Driver installation is really only a hassle for NVIDIA users. AMD and Intel GPUs simply work out of the box on most Linux distros these days (with the main issues being related to using slow moving distros that lack support for the newest hardware). Use a fast moving distro such as Arch and you likely won't have any issues even with recent GPUs. Hopefully NVK will make the situation for NVIDIA cards better too, been testing it on my laptop and it's starting to be viable for gaming.
It sucks ass. I actually returned my gaming desktop to W11 recently because I suck and my games just stopped launching. Never buying nvidia again, building a new desktop right now to get away from windows again.
Yeah, building a new PC without NVIDIA or at least swapping your GPU really is the best solution. The past two years I've run an Intel Arc A770 which was rough at first because the drivers were brand new but has been solid for over a year now and then in February or so I upgraded to an AMD Radeon RX 7800XT which has been absolutely amazing with my 4K 144Hz display. My setup before that was a 1080Ti and it was never an enjoyable experience on Linux and I usually gamed on Win10 on it. I haven't really touched Windows other than a small handful of times on the A770 or 7800XT as Linux runs great on them.
Pretty good for the price! I was using it woth a 144Hz 1440p monitor for at least a year and played mostly Overwatch and CSGO/CS2. It does pretty well and Mesa support/performance for it has gotten pretty good. I still use that build (the A770 paired with a Ryzen 9 3950X) for LAN parties and with my TV and it is a fine GPU. It wasn't handling 4K 144Hz too well especially on more demanding titles which is why I ended up getting the 7800XT. I'm definitely excited for Battlemage cards.
Arch?!? lol. Terrible advice for a newbie. You are one update away from fscking your system. Better go Fedora/Nobara way. The kernel and drivers will be updated frequently enough. Also, no, propiertary NVIDIA driver installation is not a hassle, Ubuntu/Manjaro and some other friends literally have "wizards" that let you click->click->next the driver.