

The horror stories often come from years ago, when Linux wasn’t as under-friendly as it is now. You shouldn’t have any problems with this.
And if Mint does give you problems (which I doubt), consider trying a plug-and-play gaming distro like bazzite. It supports nvidia GPUs right away.
That depends on what that other stuff is. Bazzite is a desktop OS first, gaming second. But it us atomic, so installing apps that aren’t available as a flatpak is somewhat more complicated.
Mint is a great start though, I seriously doubt that you will have problems. Just don’t be afraid to experiment.