Linux 101 stuff. Questions are encouraged, noobs are welcome!

I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu as much. It has a bad reputation on forcing users it's own, corporate stuff down their throats.

A great newcomer-distro is Mint. It is very user friendly and just as capable as other distros. Especially as a long-term windows user you may find it familiar and very sanely configured.

Otherwise, Fedora, may it be the "normal" version or it's immutable variant, is also a good choice. But, both are a tiny bit more advanced than Mint. Mint is the king in that regard.

The Gnome desktop is very different than everything you've encountered, you may like or dislike it. There are also other desktops available if you're interested.

I'd say, start with Mint to get everything familiar, and then switch to Fedora Silverblue. SB is my favourite distro, since it's very flexible and ultra-low maintenance :)

and ensuring a smooth gaming setup.

Just install Steam (and maybe Lutris) and you're done. You don't need anything else. Your AMD GPU driver should be pre-installed, or the Nvidia one is easily installable too, usually at the start wizard. Otherwise, you don't need anything else.

All the stuff on "gaming distros" is not needed or individually installable.

Any must-have tools, software, or tweaks?

If you're on Fedora or Ubuntu (Gnome by default) the Extension Manager is great. I'd recommend checking that out and looking for extensions like GS-Connect or so, they're great.

Otherwise, just scroll through the Software Center and see if there's something that exites you. Everything else essential is already installed.

Your insights, recommendations, and personal experiences would be immensely helpful as I embark on this exciting journey. Thanks in advance for your guidance!

Of course, inform yourself first a bit on how to use Linux. Stuff like using the software center to install stuff instead of hunting the web for .exe-equivalents, alternative programs, and so on. Otherwise, if you've already done that, here are a few advices from my side.

If you like your setup, don't change it. If you feel good on Mint, stay on it. Don't distrohop. Most distros are the same.

You could check out Distrobox later in your journey. It allows you to create integrated containers, which is super useful when programming or when a software isn't available for your distro.

Don't overcomplicate everything. Most mainstream or beginner distros are sanely preconfigured, especially Mint and Fedora. They work out of the box.

If you settle on Gnome (especially Fedora), use the default workflow how it is intended.

And don't use "pro" distros like Arch or NixOS at first. They may be good, but not for a starter.

The buggest hurdle is usually software. Make a list of all the applications you use on a daily basis. If they all have a linux version that's great, otherwise I'd suggest finding alternatives that work on linux (or at least work okay through WINE) before you switch your OS. Ideally you would swap out all your software for linux-compatible ones before you even switch away from Windows to get a feel for everything and minimise the amount of things you have to learn all at once.

After that choosing a linux distro is honestly not as life-defining as you'd think. Don't feel like you have to stick with the first distro you choose, as chances are you won't pick the right one for you until you know a little more. I'd recommend setting up a USB drive with Ventoy and filling it full of distro images so you can get a feel for how they work without too much fuss.

For reference, my personal journey started with Ubuntu, then Kubuntu (uses the KDE desktop which I much prefer, instead of GNOME), then I hopped over to Arch-based distros with Manjaro (finally got me away from the very clunky and annoying PPA system that Ubuntu and derivatives have), then EndeavourOS when I realised Manjaro is honestly just a hot mess (the devs have screwed up several times. A more vanilla Arch distro like EndeavourOS works way better for the AUR too).

The must-have tool for your setup is Steam.

If you have an NVIDIA card, the drivers will not be installed by default, so you’ll need to install them with your distro’s software center for peak graphics performance.

Otherwise, no real tips other than don’t forget to run your distro’s update/upgrade tools every once in a while. The nice thing about linux is you can start out with next to nothing and install tools as you need them. If you don’t need them, don’t install them.

If you are coming from Windows, the GNOME interface of Ubuntu might be a bit confusing. It is probably easier to use KDE plasma, which will look and feel more familiar. Try Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with KDE.

I'd dual boot. Get one drive for Windows, and another for a Debian distro like Ubuntu. If you're new to Linux then there's a good chance you could mess up and accidentally kill your display by updating drivers manually or something. By having another OS that you know on hand, you always have something to fall back on while you figure out what you just did.

#1 start by switching to all foss software on windows, try to use only software that is also available on Linux.

#2 keep windows around and dual boot, if you make an effort to get things working in Linux before rebooting into Windows, eventually you'll use windows less and less.

I recently moved from Windows 11 to Ubuntu and I have happy with it. I had everything I needed synced with OneDrive but because it does not provide a native client for Linux, I changed to pCloud and I am happy with it. If you use OneDrive (or another cloud provider that does not provide a satisfactory client), rclone does a really good job to fill that space. I used it to download all my file from OneDrive.

Pop_OS seems to be a popular distro for gamers (never tried it, could be wrong). I just use Heroic Games Launcher (don't install via Snap, use Flatpak), works great.

Use mint instead of ubuntu and set up timeshift as soon as you get a distro installed. Its a simple automatic backup tool with a gui.

I am trying fedora kinoite because i like the name, it is imutable which means you can't fuck your system as easily, has an app store, is customizable and looks good.

I'm no help on gaming and idk what tools you'll need but for general advice, I'd say go fedora, enable all the repos and flatpack, keep backups, and don't be scared of the terminal (it'll become your best friend if you use it right) just be cautious with sudo and su.