Thanks, that was some great insight. Especially the drawbacks regarding cinnamon. Those are 100% things no normal user should ever have to think or worry about.
Also it’s soooo easy for someone not very knowledgeable to misconfigure the boot loader. Don’t touch boot loaders unless you’re okay with potentially losing access to both your original OS and the new Linux install. You’d then have to either learn on the go and repair it yourself, or beg/pay someone else to repair it.
Already prepared everything for the jump. Switched MS Office for LibreOffice, and Outlook for Betterbird. Tested install, configuration and access to backups in a VM. Next vacation I take I’ll go for it. Mint is my choice of Distro, because of Steam/Gaming reasons. With the US being antagonistic, if not outright hostile, right now, and Microsoft having their disgusting Copilot AI Analysis Fingers in everything, it’s the rational choice I think.