Hi @BoJack (nice series)

I'd recommend something Debian based like Ubuntu. It's very beginner friendly yet grows with you as you learn. It's perhaps not the 'purest' Linux distro out there but if you start with one of those you might get discouraged to continue which would be a pity. Furthermore, Ubuntu has a large community and therefore many questions that you might have should be answered somewhere online.

Congrats on taking the step