Little known fact is that a lot of computers that ran/run Windows 10 is not supported by Windows 10 (check supported CPUs for Windows 10). The difference is that Windows 10 doesn’t actively block you from installing it.

Debian can be installed without doing any configuration. In the installer choose to have KDE, Gnome or another desktop and you will get a functional desktop with most normal apps and games. I’ve only made small changes to configuration but nothing that was blocking me from using it. Might not be the case for everyone and some other distros will be better at automatically configuring more things.

Yep, just choosing a distro can be daunting when you know nothing.

If it’s not super secret what you’re doing, you could use SheepIt. I’ve not used it myself as I’m not really good with anything that’s art, but have had my server do CPU render tasks. It also supports GPU rendering.

I think it’s “Safe” as in “No one was ever fired for choosing IBM” or more on the nose: If you choose to install Linux on all company computers and the CFO gets mad when Excel doesn’t work, why aren’t we just using windows??!?!? Then it’s your ass on the line. You will have a million enterprise software vendors that supports Windows, fewer that supports Linux.

It’s no longer the safe bet for a lot of companies/countries because of how USA is being run at the moment, but that’s s whole other reason.

I have no experience using it with multiple monitors, but I’m using Remote Desktop Manager from Devolutions as we use that at work. They have a pretty capable free version and actually makes a Linux version too. Just a hopeful suggestion.