I just use ubuntu lts with the grafics ppa. It just works and is very well supported by third party vendors. e.g. steam works very well, docker cuda etc is available via ppa.

You can still play around with everything even if some call it Linux for noobs. But I can play with it wonderfully and work (R/Python/cuda/cpp and data science/ml stuff) at the same time without something always breaking or changing. Also, you’re most likely to find help and tutorials for ubuntu.

Snaps are annoying but still largely optional. I just replaced Firefox with the deb version via the mozilla ppa. And if snaps are too annoying just use debian.

It is also very practical to know debian/ubuntu because they are the standard systems in companies.