drivers are notoriously troublesome on Linux

I dunno man, Debian makes it pretty easy.

1 - Prerequisites)

x64 Kernel headers:

sudo apt install linux-headers-amd64

2 - Debian 12 Installation)

Disable secure boot & add ‘Contrib’ repository to sources list:

sudo deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

Install Nvidia driver

sudo apt install nvidia-driver firmware-misc-nonfree

Restart system.

Bonus points for optimal performance follow CUDA doc & OptiX doc for Ray-Tracing & utilization of Nvidia cuda cores.