A
Linux distribution[a] (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and often a package management system.
Linux is not complicated at all. That's what windows (and many linux users who want to look cool or smart) want you to believe.
An idiot like me has been using it (sadly also without having learned much) for fifteen years without almost (I had a problem with the sound on my last laptop because the sound card was extremely rare and recent) any problem. The installation of any major distribution has been polished for decades to be as simple (and reliable) as possible and YouTube is full of tutorials in which you can see how to install the distribution you have chosen.
It's cool to use a terminal, but you can use almost any distribution without ever touching it. The distributions come with package/application/program managers (call them what you want), you just have to click a couple of times to install what you need on your computer, very simply, without any possibility of it containing viruses or any other type of junk. The same simplicity to update your operating system/applications when you want to do it, literally in seconds or minutes (it depends on the speed of your internet connection).
All the work you have to do to switch to Linux (I assume that everyone has backup copies of their files on external hard drives and in the cloud) is to choose what distribution and what type of desktop (kde, gnome, cinnamon...) you want to use. In half an hour you can have made a reasonable choice based on what you like and need. After installation you will have an operating system with, I repeat, your application manager, internet (firefox usually, if you need to use chrome you can also install it as an external package/flatpak, nothing super complicated), file manager, music and video player, libreoffice (if you don't want to use Microsoft 365/office on the internet as an application), etc. And if you don't like what comes pre-installed, you have a variety of applications to choose from. I repeat, free applications, free of viruses and any rubbish. You can also try most distributions on your computer without having to install them/touch anything in your operating system (live install images).
More and more games are naturally compatible with Steam, and there are options to play those that are not (wine, proton). Steam/playing games is not a big problem if you don't have very big specific needs, you can easily install Steam and play, I would say, hundreds of games without any problem (apart from having to pay for them).
I do not know what else to say. I switched to Linux because it was free, cool, simple and free of viruses and garbage that made my PC very slow. Ideologically, it also seemed wrong to use the default or imposed option, and if you are using windows you should know better than me about everything bad they do.
This page contains reviews and news of the distributions releases and has a ranking (on the right) with the distributions that receive the most clicks (not necessarily the most popular or used distros).
I am currently very happy using the Fedora distribution with the KDE desktop environment. Very stable and with the latest technology, although it may not have the absolute simplicity of distributions like Ubuntu or Linux Mint, the latter is a distribution that I would also recommend.
Last thought; You know how lazy I am, if I have made an effort to write this paragraph it is because I think Linux is really worth it.
Happy to answer any questions or comments and mega happy if anyone wants to clarify any concepts or provide more information.
Example of an application manager