Proton is just Valve’s version of WINE.

For Games on Epic/Gog/Amazon use Heroic , for everything else/alternatively use Lutris. They set up everything for and apply specific patches with a steam like experience

It depends on what programs and how much do you need them. Some are fine with plain wine, some need more tinkering. There are multiple ways, starting from lutris, through bottles, to steam’s “non-steam game”. But still there are some SW that just won’t work on linux no matter what.