A lot is happening on desktop Linux right now, and I've found rolling release distros to be nice for that reason. Debian or Arch with KDE Plasma Desktop is a nice combination.
Regarding minimal installations, if you're new to Linux, I think you should try to use a popular Linux desktop distribution, Debian has several, there's Ubuntu, EndeavorOS for Arch, and others.
You can also boot live Linux instances from a flash drive and try things out before you install.
To answer your first question, I went from Linux to macOS back to Linux again.
Check this if you want to use macOS keybindings on Linux: https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto
For media playback, safe web browsing, and writing documents, I use the Mac.
For a sane coding environment and a workstation without non-consensual changes, I use the Linux VM. (Bonus: easy snapshots, including RAM state.)
Currently using a 7-year-old Mac and it's reasonably performant for my purposes.
The best of both worlds, IMO.
For distros, I recommend you spend a couple of hours trying several different ones (and several different VMs) until you find one which you like. Again, I avoid anything with a history of non-consensual changes, so Gnome and KDE are out, but there are plenty of other choices. Inside a VM, of course, lighter is better.