Check out KX Studio. Ubuntu Studio is also a thing where most stuff comes preinstalled and it might be good enough for some.
Though I would still say that it's still faster and easier to get a job, earn a months pay and buy a Windows/Mac laptop for music production than try to get shit done in Linux. Pipewire kinda-sorta-works if you aren't doing anything weird, but it's not going to be optimal either, and it's at best beta-quality software still.
I have tried some KXStudio and Ubuntu Studio stuff first time about 10 years ago. I guess that's still a valid option too.
Also I've already made my whole discography purely under Linux for 10+ years, no turning back. There's still that much stubbornness left :p
I applaud the stubbornness. If enough people are stubborn enough, maybe linux pro audio some day becomes less of a mess.
I've tried every couple of years since 2006 to see if I could finally ditch my windows/mac box, since making music is my last hurdle, but it's still been too much of a chore for me. I make music to get rid of computer-induced stress, so it's the one place where I'm not interested in configuring for days.
I've been using Pipewire on NixOS for over a year and it's worked great. Idk if NixOS would be good for you though cause it's pretty hard to learn, but it is really solid.
You might already know about it but I saw someone using rtkit with pipewire. I think it's for real-time threads priorities.
They also changed a bunch of stuff in the default config. I have no idea what it's for. See: https://github.com/lovesegfault/nix-config/blob/ad9a15936e162e3cb8e28eb5a5d0f2fbd4834ff9/hardware/sound.nix
Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting nixos for audio. Your message just make be think about someone's config so I thought it could interest people reading this thread.