edit: Fedora it is then!
He will be running the AMD 9800 X3D w/ RX 9070 XT, B850 motherboard.
I am deciding between either Fedora (probably KDE) and Bazzite (also KDE), but I’m not sure whether an atomic distro would be better/worse for a newbie.
As far as I understand, atomic distros can be easily rolled back after an update, but you are unable to use apt/dnf/etx, you need to use Flatpak, I think. Would that be limiting for the average user? Also, does Bazzite have better driver support for newer AMD hardware compared to Fedora?
nah go for bazzite, hardware support is the same, flatpaks are not limiting, you can install any package you like with
rpm-ostree(you won’t have to) and all the gaming stuff is sorted out for youi think the days of having to troubleshoot linux distros are over for normal users, it all just works. in fact bazzite is designed to be the fedora that’s easier to use