX 6600 XT.

I would imagine most distros work well with Steam today, it is after all mostly similar libraries they all use.

Something with (close to) up-to-date kernels, like Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Thank you so much to everyone for answering. Appreciated!

Ill put my vote in for Garuda Linux. If you're using Intel nvidia it is optimized out if the box. It is built on arch so youd manage it similar to Manjaro. kDE Plasma with Wayland is smooth. I cant get GNOME network displays to work to add my TV as a monitor but otherwise everything has been great.

Any distro will do honestly. If you are a beginner and just want the distro to work out of the box, something like Pop!_OS might be for you.