Welcome Bill!
I’ve been hanging around on the forum for a few years now, and have found it one of the best communities I’ve found online, not only for the open source software like darktable (my favorite!) but for photography generally.
Darktable is fantastic, but depending on your mindset and expectations it can be overwhelming too, so don’t be afraid to to take your time and refer to the manual and so on.
A couple of recent new entries into the field of free and open source (FOSS) raw developers are RapidRaw and Safelight, while the well established RawTherapee and its offshoot ART are also great, so you have options if darktable doesn’t suit your workflow.
All these are discussed on here and many of the developers also hang out here so we’re blessed with a wonderfully vibrant group.
Have fun!
P.S. if you enjoy a bit of classic film look, you might be interested in Spektrafilm - a quite new film emulation that actually simulates the chemistry in code. V. cool and awesome results. A module to use it in darktable is under development too.