I self host speedtest-tracker for this.

It’s also second only to .com in terms of query volume in ICANN’s Magnitude statistics with 980 mil vs .internal’s 60 mil. Not sure if that makes it a de facto standard, but it’s close.

From what I’ve seen, there’s no real performance difference with a gaming distro. What they tend to offer is an out of box experience that is more tailored towards gaming than a regular distro (think ‘game mode’, Steam, Proton, and maybe Lutris pre-installed, Nvidia drivers if you need them).

I’m running Pop! OS on a Surface Pro 5 and it works pretty much flawlessly with the Linux Surface kernel installed. That said, 99% of the time I’m using it with the keyboard attached so I haven’t done much testing of it in ‘tablet mode’, nor with a stylus.