I think you might be overthink this a tad too much, sure it can give you more problems the Windows but, in my 10 years of using it, most of the time it works fine. Pop is a decent starting place, with NVIDIA drivers being pre-installed if memory serves right, and it also has a graphical interface for installing and updating apps.

As for the terminal, it’s incredibly powerful and versatile, but you don’t need to learn and use it all at once, take small steps. Learn first the update command, the basics like cd (change directory), ls (list files and/or folders), cat (concatenate files and output to terminal), etc. Over time you’ll get the hang of the more advanced stuff.