As a kid, the only OS I was aware of was Windows. Once, my computer was infected to the point where it was almost unusable. A more experienced friend suggested a non-free antivirus and the CCleaner. After a lot of effort, I could get my machine back to working, but it became so slow that it led me to discover Linux. Now, on a Windows 10 machine, I’ve nothing but Defender, and since the aforementioned experience I’ve…
Definitely test drive a couple of Linux distributions. I do so periodically and love seeing the progress. There are really only two things keeping me on Windows. 1. I run some Windows-only applications that don't work with Wine. 2. A lot of Linux software often doesn't work well on a hi-dpi monitors. Aside from that, since Windows 7 (and later versions of Vista), Windows is fine. IMHO, operating systems aren't terrib…
As for running windows apps....how much time do you want to waste? The only windows stuff I really run is games, and the way I do that is by running windows in a VM with the graphics card direct assigned. It works really well, and is super neat, but it was a huge pain in the ass to set up on consumer grade hardware.