Hi Jay, welcome to the Forum!
Most flavours of Linux run similar recent versions of the Linux Kernel, so fundamentally choice of distribution tends to be driven by hardware capability and user preference. Some desktops for example tend to use more memory than others, some have better support for third party graphics drivers, etc. Probably the best approach is to get hold of Linux removable media, and try out some different options without actually installing Linux on your machine. (i.e. run Linux directly off that removable media - say a USB key)
This will give you a feel for what your preference might be, and whether it has any issues detecting all of your hardware. You might like to take a quick look at this page; Multiboot USB Key 1.0 is Here!
Anti-virus is an interesting one. Some people will tell you “yes” and point you at the software they use. From my perspective, I don’t think anti-virus software on Linux is useful. The “why” of this is probably a very long-winded 1000 page essay, but to try to summarise;
- The attack vectors for Windows are different to those for Linux. Many simply do not exist under Linux so many of the checks done on Windows systems just don’t apply under Linux.
- Linux was designed differently to Windows. Security was a fundamental feature in the original Linux design so again, many issues have just never existed under Linux.
- The current security threats that face Linux systems aren’t ones that traditional anti-virus systems do or can address (afaik) so there is a risk of introducing a potential false sense of security into the equation which may not be helpful.
Arguably a “better” approach is to simply adopt more secure behaviours. So for example;
- Don’t install any software that doesn’t come from a known reputable source (typically your distribution provider via their software installer)
- Where possible install snap or docker based packages so any installed software is sandboxed within a “container”
- Don’t install browser extensions or anything else that could interfere with your network communications (3rd party VPN’s, Proxies etc)
So a vanilla Ubuntu Desktop installation for example, should be usable and fairly secure “out of the box” without any additional configuration.
My personal choice, if a system has less then 8Gb of RAM I will typically use XUbuntu and the XFCE desktop. (which is a low memory usage desktop). For more than 8Gb, I prefer KUbuntu (KDE Desktop). Whereas I like Vanilla Ubuntu and the GNome desktop, I don’t like to log out or indeed reboot. Unfortunately my experience of Gnome over the years has been that it has seemed to have a tendency to leak memory. Maybe it’s better now, I’ve not tried it recently.
hth