At the risk of a distro fight, if you bounce off Ubuntu give another distro a shot. I can't really explain it but I had issues with Ubuntu being almost to streamlined; it mostly worked out of the box as advertised but when it didn't I had no idea what was going on.

I just learned more quickly on Debian. It's a personal thing, so it might be you as well.

I'll also add: if you're new to Linux you're used to thinking about the Explorer, the desktop environment, etc as part the OS. They aren't. With nearly every Linux distro, you can have a more Mac like desktop (gnome) or windows (kinda KDE Plasma). And in either of those if you don't like the file Explorer there are options there to.

Most of what Ubuntu does stock should be fine, but I just remember getting used to things was easier for me with plasma than gnome coming from a windows machine.

edit: I wanted to add, some people have strong opinions about which of those other elements are better (desktop environments/explorers). It's mostly taste, except when it isn't, because they do in-fact have aspects than can be important. Stick to something well known and used while starting.