Hi Mike, I gave up on Windows when XP expired. Had a Vista laptop and hated it so tried Linux as a dual boot and found I used Linux all the time and eventually deleted the windows partition. I still have a laptop with Windows and every time I switch it on, it reminds me why I hate windows, takes ages to do windows updates and download new anti-virus update, running anti virus scans, defragging, it just goes on and on.
Tried several varieties of Linux and the best for me was
LXLE
I am also very impressed with the photography software available. As I mentioned I use Darktable which is a Lightroom equivalent. There is also RawTherapee, UFRaw, Luminance HDR and Gimp to name a few. Shotwell is good for downloading from the Camera and cataloguing . Best of all, it is all free
You don't need a modern PC with loads of RAM either. I use a dual core processor with 4GB ram which copes fine.
A capture from Sunday using my K100D which I was quite pleased with. RAW file processed in Darktable