I agree with Rob. It is hard to improve on D-76 for general purpose developing. I used that for years before moving to Ilford stuff, mainly because it was more convenient and available where I am. I gave away all my darkroom equipment, including my chemistry formulary recently. I would suggest that the OP simply use something like D-76, prone of the Ilford developers such as ID-11 or Ilfolsol
Ilford produces Ilfotec DD-X film developer. This is an easy to use developer and produces full film speed of PROPERLY exposed and DEVELOPED film. A friend of mine just recently sent me a shot of his new Harley processed in DDX and it looks amazing with TMAX 400 II. The late Barry Thorton wrote the now famous treatise, Edge of Darkness,
Edge of Darkness, along with Elements: The Making of Fine Monochrome Prints,
Elements: The Making of Fine Monochrome Prints.
I have used many developers over the years with many different B&W emulsions and sizes. Today IMO, there are so many excellent film developer combinations available I would recommend to the beginner (whether scanning or old timey printing) to pick a developer that is tried and true. I started out with HC-110 and old Tri-X. Today I use TMAX developer and TMAX-RS for sheet film, all processed in a Jobo rotary processor.
However, a simple Patterson roll film can made of plastic with easy load nylon reels (or what ever they are made of) will suffice. D-76 has always been the breakfast of champions, and works beautifully with Tri-X and HP5. Glycine/amidol based developers that you mix yourself give awesome results with Pan F plus. Thus we are back to the Ilfotec DD-X developer that have similar qualities of the G/A developer.
For really really easy scanable results shoot Ilford's XP2 that is easily processed in C-41 at your finisher. Expose at ISO of 200 and get wonderful creamy highligts and mid-tones with beefy shadows.
Speaking of shadows that is one of the differentiations with a difference that analog B&W has over digital B&W many users don't realize. Digital shadows can get easily crushed together whereas a good robust film toe keeps on giving if exposed and developed properly and printed properly, either digitally or in the old timey darkroom.
Good luck and have fun, failure is always an option to learn from so don't be afraid of making mistakes.
Don Bryant
PS Even though I shoot digital I still have and use my darkroom.