VMs are a good way to dip your toes, but honestly, doesn’t hurt to boot from a USB and try that way too. That’s how I checked of Fedora, which I stuck with and now dual boot with. I rarely go to my Windows partition unless there’s something I have to do that can’t be done on Linux.
I don’t touch terminal often, and I use Fedora Silverblue, which is immutable, making it harder for me to fuck up my system somehow. I have used the rollback feature due to updates with the kernel breaking bluetooth, so there’s the bright side of rollback distros.
If you’re on Android, get on Fdroid and use Drip. It’s simple, does it’s job, can give you alerts if you want them, and can be locked so the gov isn’t tracking when you were possibly pregnant. Also tracks symptoms and body temp and shit for those who want to get pregnant.
Or if on GrapheneOS turn internet off for you period tracker app (but at that point just use FOSS)