Okay great! An interesting tea combination: Mint with Cinnamon :) do most desktop environments work with most distros, or is there a list per each distro?

Lots of suggestions for Mint so it seems that's a good choice for me! Thank you!

Yes dual booting seems to be the way to go for a while so I've got my toes in the water but not lost the safety net just yet!

That's a great response! Thank you, that helps a lot.

Okay thank you! Could you give some examples about tasks that "should be easy" but aren't? I've worked with MacOS casually and I thought it was based on Unix (maybe?), so I was at least aware that the way to maneuver through the desktop/settings/file searches are different from Windows of course. I am certainly not a power user, just getting frustrated with companies overstepping more and more and want to cut myself from their whims, if that makes sense.

Okay great! I'll give those each a try. Thank you!

That's true, most of what I do would be in a browser as a casual user. My work laptop would still be running Windows and doing what I "need" (Excel, SolidWorks, etc.) Although I want to keep the ability to torrent and manage my media files nicely, I'm open to using different softwares than I'm used to for those.

Okay that's good to know! Stick with one to get more comfortable until it doesn't do something I need, basically?

Okay so maybe ease myself in with dual boot, then Linux + virtual Windows, then Linux only. That seems like a good transition.

Okay that makes sense. Thanks!

Okay I'll try out a few and keep notes on which ones I prefer until I make that "final" decision.

What makes it the best, in terms of distro and desktop experience?

Yeah that's what has made me apprehensive to be honest. I feel pretty comfortable in windows doing many things, and my wife has a MacBook that I'm also pretty comfortable using so learning a new, third OS does seem obtuse. I like the idea of having more control over the software, but don't want to lose the "it just works" feeling of an OS or software I am used to using.

Yes non-corporate is pretty important to me as the reason to move away from Windows in the first place! Thanks for the suggestions!

Oh that's interesting. So each time I login I could potentially load into a different styling as I choose?

I'm not wanting to dive into programming specifically (only dipped my toes in the past for school/work as needed but certainly not experienced) so I'm not interested in maintaining scripts and a GitHub if that is necessary for Arch or what you mentioned as "serious" distros. That's good information though, thank you!

Thank you! When people say "customizing" (throughout this thread and others) what are they referencing? For instance, just the desktop layout/formatting, or the way the files are structured, or the kinds of software they are using for tasks?

Thank you for the suggestion!

Okay I see. Thanks for the clarification!

Thank you! I'll look into them. Why did you decide to choose Fedora over the others you mentioned?