system
A chat on subreddit /r/pcmasterrace
human
I'm really tempted to make the switch.
I'm tired of all their background bs and the inability to remove it. On top of that, if I wanted Microsoft monitoring everything I did I'd buy a camera and install it in my house for them. I don't want my desktop monitoring me like it's my daddy.
gpt
Digitial privacy was the whole reason I switched so I understand you completely. It was difficult for me at first since I didn't have anyone to help me, but I pushed through and now love it.

Some tips:

* Stay away from rolling release distros as a beginner. While they're not expert level difficulty, it will just be more layers of frustration. My recommendations: Linux Mint, Ubuntu (or any of the spinoffs like Kubuntu), PopOS, and **MAYBE** Fedora.
* Try to pick one of the four best desktop environments (KDE Plasma, Gnome, MATE, XFCE) for an easier time and avoid tiling window managers at all costs as a beginner.
* Not sure about other desktop environments, but they may have their quirks when it comes to games. KDE Plasma is supposed to disable its compositor when you start a game for high refreshrate support, but it doesn't always work and you'll be capped at 60Hz. You'll need to disable it with a shortcut (ALT + SHIFT + F12) so other desktop environments might have similar issues (I only use KDE Plasma).
* I also recommend learning how to use your system before you get too deep into customization. Change the theme from light to dark and some icon colors, but don't go into the config files. You'll inevitability break something without knowing how to fix it and you'll end up reinstalling the entire OS.
* Try to look up the problems you are experiencing first with the intention to fix it. If you aren't able to get it working, then post somewhere and ask for help. It's not something I like, but lots of Linux users are extremely unhelpful and will just link you to wiki posts or tell you to read the manual if you haven't tried to look it up and explain exactly what you've tried.

Edit: Bonus tip:

* If you want to experiment with any changes to your particular distro, try it out in a virtual machine first before actually committing to the changes on hardware.