Who uses Linux instead of Windows?

Back in 2000 I got a copy of Caldera Linux and I found it absolutely useless. That was the days of dial-up internet. I dual booted a computer and set two IDE drives on the same connection to master. Somehow it fried both hard drives. So for the longest time I was scared to mess around with linux. In 2009 I was having problems with Windows getting worms and pop ups and paying ridiculous amounts of money to remove the viruses. I worked at a VoiceOverIP company at the time. So there was a few computer geeks around there that I ran into on a daily basis. One of them told me about Ubuntu. So I had a little bit of moral support in uploading it. A couple years ago my woman gave me her old laptop riddled with viruses. I added Ubuntu. And it's useful again. I stick with Ubuntu because it's stabler than windows. And harder to get a virus in Linux, from what I heard.

Ultimately I want to get away from Google Drive. And keeping important stuff on thumb drives, similar to how we used to keep floppy disks back in the days. For security reasons. And I'm editing a piece of FanFiction I poorly wrote a few years ago. And I don't want somebody taking it. Because it's fanfiction and I have no legal recourse.

I don't know enough about Linux commands to work from terminal prompt. Any recommendations for books on Linux anybody can give to familiarize me with some basic commands and proper syntax? Thanks!