Free and Open Source Software

I've used it for VR, which is the only thing I keep Windows for. It's pretty good however I'd say having experience with Linux is a good idea, I definitely wouldn't treat it as a drop-in silver bullet for Windows minimalism (if such a thing exists).

By the sounds of it you're inexperienced with OS-hopping, so if you're going to start looking for things like this just do it properly and give Linux a go. You'll learn so much more and get a much nicer experience at the end, then if you decide you still need Windows then go and use someone else's computer to make a USB. I wouldn't bother trying to make one on Linux, it hardly ever works in my experience.

For clarity, I now just debloat vanilla Windows 11 with Chris Titus' tool. Still only used for VR and Game Dev.

If you go with Atlas, just know you're putting your whole system into the hands of a team smaller than most Linux distros that's doing more work than all of them, so I doubt Atlas is going to be around for much longer. Whereas something like Debian, Mint or Pop! is here to stay.

There's also far less chance of your system breaking if you go with Linux. Really in this situation there is absolutely zero reason to not go the extra mile and hop to desktop freedom.