My 8bitdo pro 2 controller works out of the box in lutris. Plug and play.
In fact the only controller that wasnt plug and play was my gamecube controller with the official adapter. I typed in like one command iirc and then it was plug and play lol
Wished windows was like that.
I had a similar issue and honestly I would just recommend worrying about it later. Don't force it, just try it when you have some free time.
I started off with dual boot to play with Linux and jump to windows when I need it. Then eventually to full Linux once I realized I never actually needed it to do all my work.
I recommend Linux mint as its the most similar to windows and is built for new Linux users. I tried Ubuntu first and the experience was pretty bad, but I learned much quicker in mint and had a much better experience right away.