just get an extra ssd, install mint or pop (or both on separate partitions) and try

there is a learning curve, and there’s always new stuff, more depth, but imo the above two are fairly easy to understand. pop is more osx-like both in looks but also, it’s somewhat locked down, which can feel limiting but it keeps things simple. i’ve been using it in the last few years daily. i was using mint before that, i started daily driving linux with it, but i managed to mess it up enough that every game was struggling to run lol, but i played hl:alyx on there without an issue for example

nvidia doesn’t make the best linux drivers, but some think they are completely unusable but actually it just means that there are some games that are glitchy or slow, for instance forza horizon runs better on my steam deck than my rtx 2080. although recently it went from 20-30 fps to 30-40, so it will get better at some point
edit: actually, the above was last week, there were some updates and it’s a sputtery 60 fps now

next build will have an amd card for sure, but nvidia is mostly usable too. the “anti-cheat” blockade is more frustrating imo

fyi you can use the deck restore image on an amd build, although probably there will be complications
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1b71-edf2-eb6d-2bb3#reimage
afaik chimeraos is the recommended alternative, which is a fork of the current steamos, with more supported hw (but not nvidia)