The best that I can think of that fits those requironments would be Linux mint. When downloading you can select between 3 different Editions, whose only difference is the desktop, all this boils down to is how it looks, so just select whatever looks best to you.

Now something to keep in mind when switching to linux; while you will be able to do all that youd want on a PC on linux, some software that you might use and be accustomed to (like the adobe suit) might not be supported on linux (like the adobe suit) so youd need to find alternatives. Linux was designed around terminals, ‘cmd’ on windows, so while you can do most in a GUI, you will more often than not find tutorials using said terminals. And unlike on windows with guis, terminals have both direct system access, as well was expect you to know what you are doing, so read what it prints, its important.

Win32 is a collection of windows APIs that allows applications to freely take use of windows. The problem being that 99% of current windows applications use win32 APIs, so all those programs would just be dead unless the alternative is api compatible. So in order to kill win32 Microsoft would have to release an api compatible alternative.

So what would happen if they did that? That is kill win32 and add an api compatible alternative? Best case scenario: nothing changes. Worse case scenario: every single standalone exe would be dead

So why kill win32? Power; by lets say locking the new api behind the windows store, they basically fully lock all applications to ever be redistributed to said windows store, killing steam, itch, epic games, and every single exe in existence. The only way applications would exist is by approval of Microsoft.

Now obviously this will never happen.

The entire premise of win32 shutting down is made up by people not understanding what they are talking about. However as a corporation, valve rather spends money on an alternative to be able to tell Microsoft, that they are able to significantly influence window’s desktop marketshare, than to let Microsoft do whatever they want, even if it is mostly just smaller things.

I have been using steamvr on linux since a while now, getting close to the mythical 1000h playtime. while it mostly works on paar with windows, there is a single drawback that might make it impossible for people to play on linux, being async. Which works on amd, but isnt supported by nvidia drivers.

While that isnt really a problem in openvr if you can maintain your headsets display refresh rate or in games without a lot of movement (example vrchat), its missing in nvidia drivers results people with an nvidia card not being able to play any openxr games (example newer versions of beatsaber), as openxr hard depends on it. Stupidly enough, openxr games still work with async disabled, but refuse to if your drivers dont support it

Correct, but so is linux itself as seen here, likewise, Microsoft also helps the development of the linux kernel as seen on this Linux Foundation webpage. Sometimes ad services sponsor non ad related projects.

In the case of firefox however, they are funded by google to have it be the default search engine, and not because Firefox itself sells ad spaces. So I dont quite get the point you are making