Can anyone recommend me a distro? I used mint a long time ago but I haven't kept up with the linux space. PC will be used as a 2nd screen next to my main PC and it primarily needs to do youtube (with adblock), streaming services and maybe run a 2nd box of EQ if I ever get back into that. It'll be running on a Dell prebuilt with an i5-12500 and the igpu for now.
I see CachyOS is popular but I also see Bazzite mentioned a lot for gaming.
Bazzite is safer for beginners who want things to "just work"; it runs off Fedora's code base, most dev tools natively target Red Hat/Fedora, and as an atomic-style distro, it's easier to roll back if an update breaks your system. IIRC, they also use at least some of Cachy's speed optimizations. However, some people don't like that it's heavily curated/opinionated (the developers have a lot of apps preinstalled to give you "everything you need" for gaming out of the box, including Steam, streaming apps, etc.).
Cachy is an Arch derivative and extremely fast. However, as an Arch derivative, the learning curve is higher, even though it's "easier" Arch. I would only recommend Arch derivatives (even the "easy Arch" ones) to an intermediate user on up (or someone willing to work through the pain) because there is regular
system maintenance you are expected to do to avoid "Arch rot".
Like Noodle mentioned, I like OpenSUSE a lot too. Difficulty would be somewhere between Bazzite and Cachy (advanced beginner). While it's a traditional, non-atomic, distro like Cachy, SUSE runs all of their updates through automated QA checks, so it's pretty stable; I would call it "leading edge" instead of "bleeding edge". The predominant early challenges are installing codecs and such because (IIRC) German law prevents them from shipping the distro with them. It won't be quite as fast or optimized as the above two, but it's considered one of the preeminent distros for KDE, has been around forever, and has corporate support like Fedora/Red Hat, so unlike a lot of "currently popular" distros that come and go, you know it'll still be around in 5 years.
