>>15888594
Other anons have already answered this pretty well, but I'll throw my 2 cents in based on what I've learned so far.
The short answer is really that your choice of distro doesn't matter too much outside of how obnoxious it'll be to get things set up and how much you'll have to adjust to changes from wangblows. The major differences between distros is mostly philosophical/moral and whether or not the development team is reliable/dependable, so this is where most of the split between which distro is the "best" comes from.
There's a couple of paradigms that you have to wrap your head around that will seem really weird if you've only ever used microshaft or mac OS's before, though. For example:
1. With wangblows/mac, you get no choice in desktop environments or pre-installed programs. The operating system is shipped "as-is" and offers no real customization (outside of "hacking" the system files or editing the ISO beforehand), so you don't have a reason to think about the difference between the kernel and the desktop environment.
With linux, every distribution is using the same underlying OS structure (the linux kernel) with the differences mostly coming down to what pre-installed software, configurations, drivers, and user interface (desktop environment) it ships with. This is why you'll see various different versions of the same distro (e.g. Mint with Cinnamon, Mint with GNOME, Mint with KDE), they're just variations on what's included by default. If you install one specific release and find you don't like the way it looks/functions, you can change almost anything about it without having to reinstall the whole OS.
2. With wangblows/mac, your security and software updates are created, curated, and delivered by Microshaft/Apple. In the case of mac and to a lesser extent windows 10, they also curate what programs are available to you. You always have everything that updates could "depend" on, because it's either bundled in with the OS or gets bundled with the software itself, but you have to rely on these major corporations to make sure your OS doesn't suck the big one.
In linux, security fixes, updates, and software packages are created/curated by people in the distro's community, or in the case of software, offered as source to be compiled on your own. Moreover, most distributions of linux are based around the same "main" distribution and are thereby able to use the same software and update packages that are made available for the "main" distro. For example, Mint is based on Ubuntu, so Mint users have access to everything that Ubuntu users have access to, in addition to anything that the Mint devs add on top. The community open approach to OS development is why linux is considered more secure and efficient, but it does come with the consequence that support can be a little inconsistent. Your experience may vary.
3. In wangblows/mac, command-line usage as a regular user is almost non-existent, as everything is designed to be "user-friendly" and thus is almost always automated with a few clicks.
In linux, command-line usage isn't *technically* mandatory for most tasks, but you'll need to get familiar with the terminal at some point, as many linux users will make the assumption that you're familiar with it. Due to the fact that linux is so customizable and varied, it's just easier for people to give an answer that depends on the terminal (something *every* distro has) rather than try to figure out what desktop environment someone is using, and more specifically which programs they're using for file management, package management, etc. and then giving a customized answer.
tl;dr Mint with Cinnamon is very simple to use, and requires very little adjustment coming from windows, but you can use just about any major distro and have no trouble gaming on it. A combination of Steam, Photon, and virtual machines will cover most of your needs. Most distros don't ship with proprietary (read: official) drivers for graphics cards, but you can get them from their sites. Your experience may vary depending on the game.