I am young and have a computer science degree, and I still struggle at times. I get it.

For games, I’d try to install steam and run them through steam if thats how you’d normally do it on windows. Then for me the main setting to play with (on a game by game basis) is setting the game to use proton (in the compatibility settings of the game) and whether or not to use steam input for controller support.

If you are trying to install a non steam game, maybe look into lutris. Though I’m on the techy side, and I hear a lot of people like heroic game launcher on the less techy side.

Good luck. I think it’s fair to run out of energy while trying get the right combo, but if ya stick to it I’m confident you’ll find the set up that works for you.

Yeah I feel Linux has a lot of dead ends. Its easy to follow the wrong path. My saving grace has always been that once you get things working, you know how you did it and it likely won’t change much.

So really its a big search, but once you hit a steady state it really feels like home.