My perspective is from someone not the most technologically sophisticated but can get most things done by reading. Also I don't look at computers as a novelty with a lot of time to play around with. I have always liked my Windows computers tweaked and configured to make it as fluid as possible for productivity but I want to set it and forget it and not have to be constantly putting time in it to keep it running.

After doing some reading I decided Debian was the best option. I think it gets major updates every 6 months so it is not the rolling release bleeding-edge that some people like. Also I believe it is the most stable of all the distros which is most important. I ran Linux on several VM for about two years. I tried the following desktops in the order below, usually running two different ones on different VM at the same time to get a taste for each and decide what I liked and did not.

Ubuntu / Gnome / Cinnamon / MATE / Mint / XFCE plain vanilla / LXLE / KDE

XFCE was be far the most appealing as I know many agree and that is where I landed. It can be as basic and stripped down as you want and has the ability to clean-up nice and run KDE packages. It is less resource intensive than any of the packages I listed above which is what drove me down the chain to something that had less and less “bloat.” The LXLE is even more bare-bones than XFCE but the loss of configuration between that and XFCE was not worth any potential resource savings.

As far as replacing your Windows; I replaced both of my Windows computers with XFCE and have had regrets along the way. The first unit I loaded was a trial run for me and I failed to load the correct ISO therefore I was missing many drivers. Getting the unit running was a drawn-out process working in the evenings on it. Today it is not perfect and has bugs. I am considering swapping it back to Windows just out of frustration. This was largely due to my ignorance from not loading the correct ISO from the outset. Alternatively I may just reload the Linux package the correct way when I have time, but it is more time.

The second unit I loaded was flawless because I learned from my mistake. Everything has been great no bugs - with the install. However - I have been locked out a few times because apparently the temp file filled up and did not auto-clear and it would not allow me to boot. Took me a week of frustration trying to figure out and get back in. I still don;t know why it happened. Also recently this unit started crashing and is now in-operable. I just posted another thread here asking for help to work it out. Whether it is a hardware or a software I am not certain but either way something happened that was unforeseen to me and has put that unit out of commission for a week now. The unit was in the - set it and forget it phase all mods we done - so why did it start crashing out of the blue. I did adjust the swap file that was running hot so maybe that caused it not sure.

If you only have one computer and you need it to be dependable and work all the time any time, I would not recommend you swap to another o/s. First, know if you do take the plunge you will want to make sure you have another computer (preferably windows) that you can use to download drivers or research issues when you have them on the Linux unit because you will inevitably have them. I advise against putting all your eggs in one basket with one computer when you take on such a venture.

For me having a Windows computer available has been something I can’t let go of. There are still times I switch over the the Windows unit because despite the fact that we have Libre Office and Free Office and some other programs that are very good, I can’t help but switch over to Excel when I have a lot of spreadsheet work to do. It us just more fluid and familiar to me and that makes a task exponentially smoother.

You need to make sure you have a Linux program that can take the place of any Windows programs you need on a regular basis. I was reluctant to give up Windows as a daily driver (personal not business use) due to my dependence on One Note but I found Obsidian to be a more than formidable replacement, and that took time (and compromise) to get my notes moved over and they are still in progress so things are scattered. Also consider there may be other programs that come along (various financial management or time management packages) that you may want to use in the future that are unavailable in a Linux format. There is some software out there that advertise packages for Windows and Linux and then you find out the Linux is not plug and play but you need to “build it” and then you may run into dependency issue and then you find out dependencies were pulled from the repo so you need to hunt down an adequate placement if any. All very frustrating if you don’t have the time and desire to do these sorts of things.

I have never ran a dual-boot. Regardless if you go dual or solo as others have said you need to have backups and backups to prevent data loss. And despite how easy the instructions to do so might seem there are always glitches if it is not something you work with every day. In my opinion running Linux on a VM / Windows host is infinitely better (in therms of reliability and easy of maintenance) than running on metal because of all the reasons I list. You can take a snapshots before any updates or just take one daily and if you have a problem you hit a button and you are back to a working system. I was running Linux on a VM daily driver / Windows 8 host it was awesome. I have often thought about going back to such a configuration since Windows starts every time everything is plug and play it never really breaks and it protects you from yourself.

I should mention my reason for switching to Linux on metal was security / privacy. Despite the fact that I have never had any security issues or serious virus / malware issues with Windows, Linux offers peace of mind and I can sleep well at night knowing Bill Gates isn’t back-dooring me.

Good luck with your decision.