I’m an educator, and my Windows PC crashed during my first period class.
I had a cinnamon mint USB drive in my bag. I booted to it, and it saved the day!
I don’t have anybody to tell just how much of a godsend that was, but I figured you guys might appreciate it!
To pour oil on the fire (since you said you already decided on an OS), a lot of people recommend Linux Mint as a goto OS when moving from Windows, supposed to be the most similar experience.