Linux

Bazzite

If not Bazzite, Nobara is an option. It is based on Fedora, but is not an atomic distro, and iirc, it replaces selinux with apparmor, but unless you're getting into development, docker/podman etc, selinux will never be an issue.

Nobara is maintained by Glorious Eggroll, who also maintains proton-ge. Is also comes with an iso with built-in nvidia drivers, and also comes with an HTPC iso.

I have been using it for a few years, now. The documentation is also well detailed. And anything that works on Fedora will work on Nobara.

I don't really follow what's going on between different distributions as Debian has been my workhorse for decades, but a few weeks ago out of curiosity I threw bazzite on a desktop which was left ower due to work changes and that hardware is now just for gaming. Installation was pretty much just next-next-next and it after boot there was a steam login window ready to go. Every game in my library so far has been just as flawless experience than with windows, if not even better. I don't have any the new AAA-titles and I'm not a fan of any online-multiplayers, so YMMV. For Epic I installed Heroic-launcher and (atleast games I've tested so far) everything works.

Garuda, Bazzite, Zorin, Pop OS...and get a seperate machine for work. Hell no, I'm not letting my employer on to my personal machine.

I'm throwing in my vote for CachyOS. Not because it's the easiest to use (though it isnt difficult imo) but because it works out of the box, then they have nice wiki to guide you through simple things (like using Lutris and Proton). It's also Arch based so there's the arch wiki to fall back on. I ran Windows for 35 years and just switched to Linux in like October, fwiw.

maybe the distro you use? so that you could directly offer help.

if not, maybe just plain old debian?

Side question: his job is asking him to run work programs on his personal machine? If they are not willing to provide a work laptop or if it is something that does not require powerful hardware to run, I feel like in that situation I would buy a burner laptop off ebay to run the work thing on.

That's just my personal preference, but I do not mix work and personal things on the same computer.

I don’t have a recommendation other than don’t recommend something to your friend for which you’re not willing to provide tech support.

Just install Mint. Honestly, “gamer” Linux is a pretty silly concept. You can install Steam and Lutris on any distro which gets you access to basically all modern PC gaming. Even something as slow to embrace change as Debian has recent enough drivers and kernels available.

Nobara, LinuxMint, Zorin, PopOS & Manjaro. Or MXLinux or Antix if the hardware is potato

Echoing what others have said, a "gaming distro" really isn't necessary. I have used Ubuntu for years on and off. When I switched my gaming PC to Linux earlier this year I went with Kubuntu, because it's just Ubuntu and I like KDE Plasma better than Gnome. I do feel like Ubuntu is one of the easiest to find support for when you're looking online.

CachyOS

Trust me it’s super easy and nice.

I wouldn't put my work system running inside my first Linux distro. This is a recipe for disaster.

Arch or Debian. Depends on their personality and use case. I prefer Arch, but have no problems with recommending Debian and use it on one machine myself.

Edit: after re reading I'd say Debian. Little more stability but it is more annoying if they ever do wana tinker more. OpenSuse is an honorable mention as well!

Fedora or Ubuntu. No need to overthink it. They are the two biggest distros in popularity by far (except Arch, which probably beats Fedora), so you have access to maximum mindshare and previous troubleshooting.

Including Arch, these three distros are among the most polished, stable, and well-documented. Arch takes quite a bit more effort, so a beginner without much time on their hands should start with Ubuntu or Fedora.

Mint (LMDE). It might actually be easier to use than windows. My dead dad could use it and he was a moron. I held out for quite a while to try out 'cooler' distros but yeah, Mint is what I'm telling anyone moving from windows to use now.

Anyone in these comments claiming there is a big difference between "gaming distros" and any other is flat wrong.

Any distro works. It's about the initial experience they want without having to fuss about changes. You can switch Desktop Environment on any distro easily, none of them offer massive gaming performance differences over the others. It's subjective. For a beginner, don't recommend immutable. That's pretty much it.

The Bazzite KDE version is a great option, as long as you install apps from the built-in Bazaar store, it’s hard to mess anything up, and it already includes most of the software you’ll need so it usually works well out of the box.

If your friend has to troubleshoot issues on bazzite, it’s better not to install extra system packages on top of the core OS (“layering”), because that can sometimes cause problems and make things harder to fix.

You can also set up a tool called Winboat, which lets you run Windows inside Bazzite; it integrates nicely and isn’t too difficult to configure.

Bazzite is the first recommendation if the apps your friend needs are available on Flathub. If they need more complex software that only comes as Debian (.deb) packages, Linux Mint is probably a better choice because installing non‑Flatpak apps there is much easier, although the trade‑off is that installing a lot of extra packages can potentially break the system if you are not careful. If they mostly stick to the Mint software store, it should stay stable and they are unlikely to run into problems.

I have a specific use case for CachyOS but I see two categories:

1. Bazzite, not intending to use the terminal much. Also less frequent updates which ought to be very stable. Atomic.
2. CachyOS, using the terminal and frequent updates. Rolling, and good support base.

Both use flatpaks which will keep apps sandboxed. A lot of users don't seem to like snaps being pushed by Ubuntu so flatpak is the big choice.

LMDE 7 and send it. Regular mint has Ubuntu nonsense baked in, lmde is basically the same end user experience and smooth Debian jazz underneath.

Like someone else said, steam, heroic.

I’d avoid any of the gamer distros.

Honestly, my recommendation for new users who are into gaming is Bazzite. Just install everything through the software store and it just works. Well, everything that's available as a flatpak at least. Steam comes preinstalled, as do all the drivers (among some other various gaming-oriented things like kernel optimizations and Lutris), so it's basically just install and done. The software store, Bazaar, will find basically anything a normal user needs. The nice thing about atonic distros is that you generally don't need to do anything through the command line,as installs are perfectly consistent across all computers (so no random things breaking in the background without someone else noticing and either filing a bug report for you in the beta, or fixing the issue outright). After over a decade of Linux use, I've never found an easier distro. I honestly have switched to it as my main distro because I love Fedora, and the atomic features are nice (and Bazzite is just a little nicer for my use case than Kinoite).

When I set someone up with Bazzite, I just tell them to install everything through the software store, and I rarely get questions other than "how do I install this software that isn't available on Linux", which I usually meet with a recommendation for an alternative, or if it's really critical, I'll have them install through Bottles or something. I always mention the "no Adobe or Autodesk" caveot before they install, so I never really get questions about that except for "well, what would you recommend I use instead?"

As to answer your questions directly:

1. It is very common, so you can find Bazzite specific answers,
2. As far as I've used it (which is a couple years now) things never break, so finding solutions that work in other distros doesn't tend to apply for me (except for when I want to make custom scripts like when I bound a mouse button to hard mute and unmute my mic, though I just had to look up generic Pipewire stuff)
3. Everything installs as a flatpak, so selinux is essentially completely unnoticed. I've never had a single issue with selinux and I'm a power user. I've used Fedora-based distros for many years and only ever encountered selinux issues on my server, and that was for low-level processes that aren't relevant to desktop use (for instance, setting up NUT to automatically power off all devices on my network during a power outage when the UPS battery is low)