I’ve been very happy with my Manjaro install on AMD GPU, everything worked out of the box on fist try install without any weird step. I would say you could jump straight to Arch/Arch-based, but first research about your GPU compatibility.
(I’m aware of how Manjaro is perceived and its downsides, please avoid comments suggesting me to switch).
If working on Linux, combine SSH with tmux (and the attach/detach commands) and you have a very solid workflow. Learning tmux has been one of the best tools of the year for me.