wsl --install installs Ubuntu by default. If I had to use WSL, I’d try this first too.

Cachy, Endeavour, Garuda, etc should be fine.

Since you are a coder, I suppose you using CLI should be fine. However, there are many other alternatives, which is fast and even based on Arch Linux.

In the 90s, QBasic (IDE) and Edit didn’t work on Slackware. So, I tried Pico, Vim, and Emacs. Now, I still use Emacs.

With CachyOS and Mint, it is very easy.

Remark: I disabled secure boot.