normally id say "linux is free, there's no harm in giving it a go", but between your lack of free time, nvidia graphics card, dependence on proprietary software, and previous experience (and slight distain) for linux i'd say just go with win 11.

there may be a way to get your music software to work in linux, but youll likely need to mess around with wine configs and it may never actualoy work right.

if you are interested ever, fire up a vm and play around with linux to get comfortable with it. maybe when win11 reaches eol (or even before) you'll want to make the switch.

none of this is said to scare you away from linux. searching for drivers is rarely a thing in linux. there are built in tools in most distros to deal with graphics drivers, but apart from that, given the open source nature of linux, everything else is just handled by kernel modules and are basically seamless unless you have some weird proprietary hardware. linux is fairly easy to use these days, but there is quite a bit of a learning curve because it is a fundamentally different os than windows, and the way you solve problems is very different.

If you're not in a position to change your workflow and deal with new stuff, you can simply use windows 10 lts for a longer support and postpone the decision between linux and windows 11.

Personally, I'd recommend trying linux some day. It can drain some free time at first, but in the long run, you will find yourself dealing with much less bullshit than windows, and actually saving time in your life. Some linux users like to make things complicated and pass their time tinkering with the system, so it passes an image of linux being like that, but if you run a simple and stable distro, things will work nicely and will rarely require your time. I'm running fedora for a few years, and my laptop became so boring. I just use it for my work and hobbies, and turn it off when done. No bullshit.

Rather than leave another long reply to read, I'll leave my thoughts simple: if you have another computer you're not using, try Linux mint and see if it fits your needs. If it's too much and you can't get the time needed to figure things out, 11 might be the choice (for now).

But either way, keep Linux on the second and learn a little bit as you get time to! :)

I would say the biggest problem is the music production on Linux. Especially VSTs - those are still hit or miss. And unfortunately the DAWs you mentioned doesn't have Linux support.

For example I was really trying to do music for several years on Linux, but in the end I gave up and now I'm dual booting Windows... 😿

You have a 1.5 mo old. You don't have time. Be a dad. Be a husband. Be a hobbyist.

Take the easy route now. Come back when your kid and family are in a flow state.

I notice there are only a couple replies here that have experience with music production. Obviously core desktop stuff works great, gaming is pretty universally fixed, but music production is a different story.

I have extensive experience with linux and music production. You can use yabridge to run Windows VSTs. However, they can be extremely fussy with graphics compatibility. I estimate that I couldn't manage to get about 20% of my plugins to work despite hours upon hours of troubleshooting. This is coming from a Linux-native software developer. If you're just learning Linux, you could be in a world of pain.

I'm sure folks out there have gotten all of it working individually, but I doubt anyone has your exact setup working perfectly.

Ableton and FL Studio will have to be ran through Wine. I experienced major performance issues with FL Studio before switching to Bitwig.

Linux is great. But the music production industry is not kind to it. If you're cool with being a linux music producer you'll have to accept that some things just will not work well. But if you want 100% access to everything you're used to, stick with Windows.

If you're going to have to change OS anyway you might as well try Linux first. I'm doing a trial run on Bazzite and so far has gone pretty smoothly with the gaming stuff. There's other stuff I'm having to figure out but I'm pretty optimistic that I will not be putting Win 11 on my desktop.

Dad of 4 kids here, I would say use the system that let you concentrate more on the kid and less on tinkering the OS.

Fedora could be a nice successor since it runs extremely stable, best way to be clean and safe are doing the updates, but I say this with 15 years of Linux experience.

Better stay on win 10. Family first.

bro just grab a cheap ssd and enclosure, install linux on that, slowly play around and setitup, if you like it eventually swap ssds or install it on your main one

Really want an honest answer here and not a full blown Linux cult answer.

And so you ask in a linux community...

I recently sucked it up and upgraded Windows 10 to 11. Music production is getting better in Linux, but there is still a whole lot of existing music software with no Linux support. Cakewalk for example has no Linux support, and I imagine getting it working in WINE with VSTs and whatever else would be an immense chore. Same story with Ableton.

That said, if you don't mind migrating to a DAW with Linux support like Reaper, Bitwig, or even Ardour - which is open source and free - producing music with Linux is the easiest it's ever been. Just don't count on Linux support from a lot of VST makers who often require you use their software to install their VSTs. You can usually still install those VSTs, but it sometimes requires less than legal methods, and may be a hassle.

If you're a producer who mostly just uses a DAW as a recorder for hardware, it would barely be a change to your workflow at all. If you are reliant on Cakewalk and Ableton specific processes and VSTs, it would be much more difficult

You basically answered your own question, to be honest. Linux is clearly not for you. Look into windows 10 LTSC. Teksyndicate made a couple of videos about it. Here is the one where he shows how to install it. He is also stuck on windows because of music. And for debloating windows 10, look into Chris Titus' Windows Utility script

If you move to Linux, you gotta be committed. I didn't learn Linux until I said "fuck it" and forced myself to use it exclusively.

You will run into problems. You'll have some days where you'll spend 10hrs fixing something that no other person on the entire planet has encountered before, only to realize you needed to type in 1 very simple command to fix it.

As much as people hate AI, it can help with Linux troubleshooting. There's also wikis and manpages.

If you switch at all, pick something that won't break. Debian will run on your hardware just fine. You won't have the latest and greatest packages, and as a newbie you DO NOT WANT the latest and greatest.

Nvidia drivers are a hassle, be prepared.

If all that sounds doable, send it.

Kick the can down the road. https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol

For music production on a hobby level? Linux is not what you want.

The VST availability is abysmal. For a DAW, you can choose between Reaper and Ardour. Both are reasonably good, but without decent third party VSTs you’ll suffer. You won’t get iLok working, you won’t get any commercial plugins working. Your old project files won’t open.

Now, if you are exclusively working with Airwindows plugins (look it up!) in Reaper, you could get away with a Linux migration. Cakewalk and Ableton? Not a chance in hell.

Go buy a cheap used 16GB M1 Mac Mini. Music production stuff ”just works”. Given your config, looks like that could be within budget. Or upgrade your old machine to Windows 11, pick your poison.

if you're going to be too time pressured to have fun with Linux, probably don't for now

The kid is 1.5 months old and you don't have time? Once that kid gets mobile you'll really not have time! And I don't mean crawling or walking, I mean rolling and scooting.

When my kid figured out how to get places by rolling I had gotten up with her early on a Saturday morning and was letting my wife sleep in... I went to the basement and turned on the Xbox to pay some Rocket League and in the middle of a game she started to roll out of the room. I put the controller down and went to pick her up... 4 years later that controller was exactly where I had put it. She's now almost 9 and is a great gaming partner, and is getting into robotics, 3D printing, and is interested in programming, so I get to jump right back into my old hobbies, and pick up some new ones.

All that to say, Linux is only going to get better and Windows will continue to get worse, but there's more important things for you to have to worry about in the very near future than troubleshooting an OS that you're not familiar with, stick with Win 10 for as long as you can and some day you'll sit down at your desk and realize you have time to look back in at Linux and you'll find that it isn't nearly as difficult to use as you remember. Congratulations on the kid, it can be an incredible journey watching, and helping, a person emerge.

Man, you're basically saying "I want to move to a new country, but I don't want to lose any of my friends, I can't change my job, I don't want to learn a new language, I want to bring all my furniture and appliances with me, and we just had a new baby a month ago so I'm sleep deprived and don't have any spare time. How do I do it?"

"Basically, I’m not in the position right now to learn a distro and struggle around with all that crap and I need to keep my music shit."

If you don't want to have to learn anything new, then switching your OS to something you don't know how to use is a stupid idea.

EDIT: Didn't notice your system specs at first. While it looks like your motherboard technically supports the TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11, it also looks like your processor might be too old to be supported by Windows 11. Check to be sure before going down the path below. You might only have an option of going to Linux in this case.

Unpopular opinion from a user who uses Linux as his daily driver for everything:

If you're using stuff like Cakewalk/Ableton and want to be able to do so again in the foreseeable future, stick with Windows. You said you're not super savvy at troubleshooting, so I wouldn't want to send you down the path of trying to get Windows software running on Linux through WINe because it's sometimes pretty finicky. Especially with a rugrat in the mix, you just don't have the time to be fucking with it.

Windows 11 Activation: https://massgrave.dev/ (In case you no longer have a free upgrade path)

WIndows Debloat: https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat (A powershell script for getting rid of bloatware, telemetry, and other crap from Windows)

How To Set Up Windows 11 Local Account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlhyl3P5Dxw (to avoid having to use a Microsoft account to log in)

Also, I strongly suggest a clean wipe instead of upgrade, as the upgrade path leaves a lot of weird stray stuff that can be annoying. Back up everything that's important to you on an external drive (or really any drive except the one your OS lives on) and re-install the OS, set up a local account during install, use Massgrave to activate Windows, and then use the Debloater to get rid of bloat.

Here's a dad's reply in a similar place - Win 11 is fine. I put it off for a very long time and just upgraded a couple weeks ago. It hasn't really been an impact.

Is Linux better? Yes. Does win 11 just work without too much fuss? Yes.

I still have Linux on many machines in my house except for my gaming rig, just because I don't want to have to break it and spend time refreshing it because my Linux skills aren't up to par. I have a full time job and young kids and don't have as much tinkering time as I used to.

That being said, I'm migrating ALL machines that aren't compatible with win 11 to Linux to avoid tossing them in a landfill like many will do, like my son's gaming PC.

If you want to dip your feet in without making any permanent decisions, try using a virtual machine or a live USB.

The virtual machine is effectively no risk but slightly slower. The live USB gives you a more realistic experience (except for boot times) but it is possible to erase your data if you miss the several warning messages and press the "I know what I'm doing, proceed anyway" button.

If you feel like Linux could work but you're not ready to fully commit, you can dualboot. I had both Windows and Linux for 2-3 years before I was comfortable enough to not boot Windows.

My personal preference is Linux Mint because it looks and feels very similar to Windows (I'm currently running LMDE). Any distro with KDE should also feel fairly familiar. Bazzite is more designed around gaming, but should still be adequate for most of your needs. It does have the reputation of being unbreakable.

Stay on win10, if so the choice comes. Just get it debloated and maybe a better protection. If you are sure, get mint or other stable distribution, which I would recommend if you can have some spare time to figure out your setup. Most of the stuff should work out of the box

Kick the can down the road and download the MASgrave Win10 script (I think that's it, I don't use windows) that puts you on the Long Term support - iirc that gives you until Jan 2027. That's enough time to get through the zero parental sleep phase and be able to think clearly...

If that's of interest I'll dig the correct details out (ping me) or I'm sure someone else knows what I'm waffling about & will drop the link

Hey there! I'm an avid music producer and gamer.

I made the jump to bitwig while I was still using Windows in 2019, and made the full jump to Linux as my daily driver late last year.

My mint journey was Mint (Cinnamon) > Debian (KDE Plasma) > Garuda (Dr4g0niz3d KDE plasma)

I think mint was great and I was still able to do a fair amount of gaming on it and Cinnamon desktop environment is very similar to windows so it's not too big of a jump.

Debian was fine - I wanted to use Plasma as the desktop environment because I wanted a touch customization for how I can set up windows, widgets, and different desktop panels. I had issues with some games on this though.7

I like Garuda but I would not recommend if you're not too familiar with tinkering and troubleshooting. In hindsight I probably should have gone with Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE plasma as its desktop environment). I have experienced some odd bugs with the desktop environment and I think it has to do with how nvidia and Wayland play with one another.

I haven't had a game that didn't run, the only odd bug I've had is some games won't recognize my new soundcard from bitwig.

using WINE and yabridge I've gotten all my plugins to work seamlessly as well - and that includes Omnisphere which is a beast on resources.

I was really fed up with the direction that windows has been heading for quite sometime.

TL;DR: I think mint or some Ubuntu distro would be a good fit for right now, and any future GPU upgrades consider something from AMD.

So, the questions really are can your hardware support Windows 11 and if not can you easily flip to Linux.

1. The Asus Z170 motherboard looks like it supports TPM 2.0, but it doesn't look like the i7-6700K does as that is a 6th gen Skylake CPU and Win11 starts at 8th gen. You might double check that with the TDM tool Microsoft offers though.

2. Cakewalk and Ableton appear to work in Linux, but not without some tweaking.

My suggestion would be to do nothing. If you can't update without a rebuild and you can't migrate without a lot work, just do nothing. Your Windows 10 installation will still work. You won't receive any additional updates for it, but if that is the best solution for you at this time, then that's what you should go with.

For the kiddo: Get a body wrap. It lets you because hold the baby to you securely while you do other things. I worked on-call shifts handling downed MPLS circuits for a carrier back in the day with my daughter strapped to me. A couple years later she would get to visit me at work. She was the only 2 year old who technically had PBX configuration experience (I didn't know the keyboard was still connected).

Linux for gaming is easy. For the most part it’s plug and play. I’m on an AMD CPU and an NVidia GPU, and I even do VR in Linux.

As someone who does a decent amount of stuff with DAWs; VSTs are tricky. You might be able to create a similar workflow to what your used to, and many plugins might work decently well, but for me at least it was a lot of fiddling about and it isn’t as smooth as I’d like. My comfort compressor works, but the UI doesn’t render.

I’ve gotten my music workflow to work alright, but it’s wonky enough that I don’t do it as much anymore. Thinking about trying to start over with a new DAW and whatnot.

If privacy is a concern there’s a decent amount of stuff you can do to strip down Windows 11.

Nothing to learn if you're just doing desktop stuff.

There's no reason to hope that you can change to a new operating system and you can copy paste exactly what you did in the other, completely different operating system. However that doesn't mean its hard. There are distros that make it really easy to transition too. I had a really easy moving over, but I was fine with adapting to new workflows and software and OS.

I run Linux while having 3 kids, my fiancee, a full time job that has a lot of OT, family health issues I have to support etc. Life is always busy and will always be busy. I pace myself with what I want to learn based on how busy my life is at that time. Not pacing I would burn out. I advise the same.

I also think being pissed off at Microsoft isn't enough to get into Linux for the long term. Its enough to just start. You need to be able to want to learn something new because if you make the switch, run into an issue with some distro, can't get past it, you'll end up right back where you left off.

Best of luck either way. Definitely do your research first and follow good rules for backing up your data.

I don't know what all these doomsayers are doing. I installed Bazzite and it just worked. I decided I didn't want an immutable system so I switched to Garuda, and it just worked. I have Nvidia and didn't have to do anything extra.

Of note: Microsoft is offering an extended support program for Windows 10 consumers. It's $30, or free if you opt in to Windows Backup, or you can buy it with Microsoft Rewards points. I would see if you have any of those points and go that route. It means you can delay 11 safely for another year.

Add another SSD and dual boot. Keep the windows 10 install for the audio software and use Linux for everything else. Nvidia cards will work in Linux, you just have to install the driver. That's just a couple of clicks in many distros. I would suggest sticking with a distro that uses X11 since Wayland can still cause some issues with Nvidia GPUs.

Back up your music data to an external & a cloud backup. Then the OS matters less.

I would suggest installing Fedora Kinoite, poke around it for 20-30min and if you find it too confusing then just putting windows back.

My point is that it's not a big decision/commitment. And it's trivial to undo!

Your lack of time is the biggest issue, followed by your music needs (which are not impossible but I also know its not plug and play).

I would recommend going with win11 for simplicity and times sake. I would also recommend at least trying out ameliorated windows11. https://ameliorated.io/

Basically their stock run book makes the OS far more secure and private by setting up an admin account and then making your account a standard user (the way it should be done). Then it strips out all the bloat, restricts services, and installs open source alternatives like libre office and libre wolf. It also drastically changes the UI, which most of it I like and some is meh, but its all much better than the crap stock UI. I run this as a VM for all the stuff I still need windows for and I love it. Nothings ever going to make windows not windows, but this is pretty close and a simple click install. I highly recommend it.

Tldr, I recommend sticking with Windows or using two separate machines, one for music production running Windows, the other for running everything else with Linux.

Music production isnt great on Linux in my experience at least right now. If you use any paid plugins that are windows only, there's a good chance they won't run. I haven't used ableton or cakewalk but I use reaper which has a native Linux version, and even that had a lot of issues. Anything with ilok is a no go, even plugins that dont, I had a hard time getting working or if they did work, they crashed A LOT.

Gaming and other general use has been fine for me, ive even done video and photo editing on Linux and been happy with it.

If you want the easiest experience, I typically recommend Fedora KDE spin or kubuntu. KDE is a desktop environment that is very similar to windows and highly customizable. You'd likely feel at home on it. Immutable distro might also be a good option if you really want the "IDC just do the update" path. Harder to break, easier to manage from what ive heard but I haven't used them personally so maybe others that have can chime in.

I made a windows only box for music production and use Linux on my main PC. It runs windows 10 and is rarely connected to the internet except when I need it to be. If you wanna run Linux and make music, it can be done, but I had a terrible time with it and have given up for now.

So make a separate machine for music production and run Linux on your main pc or just run Windows is my advice. So far, this has been the best setup for me. I don't worry about my privacy, I can make music when I want, and I don't have to worry about incompatible plugins, crashes, stupid nonsense that gets in my way when i wanna make music.

No idea about Cakewalk etc but your Steam games will almost all be fine and Linux is honestly great right now and always getting better.

Having used Linux Mint, Windows 10, and Windows 11, I can honestly say that Win10 is okay and Win11 is annoying dogshit. I'd recommend taking the Linux plunge of course, but if you're desperate for Windows I think paid extended support for 10 might be a thing?

But like I said 11 is dogshit and there's no time like the present to just grab 3-4 USB sticks at Microcenter, download a bunch of ISOs and Rufus or Balena Etcher, and just dick around. Linux Mint with Cinnamon or KDE will probably give you one of the slickest Windows-like experiences OOTB. Only recommendation: some wifi cards (with certain chips, I forget which) in my experience have required me to go hunt down a driver, so check reviews for any card you're looking at to see if people report it working out of the box.

In short: I jumped on Mint some months ago and it just works.

The first time I jumped on Linux, I got burned haaard. I picked openSUSE, and I'm not sure if my hardware was crap or that distro is finicky, but nothing worked and it was just issue on issue on issue and I hated it.

Fast forward a couple years and Mint is nothing like that. It worked as it should out of the box and the only real tinkering I had to do was update the driver for my GPU manually because it was still so new.

Sure, some things work differently, but it's not too complicated to get into.

You can enable automatic software updates and configure the built-in backup program Timeshift, so you can revert the system to a previous snapshot if ever something should go real wrong.

But with all that said, I see that neither Cakewalk or Ableton are easy installs, as they're not officially supported on Linux. Will require some tinkering to get working. So maybe for that reason only Win11 would be the better choice. Or try dual booting to get a feel for it, best of both worlds.

I mean Windows 11 can do annoying things, but it's not gibberish. Reminds me of XP to Vista, but less about performance issues and more about incessant GUI tweaks no one asked for.

I'd say update it and make do, then move to Linux down the road if it annoys you enough to motivate that decision.

It's not all bad, I am enjoying the HDR features, which is the only reason I updated before the Win10 EOL.

That said, I do plan on making a Linux VM and playing around to get a feel for it.

I hope you mean torrenting and not tormenting 😸

Just install Linux on an external SSD and test it.

You can do Linux if your situation meets these criteria:

• your hardware is supported. it likely is, but check. Usually running a live usb is sufficient.
• The proprietary software you want to run is supported in some stable way - like, platinum steam support, or the developer supports and intends to continue supporting Linux. do dual boot temporarily and make absolutely sure.
• you are psychologically capable of declining to try to fix everything. While Linux just works for me, I've learned to recognize escalating effort in getting some new cool piece of software or hardware to work. wait until what you want is at least in beta. aside from that, it's just not supported. Don't frozzle the frimfram as /u/linuxminordeity told you to, because after that, you'll have to bidnap the uperpon. ..and on and on. just accept that people are working on it and it's not ready. contribute somehow, if you feel like it. but accept. If it can't be installed through typical channels (website package for linux, the repositories, or flatpak) it just doesn't work.

tbh, it sounds like you don't want to have to think about and test it. ..and if that's true, then you shouldn't be switching operating systems if you can reasonably avoid it.

From what I've heard of seen in the Linux community music production on Linux is not easy. There is a fair amount of tweaking to get audio working and connecting instruments.

I ended up switching to Linux recently for same reasons, but my kids are older and i had time to nerd out and go full Archwiki. Ableton was one of the last holdouts that was keeping me from switching.... and I spent a good month dicking around with wine trying to get it to work. And I couldn't! I ended up selling my Ableton license and buying Bitwig, which is natively supported in Linux, and actually pretty amazing... (I don't expect you to switch, just telling my story. It has really fun modular synth-like interface, with all the other VST support and quite good out-of-the-box plugins etc.)

I also couldn't get Affinity Photo working in wine.... and gimp doesn't quite do it for me. So I'm not sure what to do there, so my photo editing hobby is on hold til I figure that out.

That said, some of my other windows stuff works magically in wine (sierrachart, games, etc.).

So with all that in mind, I'd say if you don't have time to figure it out, and still want ableton to work, it might not be worth the mental load until you have more time on your hands. Unless you have an old laptop lying around, it wouldn't hurt to just try it and see what you can get working.

It all boils down to how willing you are to troubleshoot an odd problem or post on a linux nerd forum. I transitioned from win10 to fedora KDE pretty painlessly, though I did have to hit up the fedora forum for an answer to a weird hardware issue specific to my machine. Learning to use the command line for doing a few weird customizations I wanted was a bit of a stumble too (though I've heard from my mint using buddy this isn't an issue on Mint?)

My steam library works fine with the default proton option enabled and my day to day experience has me forgetting that I'm even on a weirdo operating system made by FOSS cultists (love you foss cultists, mwah.) I literally do just press a button every couple of weeks that updates the system in the way that you're looking for.

Are you intent on ableton and cakewalk (holy shit I haven’t heard cake walk in a minute)?

For ableton, I’d even consider Mac.

I have never personally used ableton and I was not very advanced with FL studio, but at least LMMS seemed to be FL studio like .

Your easiest way is to upgrade windows normally and if you dislike all it's bloated software, just install Atlas OS on top of it. It's just a software that will go through your windows and debloat it as much as possible. Simple as that. Easier done than reinstalling windows for an LTSC version. I personally have a dual boot with a win 11 with Atlas OS specifically for the software I can't install on Linux.

Not the exact answer you’re looking for, but a $500 Mac mini would be a fantastic solution. That or an entry level MacBook Air.

I run Linux on my desktop for most things but all my music production is done on MacBooks. If you want a turn key solution, this is the way.

Every vst, midi device and mixing console I have just works. Well worth the sub $1000 investment.

Hell, my touring setup runs off a 8 year old MacBook Pro you could likely pick up for under $400.

I use Windows 11 for work and honestly don't know why so many folks complain about it. I like working in it better than 10.

The forced Microsoft login is absolutely a valid privacy concern - I get that. The copilot integration is annoying and not helpful but can be turned off. The general UI and compatibility is pretty good. I'd just go ahead and upgrade to 11.

I had my first kid a little over 2 years ago, and my interest in twiddling with my OS plummeted. I use Linux, and it's great for what I do, but I don't do any sound stuff. I bet you could do it but that there'd be a lot of twiddling with your OS.

Go with windows. Especially because of your abelton use, you will not be able to keep it. With steam if you play multiplayer competitive games then it won't work either on Linux.

I went the other way, just installed LMDE and it all worked (AMD system) Then didn't use stuff that didn't work. Steam.worked but im not really gamer, the few non taxing games all worked no issues

Figured I'd get a handle and disto hop later but cant be ass'd, used to it now and 80% of what I wanted worked with zero issues from thebhet go, another 10% I evetually got around to tweaking and works no issues and the other 10%, fcuk 'em and their lack of Linux supoort.

18 months, all on, no dual boot etc

You don't have to upgrade to 11 for at least a year or longer. Register a free MS account for your win 10 and you get free patches for Win 10 for a year. Otherwise it's $30.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/microsoft-is-giving-windows-10-users-free-security-updates-for-a-year-but-theres-a-catch/

A lot of Linux distros are set it and forget it these days. Nvidia can be finicky though, so i suggest a distro that installs proprietary nvidia drivers for you—I think Linux Mint and Bazzite do that, though I'm not personally familiar with either.

The other thing is music prod which I am not familiar with. I've heard that there's a lack of Linux software for music prod but hopefully some other users who know more can explain what the situation is like on Linux these days.

Steam won't pose a problem. Steam does something called Proton, a compatibility layer allowing Linux users to run Windows game, and the vast majority of Windows games run flawlessly with Proton. Similarly, you shouldn't have to worry about losing saves, as Steam Cloud should save and transfer them all automatically.

Some things designed for Windows just don't work on Linux, Windows LTSC is a great choice for those situations. Some people have had better experiences, but debloating scripts have always been finicky and fragile for me. LTSC comes out of the box without the usual crap and there's no risk of it all coming back after an update.

You can grab a copy of LTSC 2021 and activation if needed, which will come with the Windows 10 UI and updates until 2032.

I started with a dual boot. Very easy to do, if you have two hard drives. I have landed on Bazzite because I just game and watch movies at home. It does those things very well.

2 kids here.

Avoid any challenges until you can handle the most important one. Just come back when he's 1 y/o.

I now game with them on my Bazzite Linux desktop PC and our Steam Deck. Kids love it.

It sounds like you’re really sensitive to workflow disruption at this time in your life. You can’t change from Windows to Linux without some pretty hefty disruptions, same as if you chose to go from Windows to Mac. If you really don’t feel like you have the personal bandwidth to deal with the workflow disruptions and learning curve, you should go with Windows 11. If you hate it, it’s not like Linux won’t still be there for you to investigate later when your life calms down.