I'm a retired Unix admin. I've been using Linux since I installed Slackware 3.1 from several boxes of 1.44MB diskettes. But, working in a corporate environment with lots of M$ Office requirements meant that my work desktop has always been Windows. I know it sounds crazy, but I was really hesitant to switch to away from Windows - I guess after 30+ years I'd developed a bit of Stockholm syndrome. But, Copilot and the looming Recall were enough to push me over the edge.
Anyway - I spent a while making sure I got all my data off OneDrive etc. and then installed Debian 12 with LXDE - my laptop is an older i7 with 16GB of RAM, but lightweight and minimal really appeals to me. Everything just worked and I was happy for a day or two. Then I started noticing video tearing - especially on my 2nd monitor. I did a bit of research and found a suggestion to enable TearFree in the X11 configuration - X wouldn't even start when I did that. So, I did some more reading and now think I understand that the lightweight window managers don't have vsync and this causes the tearing. Apparently the real solution is to use a compositing window manager (I don't understand what that means..) with OpenGL. Oh well, I can't have minimal lightweight - so, I installed KDE. It's very clean and no video tearing. I still don't have it doing power management for my monitors the way I want, but other than that - I'm very happy. It was noticeably sluggish compared to LXDE, but I'm used to that already after only a day.
It's only been a few days, but I have not regretted the switch for one second.
Glad for you. It is not as easy as they paint it, specially here, but moving to Linux still good in so many aspects and I applaud you for doing so. Hold on tight on the ride, it is frustrating sometimes but worth it overall.
The ease of switching really just depends. Myself, I've had several stumbles switching, but I'm still so happy I did and I'm not going back. My wife on the other hand, has had no issues switching from her Chromebook, because she's a super basic user who spends all her time in the browser.
True... we should identify those users using just the browser and basic word processor operations. Make sure their printers are well connected and they will notice barely any changes at all... Us, power users, are who actually struggle with the conversion so we tend not to persuade non power users because we think we will bring them similar headaches.
If the user uses just browser and a word editor, he/she is ready since 8 years ago without any mayor hiccup.