Another distro that’s easy to get going for gaming is Garuda.
Also, the easiest way to switch to any distro is to get a USB drive and install a program called Ventoy. Then you throw your install iso onto the Ventoy drive, boot from USB, and you’re good to go.
As a tip, pick up an external drive large enough for your Steam library. Then in Steam, you right click on each game and select Manage/Back up game files.
Doing it this way will save you days of downloading.
The Factorio dev. I’ve heard he’s a shit person but not dove deeper into it.
Edit; did some looking and yeah, he’s a shitbag. He claimed that Statutory Rape was a SJW term, and that teachers should be able to seduce their students as long as they weren’t violent.
Then he used a dev blog to link to a racist misogynistic jackass, and when called out on it (The guy just wanted a disclaimer on the link) Korvex went on a rant about cancel culture and then tried to defend the misogynistic views, claiming that “maybe there’s a reason why there are so few women coders”
The gameplay loop was solid, but not completely original.
But the lore of the world was interesting and was dolled out fairly well. Neat little chunks of lore that felt like a reward when you get them.
Add in great art and music, and you have a game that you can build a fan base on.
Add in the free expansions and fan friendly developer, and you get a robust fan base.
Which leads to expectations for the sequel.