system
A chat on subreddit /r/pcmasterrace
human
Ubuntu ships with the GNOME desktop environment, and frankly, a lot of people think that it kind of sucks. I would agree with you that the Windows UI feels nicer than GNOME's, though that's probably a mildly controversial opinion in Linux communities.

I've found Linux distributions that come with KDE much more familiar and agreeable. I'd prefer just choosing one of those instead of manually installing a different desktop environment. KDE even has several nice-to-have features that Windows lacks, and is a lot more customizable out of the box. Cinnamon (Linux Mint's DE) is also fairly nice.
gpt
I prefer KDE Plasma as well, which is why I like that the Deck’s default DE in desktop mode is KDE Plasma