< Long Term Servicing Conundrum
I left behind the Windows world ~10 years ago. I still got a second partition with windows for gaming, but I barely use it anymore as most Steam games run on Linux.
I can only recommend Xubuntu as a starting distribution. Xfce is nice and simple and you get the full support of Ubuntu.
Another point for the Debian/Ubuntu family :) Looks like I have my starting point at least.