I think my best tip would be to remain persistent. If you're like me, I can get frustrated easily when I'm proficient with $tool1 and $tool2 can do the same thing but in a different way. It's then easy for me to just go back to $tool1.

For gaming specifically, AMD graphics cards tend have fewer driver problems than Nvidia (though some Nvidia users don't ever run into issues). Commonly recommended distros are Arch (or Arch-based like EndeavourOS), Pop!_OS and Fedora.