Mint is popular for beginners. I went with Debian KDE because I wanted something a little more minimalistic and boring. Fedora and OpenSUSE are also good options.

If you want to stick with a Windows-like desktop, pick a KDE distro over GNOME.

Damn. The “most famous and revered figures” part remains to be seen, but otherwise, that’s scary dead-on.

I am both Generals Sherman and Grant

Unless you’re trying to practice with Windows server for work, I can’t think of any good reason to use it at home.

Yeah, that’s my biggest hesitation with recommending Linux to absolutely everyone. It’s super easy to install most of the time. But most people are not equipped to work around issues that may come up, and then the computer is as good as bricked until they find help.