If you'd be open to try Linux again if it were less likely to break than your past experience, look into the recent trend of what they commonly call "immutable" distributions. This should give you the ability to always switch back to a working OS if anything goes wrong (which should be much less likely in the first place). It's similar in concept to Android or Chrome OS, from what I understand. I'm watching this space very closely because I'm concerned about experiencing the same thing as you if I switch to Linux, and not having the ability to fix the system myself.