When I talk to users looking to make this leap, the first thing I want to discuss is the desktop environment. After all, I'd rather not send Windows users to a distribution that uses GNOME, hyprland, i3, or any other DE that in no way resembles Windows. Recently, I stumbled upon a distribution called VailuxOS that uses KDE Plasma to create a somewhat Windows-esque desktop that would make any user of a Microsoft OS feel right at home.
Pear Linux was a French distro by David Tavares, based on Ubuntu and GNOME but heavily themed with custom fonts, icons, menu layouts, and more, all intended to make it visually resemble Apple's Mac OS X as closely as possible. As DistroWatch records, it went through some seven releases between 2011 and 2013, before Tavares announced that an unnamed company had bought it, and the distro vanished. Some contemporary reviews of PearOS 3.0 (2012), PearOS 7.0, and PearOS 8.0 (both 2013) - especially their screenshots - will give you an idea of how well it accomplished that. The idea has enduring appeal. After it disappeared, there were attempts to revive it, including Pearl Linux and Clementine OS, both in 2014, but neither got far.
The KDE team has decided to finally bring to life a feature that has been long requested. This feature (which was first floated nearly 20 years ago) is geared specifically toward multi-monitor setups and will change the way the desktop works for the better. This new feature is planned for KDE Plasma 6.6 and is all about workspaces. With workspaces, you essentially get multiple desktops that you can switch between to create an efficient environment.
Wayland is the Linux graphical protocol for now and the future. At this point, there is no going back (nor is there a reason to, because Wayland is a vast improvement over X11). The migration from X11 to Wayland has been long and (at times) challenging. Fortunately, it looks as though the dust has settled and Wayland has the full support of most desktops and distributions.
