If you want to use Linux it is up to you to choose the distro which is best for you. You can make almost every Linux-Distro to a System which fits your needs.
I think Bazzite is a good starting point for you as it is made for gamers.
For example I have a SSD for Debian, as my working Distro and another SSD with Bazzite for playing games using wine and other emulators. For gaming it is important to have the latest version for mesa, wine, kernel and other stuff so I would prefer a rolling distro like Bazzite over a more stable one like Debian or Ubuntu. Bazzite has the benefits of integrated BTRFS-Snapshots you can go back to a system state which is stable at any given time.
Bazzite has two different editions: Desktop & Handhelds
What you are describing as the console look is for Handhelds. However, you can also download images specifically for Framework Desktop and Framework Laptops, this will provide a standard computing experience not a console-like experience.
I personally use Bazzite on two of my machines and I even use it on the laptop that I dont game on because it offers a lot of ease of use benefits.
having up to date versions of things is important for the most part but Bazzite is a cutting edge distro not a rolling release so it has the latest tested to work version of things vs a true rolling release that updates regardless of anything else so it’s not accurate to call it a rolling distro. It does update much faster than say Debian but it’s quite different from say Arch in the context of rolling.
Also the term Stable is not a bit problematic, because developers use that term for “not moving” aka “static”, it is not used for “stability” but the vast majority of users only think of it meaning “stability” so saying “rolling distro like Bazzite over a more stable one like Debian” has a lot of unintended assumptions attached to it. When it comes to stability, Bazzite is just as stable as Ubuntu or Debian because it is structured much differently and can approach updates in a way that considers stability compared to rolling releases.
This is another benefit for Bazzite but the BTRFS Snapshots are about user data not about system state restoring because the image-mode style structure takes care of that separately.
You’re right, thank you for pointing out my inaccuracies. When I wrote these lines, I thought about using the word “stable” because it has different meanings from different perspectives. My “stable” refers to a version-stable distribution and not to ‘stability’ in the sense of “reliability.”
I see, that makes it alot clearer. I will have to get another usb to test it out to see which feels right for me personally, but this has been very helpful
