To start, I’d recommend checking out Flathub and seeing what’s available there. Flatpaks are relatively new but anything there can be installed on basically any Linux distro. It’s organized by category so you can see your options.
Chrome is available on Linux if you’re worried about switching. Firefox is usually the default and what I use just because I’ve always used it (plus, it fully supports ad blockers whereas Chrome now cripples them). Also, Chromium is essentially the exact same as Google Chrome. Both are made by Google and Chrome is just Chromium before Google adds all its branding and stuff.
Don’t worry about antivirus. ClamAV is there if you want to run a scan but you don’t need anything like Norton.
VPN: check your provider. Most work with OpenVPN or have a Linux client.
Gmail obviously works in the browser but there’s a ton of desktop email clients. To give three examples I’ve used:
- Geary is a simple, clean email client that just does email does it well. Not very customizable, though.
- Thunderbird (made by Mozilla) has more features/options and supports extensions. If Geary is too simple, Thunderbird is a good middle ground.
- Evolution is like the Microsoft Outlook that comes with the paid Microsoft Office Suite. It has a calendar and all that enterprise-focused stuff. Probably overkill but it’s there if you need it.
Windows 10 is listed and I’m not quite sure what you mean but you can always run it in a virtual machine if you need it. I use Gnome as my Desktop Environment. Gnome Boxes is super simple. VirtualBox is more complex but has every option I’ve ever needed.
Don’t worry too much about the Desktop Environment thing. KDE and Gnome are the biggest two and both are pretty much equally capable. (You can also always install stuff made for the other if you want. It just might not match the theme.) There’s loads of desktop environments but don’t be intimidated by all the choices. Some are stripped down and designed for older or low-spec computers. There’s one focused on Chinese users. You can ignore most while you get your feet wet.
I do that too. I almost never want to hit CAPS LOCK (and can type holding shift) but if you map it to CTRL or even something not on modern keyboards (like F15 or any number over 12, I guess), you can use it as a shortcut key.
Personally, I use CAPS (remapped to CTRL) plus Tilde as my shortcut to show/dismiss a Quake-style terminal overlay window. That key combo actually can be made to work on Windows and macOS too so it’s basically cross-platform.
I’m 99% sure macOS (with iTerm 2 setup for Quake-style) has a built-in system option to remap CAPS LOCK but it only allows a few keys. I forget the Windows method. I used to have to use Windows sometimes but it’s been awhile. I’ve definitely got it working with a third party terminal emulator and WSL2, though.