Eugenia

I personally use an extension to have the top bar hide when i maximize an app. I can’t stand the wasted space either.

You can install anything you want via their flatpak app, which is pre-setup (unlike ubuntustudio that does come with media apps, but doesn’t have an easy way to get flatpaks going – it only has snaps).

The biggest advantage of ubuntu studio is their special pipewire setup, included in a package called ubuntustudio-pipewire-something. This can be installed by any distro that uses Ubuntu’s repositories, e.g. Mint, Zorin etc. As for the apps included, they’re easily installed manually. So you can go with Mint for a first distro.