Also: you might like Caitlin Doughty/Ask A Mortician's videos and/or books. A lot of discussion about different cultures' approaches to death and how people's attitudes have evolved over time.
I've been pondering this myself. We had to have one of my cats (the one in my profile pic) put down last month, and we got a fur clipping, as well as her ashes. I'd like a piece of memorial jewelry or glass and I'm finding I'm OK with stuff that includes the fur, but not OK with cremation jewelry/cremation glass, and I don't really know how to articulate why. I think part of it is that fur and hair are shed throughout a lifetime anyway, but dividing up someone's bones or ashes almost feels like commodification to me.
(To be clear: I'm not judging other people who do this with their loved ones' remains, be they human or animal; this is just, like, my opinion, man.)
Like others have said, you didn't do anything wrong. Maybe say a prayer or light a candle for the person and their family if you're the praying type, but otherwise, don't worry about it too much.
"Should you" as in "is it morally/ethically wrong?" No, it's not. "Should you" as in "is it a good idea?" No, it's a terrible idea. And I think you know that on some level.
I've been to at least one distillery and a hydroelectric dam. These days, your best bet is probably to just check the website of wherever it is you wanna go to.
Mint is a pretty solid choice for like 95% of people. If you're already using LibreOffice then you're halfway there, and I've been able to run all the games I want through Steam or Lutris (the Flatpak versions are better for compatibility IME). A lot of people use Bottles for games as well, but I've never been able to get it to work properly. I think I started using Linux full-time at about the level you seem to be at, and I didn't run into any major issues.
Seconding (or third-ing, or twelfth-ing) the recommendation for Linux Mint, but also gonna throw one in for MX Linux if the hardware is older.