There's a flavor of Linux dedicated to SDR radios.. It's based on Ubuntu, but is tweaked with all the utilities required for SDR use. If all you plan to use Linux for is radio work, then Skywave Linux might be a good choice.
HOME | Skywave Linux
I don't know the state of it now, but I tried it several years ago. I booted from a CD and it recognized my Nooelec RTL-SDR Dongle without me having to do anything.
Or you can just use a mainstream distro with tens of thousands of packages that supports everything, like
Debian, etc.
My issue with "fringe" distros is they're derivative on another distro, they usually have a couple of highly dedicated coders, and they are streamlined for a singular purpose or reason. That being said, those coders are the single point of failure to keep them updated and current. If they become disenchanted or otherwise occupied with their real life (they're not making money on this, remember), the purpose built distro will suffer. They may also decide that their time is only worth the task
they wanted, like preferring one desktop environment over all others, and they may not perform due dilligence towards keeping the entirety of the distro current with issues, features or security updates - thus compromising the entire install.
I prefer a highly modular main stream distro, as there are many hands making light work, there's no single effort that gets prioritized and usually no major issues that get ignored. A large enough package base (.rpm, .deb, etc...) makes
any device package or library one command away, and you get the peace of mind knowing that everything else gets updated (sometimes in the backround) and you're not waiting on one person to push an update or fix something that they may or may not care about.
