Virtual machine is a good place to start I hadn’t even thought of. Live USB is a good follow up, though, as that allows you to check out driver compatibility.

I currently can’t offer much on which distros to try, I’m afraid; for various reasons, my Steam Deck is my daily driver, and SteamOS is good enough for my needs. I have tried Bazzite, but it was more buggy on the deck; that said, it is quite popular. Nobara install images aren’t done cleanly, it seems, and I was not impressed with the community support (basically got told I was imagining things when I asked for help). CachyOS looked interesting, but I want stability over bleeding edge features.

But wish you luck on your journey!