That was a bit off piste wasn't it!

Yes, I'm tired of all this distro thing. Let's stop giving distro advice to new users. Tell them to just pick any as it doesn't influence their experience in the slightest.

Yes, you'll be fine

Cachy, Endeavour, Garuda, etc should be fine.

Also, @CarlLandry357@lemmy.world, another factor in learning the CLI is that it gives you power in automating your desktop workflow. Using Bash with a bunch of Unix tools is the most basic automation script you can have, and Linux is very nimble about it (invoking processes is considerably more costly in Windows, so apps tend to do everything in a single process with threads).

For example, a file manager like Double Commander can have custom actions for files defined in the options, and you specify those as a terminal command to invoke.

A more advanced example is a launcher like Alfred (for MacOS) that can run scripts on custom keywords. I've had it doing stuff like connecting/disconnecting bluetooth headphones without mucking about with the mouse and tray menus, or handing the headphones over to the phone. Haven't found anything like that for Linux yet.

Generally, a programmer that knows multiple languages and paradigms is better than one that sticks to a single one, because they've encountered different ways of doing things. Particularly, for desktop automation, learning Lua is a boon, because it's small and fast as hell and finishes scripts before Python can start up. I'm in perpetual mourning for absence of anything like Hammerspoon for Linux, which allows scripting in Lua and has lots of APIs to interface with the OS.

Of course, one milestone in a programmer's career is learning Lisp instead of the usual stuff.

I recommend using Manjaro instead.