I dont have a list, but I usually use this site. It also does not only show Linux distributions, but also software products like nginx, mariadb or programming languages like go, rust and python.
Edit: Some Linux distributions habe older software, which they support with security updates and also stay on one kernel version. Fedora as example gives you a new kernel after few weeks. Maybe you can be more concrete
Desktop environments are optional if using a Linux distribution. Also as long as a desktop environment doesnt take all resources, there shoudlnt be much difference in benchmarks.
I bought an E595 back then and it works great. But I dont know how the actual E series behave. There werent also no problems at all with Linux. More important is the question which wifi module you choose, and mine had one from realtek (there were no Intel Option sadly) and the wifi performance wasnt that great because of that.
Linux doesnt need GNU components at all to be a functional operating system. And you wouldnt see any difference if your http server works on GNU/Linux or Linux without GNU.
On the other hand there is difference between an AI and LLM. The difference is signifacant enough to distinguish. You may mean LLMs if you talk about AI, but tbh I though you didnt. Because many people dont.