is there a Linux… idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards
The word you are looking for is called a distribution, or distro for short.
I’m surprised no one else has mentioned Bazzite, which should be exactly what you’re looking for.
is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux
An AMD GPU for sure. Nvidia drivers have come a long way, but they don’t generally behave as well out of the box like AMD.
I also don’t use Mint personally, but based on their releases page, it looks like they follow the Ubuntu LTS releases. The latest LTS version of Ubuntu is already being used for Mint 22.1, so I wouldn’t expect to see Gimp 3 until the next LTS release in April of 2026.
Debian based distros are notorious for using old, but known stable packages. That’s kind of their whole thing. If you want the latest and greatest, look for a rolling release based distro.