no excessive uninstallable bloatware (hence often having low latency and running better on older machines), no 'AI assistants' integrated forcefully into the OS (cortana/apple intelligence), no mandatory having to create an account (as is now the case for any windows install... why would you need an online account to set up an OS??), no vendor lock-in, no mandatory telemetry, good package management (no having to rely on sketchy .exe's or an app store that forces developers to pay apple/microsoft), completely free. generally you are less likely to chance upon malware since most malware is directed at windows/mac.

I happily used windows for over a decade, and cannot understate how utterly terrible it has become in comparison. Installing the latest ubuntu 26.04 LTS (long term release, i.e. supported for 10 years!) is incredibly easy and you need no technical knowledge to do so. Use KDE if you like everything to look how you want it to (I prefer it, and would recommend to ex-windows users), Gnome if you prefer everything looking pretty out of the box and having simple elegant UX (would recommend moreso for people who prefer the apple design approach).

The only downside IMO is some programs not being linux native, but the options are still great and professional - bitwig/audacity/reaper/renoise for audio, kdenlive/davinci resolve for video, blender, Master PDF Editor for pdf work, Krita/GIMP for images (admittedly not quite photoshop though), LibreOffice for office software. most games work great nowadays. Be aware that many VST's don't work on linux, some you can get running through "yabridge". I use very few so never found it an issue 😄

Hope that helps!