Notepad++ - This is the definitive notepad-related software you’ll ever need. Multiple tabs, keeps tracks of lines, lots of features and preferences. One of the most invaluable parts of it, is that you can close it or a update happens or maybe your PC will get knocked offline. You can come back to Notepad++, open it, and everything will be retained.
PowerPoint.
My work won’t pay for fancy graphic editing software, so I’ve learned how to make some impressive graphics and signs using only PowerPoint. It’s surprising good at it!
If cost is the barrier, some FOSS analogs to commercial software packages that you might be interested in. These can all be freely downloaded.
Adobe Illustrator (vector graphics): Inkscape
Adobe Photoshop (image manipulation): GIMP
Corel Painter (natural-media-looking digital painting): Krita
3DS Max (3D modeling): Blender
Krita is such a horrible crashy mess - most of the time all I need is good old MS Paint (plus free rotate) but I after two decades of Linux I’ve yet to find a paint app that doesn’t overcomplicate everything with layers and selectors and modes. 😭
fyi mspaint should run fine with WINE https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=373
So, Rhynoplaz was after “fancy” stuff, but okay, I suppose that there’s an use case for a MacPaint/MS Paint analog, with a low barrier to just get going.
Maybe Drawing for GNOME or KolourPaint for KDE? It doesn’t look like either of those support layers. Drawing looks like it lets one drag a rectangular selection to rotate to non-90-degree increments. KolourPaint doesn’t, but it lets one choose to rotate and input an arbitrary number of degrees.
I haven’t used either, myself, other than just to check now. They’re both packaged in Debian, so they’re probably also gonna be packaged in any Debian-family distro.
EDIT:
https://maoschanz.github.io/drawing/
https://apps.kde.org/kolourpaint/
Both describe themselves as being “simple” paint programs.