Linux 101 stuff. Questions are encouraged, noobs are welcome!

It's somewhat typical these days for linux distributions to offer a live cd/usb image that you can use to boot into the OS before installing it. I'd recommend trying a few distributions like that to figure out basic things like if you prefer KDE, Gnome, or some other desktop environment.

When you find something that you do want to install, consider using a custom partition scheme so that you can have /home on its own partition. This will let you install a different distribution later without overwriting your own data (I still suggest making a backup first though). Often installers will give you an option to use a separate partition for /home without having to manually partition everything.

Finally, If you go down the path of buying a new laptops take a look at Framework laptops since they work well with your typical linux distros and offer official support for both Ubuntu and Fedora. They're pretty focused on making their laptops easily repairable by anyone, but their prices are somewhat high for the hardware specs you get.

I use Pop_OS with my FW13 and I've been pretty happy with it. It's based on Debian but focused on desktop use so the packages will be relatively up to date, but if not you can follow most Debian guides to setup whatever you need. I personally went with that because their desktop environment (modified Gnome) lets you have both regular floating windows and tiling windows.