In terms of distro, I use NixOS because I like that I can commit changes and updates to git. It is better suited for people who want to tinker with their system and might not be as beginner friendly.
Otherwise, Nobara is a pretty good distro, but maybe when SteamOS rolls out to the public or another arch distro (cachy or chimera) until then.
Fedora (nobara) is alright, but I’d recommend getting a drive > 128gb of storage. Your OS upgrades can get stalled if you run out of space on your hard drive. I’ve personally had issues upgrading too.
Arch is also alright, but make sure you don’t get too behind on updates. Steam os and other distros may have gotten better than when I last used it
hardware
AMD GPUs seem to work with minimal setup. Nvidia is kinda a pain, because it needs a kernel override, but should be better with a GPU newer than 20 series.
Xbox controllers
If you want your Xbox controller dongle to work, use xone
Otherwise if you want to use the dongle as Bluetooth
If your wireless xbox controller drops out, you’ll want to update the controller firmware using a windows pc or have a vm handy. I used quickemu to make a windows 10/11 vm to install the Xbox accessories app. For whatever reason, the controller can only be detected and updated when I pass the Xbox wireless dongle to the vm. It’s really weird, but quickemu works better than Virtualbox, and is easier to setup