Hiya, tbh I don't think there's much to do besides installing specific software that your require out of the box, I think garuda is basically plug and play so not much fiddling to do, which version of garuda you got ? I think even the ones like the qtile versions come with mostly everything ready to go but I'm not sure. Myself I'm used the sway flavor but removed almost everything sway related and replaced it with hyprland and there was not much to do, also remember that if you are really newbie you can use the garuda assistant to install software from a gui

Welcome to Garuda. First change the icons if you don't like them.

I would just look around and read about Garuda. Not much else tbh. It just works

I switched from windows to Garuda about a month ago and as others are saying it’s very usable out of the box, even stuff like steam and proton come pre installed.

That said, if you’re using multiple monitors you’re probably going to want to right click on the desktop of all non-main monitors and add (iirc) the default panel. Out of the box only the main monitor has the bar at the top of the screen that allows you to enlarge/close/move windows that are at full screen. I get the aesthetic choice there, but it was bad for my usability.

Other than that, if you’ve got an Nvidia graphics card make sure you’re using the right drivers for it otherwise sometimes it might go wonky (though I’m hoping my recent update fixed that).

Also, learn how to use AUR and terminal at your own pace, but don’t neglect it. As a new linux user there’s a lot more in terminal than I expected but the more I use it the less scary it is. Similarly there’s a lot that’s only available for Debian/Ubuntu or fedora based distros, but AUR often has an arch hack to it

Fantastic choice.

I'm in Garuda for over a year now and never looked back!