AFAIK on most distros and desktop environments the default file manager can read NTFS partitions without any further setup needed.

I dual boot Fedora with secure boot enabled for half a year already on my notebook with exactly 0 problems. Did few Windows updates already.

I actually found Cinnamon to be more resource intensive than Gnome on most computers.

I use ChatGPT for these kinds of questions nowaday. I didn’t have a clue how linux cmd prompt worked at the start, but was able to install wi-fi adapter drivers, and do various other stuff and even remembered some of the commands. But yes. Some things are bigger hassle in linux, depending on distro you use. With Linux mint creating a desktop icon was a piece of cake, but with Ubuntu… Oh my.