I guess my first question is whether Linux knowledge in general is interchangeable between distros?

Most distros are made up of the same components/building-blocks. Hence, learning to interact with the component/building-block on distro X will benefit you whenever you stumble upon it on distro Y.

And second, more importantly, what are the good resources for learning basic things?

“Basic things” is a broad descriptor 😅. I suppose Linux Journey is pretty neat for learning the ropes. But you’re probably best served by resources/documentation that have purposely been created by the maintainers of your chosen distro.

Like if I want to play games I bought on steam, how can I expect that process to be different?

That depends entirely on the game. For some games, it goes as smooth as butter. For others, you need some tweaking before you get there. For yet others, it’s simply unsalvageable. See https://www.protondb.com/ and https://areweanticheatyet.com/ for more details.

If I want to manage files and folders and extensions and such how does that differ if at all from Windows.

Your Linux experience will mostly be dictated by the so-called Desktop Environment. Hence, the above question can only be meaningfully answered after you’ve decided on that.

I’m coming from specifically windows, but I assume for people coming from Mac OS as well what are the do’s and don’ts that you wouldn’t necessarily think of when switching?

Shortlist:

• Don’t download your apps/software/programs/drivers (or what have you) from the internet browser like you’re used to on Windows. Instead, get it from the repositories of your distro. This is commonly accessed from an app store (or something).

Excellent write-up! Thank you so much for this!

that will totally not break with every upgrade

While I agree that it’s a lot more brittle than it has any right to be, it hasn’t been that bad in my experience. For example, it only took me 1-2 days after its official release to upgrade to Fedora 44 (and with it, GNOME 50). Out of the 5/6 extensions I had installed, only 1 has broken on me. Arguably, that is one too many. But as GNOME offers a very stable and polished experience otherwise, I suppose this is pretty acceptable.