It’s not about the distro. Most distros out right now are pretty good. What you need is hardware that lots of people want to buy with Linux installed on it as the default choice. Normal people don’t want to install any OS, be it Linux, Windows, MacOS or BSD. Whatever comes by default, it’s good.
I’m pretty sure that right now the most popular Linux distros are ChromeOS and SteamOS. I wonder why
The original company was never Italian. The founder was Italian, but the company was incorporated in German Alsace, which then became French Alsace after the Great War. There was a brief attempt at a revival in Italy in the late 80s, early 90s, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Today’s company is French and is mostly controlled by the Croat Rimac (and partially by Porsche, which owns VW, which owns Porsche)