@pugtato
For starters I recommend Ubuntu (you can pick your own desktop flavor, like xubuntu, kubuntu etc) or Linux Mint since its GUI is very similar to windows xp. Those are debian based distros (mint is ubuntu based) and they are well supported by forums if you run into some problems and if you want to play with it. Any Linux distro is privacy upgrade from Windows, but your final OS should be QubesOS as most private if you are running from government or something like that.