Turns out the reply in my thread telling me the best way to combat not caring about Linux is to care about Linux was absolutely correct.
I picked up a laptop, installed Linux Mint Cinnamon, and I’m already obsessed. I haven’t had this much fun with a PC in a long time and it’s just a cheapo Dell Inspiron 3520.
This is the biggest pitfall of Linux: Microsoft doesn’t make Office for Linux and the compatibility layers we do have don’t work well enough.
There are alternatives like LibreOffice, however, don’t expect them to be perfectly compatible with Office.
Everything else you listed is perfectly fine: Most browsers ship Linux versions, and those can be used for PDF viewing.
I’d recommend familiarizing yourself with the Linux command line, as most advanced system configuration has to be done through the CLI.
In addition, remember to do your research before asking for help. Good resources include the system manual pages, Arch Wiki, and of course, Google.
As for choice of distro, I’ll recommend Fedora, as it’s reasonably up to date with software and has a nice GUI for dealing with updates.
afaik onlyoffice has better compatability with office documents than office itself