To be clear, this question is for general PC use, and not only gaming.
Desktop mode on my Deck has easily become my favorite PC experience in a very long long time. I’ve used Windows and Apple my entire life before now, so I have zero experience with Linux, other than the Steam Deck, but the OS is incrediby friendly to newcomers, and I’d say it’s essentially a modern and polished version of Windows 95.
So what would you recommend as a similar experience for desktop?
Nope. Native Linux. And wine/proton didn’t work very well before