IMO the app Everything is necessary if you want to search through your files on Windows 11. Typing in the name of a program I know I have and the first item being "web search" drove me nuts.
yeah that shit was my primary way of navigating tbh, windows key, type the first few letters of the program I want, enter key. To the point where I kept doing it on Linux
Everything is incredibly useful, however, let me further recommend everything toolbar. It allows for even easier integration into
Windows 10/11. The standalone "everything" is relegated to the little notifications area in the bottom right (whatever that's called. And no I don't care enough to look it up).
I've just started using Linux as my daily OS for non-gaming purposes. MX Linux specifically. It's Debian with some minimal packages added with the idea being speed and low resource usage from the OS. I was using antiX (I think is the name) but it lacked full support for some of the stuff I needed when doing (light) dev stuff. I work with docker engine, re-writing python code, etc. I like MX Linux though. I also like Debian just generally. If you're sick of windows, person who may be reading this, try out Linux. It's come a long way! And there's a billion flavors of it to offer something for anyone.
Of what? Linux? I dunno. Try Ubuntu I suppose. Some purists (who are mostly annoying if we're all honest) shit on it for including non-FOSS packages (or something along those lines- honestly don't even keep up with the current en vogue complaints). But it works well for end users and is similar (feeling) in operation to Windows.
Manjaro is another option that includes a bunch of "angers the purists, but works regardless" things. I don't even know why people hate manjaro tbh. Something vague about not using standard arch packages.
I use debian because it's light, but this is also inconvenient if like you said specific drivers are a concern. Last time I played with Manjaro, it had a ton of built-in Windows drivers support. You could play most games on it as well. It was all pretty smooth from my memory. Although it's not gonna be perfect unless you're using drivers or programs written explicitly for Linux. Now days this seems to he more common to see though. I can't remember the last thing I just straight up absolutely couldn't make work in Linux.