I agree with Ianab, and avoid Windows.
Recently attempted to set up my wife's office Windows laptop to work from home. Four hours later, both myself and her office IT person simply gave up. Credit goes to a somewhat janky internet connection, their network security, and most importantly Windows 10 fighting every effort to connect.
I plugged her into a Macintosh, and 12 minutes later she was fully operational, and has had no problems since. She needed a Mac or Windows to use Excel. She and her IT person were reluctant to try an alternative spreadsheet as their office is Excel based.
I have also been using Linux and am moving to Peppermint - a light weight version of Mint that works well on older computers. Elementary OS is an excellent alternative to the Macintosh OS.
There are many variants of Linux.
DistroWatch.com describes and evaluates many of them. One feature most Linux distributions offer is a LiveCD or LiveUSB version that you install on a thumb drive or CD that you boot from without installing. This allows you to test the distribution on your exact hardware, without installing on your hard drive.