I don't know anything about Linux and the idea of installing it frightens me. Where do I start?

Nisaea , 8 days ago

An excellent place to start is https://linuxjourney.com/ to get you started!

mindbleach , 10 days ago

Step one is back up your data.

Step one is always back up your data.

some_guy , 10 days ago

Enjoy! Welcome! And I don't even run it as my primary, just on servers and stuff (Apple guy).

youngGoku , 10 days ago (edited 10 days ago)

Just dive in head first. You will likely find things you miss about windows but if you give Linux a fair chance I promise you in the end it pays off.

My switch was first a dual boot but I quickly realized I was rarely booting into windows and eventually just formatted the drive to purge all Microsoft from my system.

These days even games only built for windows run just finez if not better than Linux.

LibreOffice is great alternative to MSOffice and most other windows software will run with some form of wine (wine is not a windows emulator).

Freedom isn't free. But it sure as heck is worth the extra steps to get there.

Linux Mint is a great starter Distro.

BlindFrog , 10 days ago

Seconding Linux Mint!

I came to linux because I was building a new pc at the time win11 came out, and I saw how much more like apple it looked.

I wasn't afraid to try linux because I'd already done some easy mods to my steam deck (decky and retropi). Using the steam deck's computer desktop was almost like using older windows to me; I appreciated that.

Downloading programs was like android to me; using the system's app store, or sideload an app or a second app store, or follow the dev's readme.txt. Easy, fun, free, ad-free.

I downloaded different linux distributions to a bunch of spare thumb drives and tried them one at a time. I figured, the moment I had a problem that lasted more than an hour with one distro, I'd move on to the next. If I couldn't hack it past four tries, I'm going back to windows 10.

Linux Mint was the second attempt, and it's pretty intuitive to use, imo. It feels like the ease of using android, but with a desktop and my beloved windows-style taskbar.

anon5621 , 10 days ago

Agree about linux mint but need to be aware that he bought new laptop and kernel in version 21 quite outdated for modern hardware ,recommendly would be for him to wait for 22 version already i guess.

LinuxMint21 , 10 days ago

linux mint has an edge version, which comes with a way newer kernel

anon5621 , 10 days ago

Yeah,but we definitely need tell him about it existence :)

D_Air1 , 11 days ago

While the actual install process is super easy especially if you managed to install windows 10 on your own, I'm actually more curious as to what laptop you went and bought. Whether or not your hardware even works well with linux is the much more common problem that people have when using it. It's what leads to the vast majority of something works on my hardware, but not yours posts. Plenty of people have already given instructions on installing, so I won't go into that, but maybe try to research linux on [insert whatever laptop you bought] first.

Barzaria , 11 days ago

I was once like you. You can do it. I like Linux mint. Here's how to install it:
Go to https://www.linuxmint.com/ and see what it's about. It's friendly, it's very Windows like, it just works.
Go here for the install guide: https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Pick an .iso file and download it.
Go to https://etcher.balena.io/#download-etcher
To download the program that puts .iso files on USB drives. Use the Balena Etcher program to burn the .iso onto a USB thumb drive.
Put your non-redownloadable files with sentimental value in another drive and remove the drive from your computer. Do not skip this step, order another drive if you have to (INB4 new laptop, but don't forget this with your other machines).
Plug in the USB drive that has Linux Mint on it. Power off your computer. Wait 20 seconds. Power on your computer. Mash the F2, F10, F12, and F5 keys until you get to the bios screen, or get to the bios screen if you know some other way. Find the setting that says something like "boot priority" and put USB drive above your C drive. Save and power off. Wait 20 seconds. Power on. Press F12 or whatever key you need to to get to the boot selection screen. Choose the option to boot from the Linux Mint USB drive. This is where you can test drive Linux before installing. Try ctl-alt-t to bust open a terminal. The terminal is your friend, but not required for the install. Close terminal with the command 'exit' or ctl-d or ctl-c ctl-d. Double click the install icon on the desktop. Follow instructions. Choose to delete windows forever from your life and put Linux on the hard drive. Follow instructions, they are no harder than any other wizard you have seen to install software. Reboot. Enjoy. Here are some tips:
The terminal is your friend.
Commands for learning the terminal, because the terminal can teach you to use the terminal (man is short for manual):
man man
man apt
man ls
man cd
man vi
man nano
man less
man pipe
man mkfifo
man rm
apt search game ---> searches for the keyword 'game"
apt update ----> this is how to update your cache. Use it to pull your software updates
apt upgrade ----> this is how to apply the updates to your machine.

---End terminal stuff---
You can use your machine in the normal way too, same as any windows machine. Look around and explore. All the stuff in the software center is free (gratis). There's lots of stuff. No more .exes to get software. Look at www.fsf.org to discover why free software is important.

If you have trouble you can DM me. I will help if I can. Good luck, you got this.

Feathercrown , 10 days ago (edited 10 days ago)

Some more info on what exactly the BIOS is, since you don't usually run into it while using Windows: It's a tiny, low-level program that comes with your computer's motherboard that controls all the fundamental stuff about your system. It can enable/disable wifi, USB ports, CD drives, etc.; set your system's time; allow or disable weird stuff like CPU overclocking or Virtual Machine support; change power management settings (like whether to use the computer's battery); and importantly, decide which operating system to use. Your computer actually always goes through the BIOS before starting Windows, it just won't show you any of these settings unless you ask it to. That's why you need to go to the BIOS after installing Linux, you need to tell it to use Linux from the USB stick instead of Windows like it usually does. The icon on Linux Mint that installs it to your computer just copies Linux from the USB to your computer and tells the BIOS to boot into Linux instead of Windows from now on. This is also what lets you "dual-boot": you can have both Windows and Linux on your computer, and the BIOS chooses which use, or you can ask it to switch to the other one.

Nibodhika , 11 days ago

I will keep this as easy as possible, but if you installed Windows 10 that's much harder than installing most Linux distros. If you want a lengthier tutorial but with pictures go to https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

1. Go to https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=311 click any of the links there, the nearest to you they are the faster they will be.
2. Find a USB drive you can use (probably like you did with Windows, and just like then everything inside it will be lost, so make a backup on another drive) and plug it on the PC.
3. Download https://www.balena.io/etcher/ select the image you just downloaded, the USB drive you just plugged, and click flash.
4. Reboot and boot using the USB drive like you did for Windows 10.
5. You're now on Linux, feel free to just poke around, you can connect to your wireless, browse the internet and do whatever, just notice that anything you install or save will be lost since its not really installed but running from the USB drive. When you're ready click the install button.
6. Follow the on-screen instructions like you did with Windows 10 (or )
7. Reboot and unplug the USB drive and you should now be in Linux.

As you can see it's 99% of the same you did with Windows, the hardest part of it (boot via USB drive) you already know how to do.

Now, that being said I do have one small recommendation, while installing you'll see this screen https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_images/installer-install.png I personally recommend you select the "Something Else" option there and manually partition your drive to have:

• 512MB vfat (or fat32 not sure how the Mint installer calls it) partition to be mounted on /boot (this might not be needed, but if you're in UEFI mode, which is very likely because the machine originally had Windows 11, it is needed)
• 60GB ext4 partition to be mounted on / (this is your system, 60GB should be enough, but if your disk is large enough you can give it 100 or whatever you like, just bear in mind that every program you install will be here)
• <Amount of RAM> swap partition (e.g. if you have 16GB of RAM then 16GB swap partition) (Swap is a place in the disk that can be used as RAM, you want it at least the same size as your RAM so you can hibernate the computer since RAM gets wiped when the computer powers off)
• Remaining as an ext4 partition to be mounted on /home (This is where your data, games, photos, etc will be, having this in a different partition is the reason I recommended to go with the custom partitioning. Unlike Windows on Linux partitions are just folders, so if your data is in a different partition than your system you can wipe your system, reinstall it or even install a completely different distro, without touching your data. In short this means that even if you screw up and end up with a non working system, you can follow the installation again, ensure that this partition is not marked for formatting, and you should be back in a new system but without losing any data or configurations)

That's just a recommendation for future-proofing, but if you just want to try it and are okay with wiping everything later if needed then feel free to choose the default.

Sebbe , 10 days ago

Future-proofing with ext4? Come on.

Cethin , 10 days ago

I'm not certain, but I think the current recommendation is a swap file, not a swap partition. A swap file can also be resized a lot easier. The main benefit is that it doesn't write to the same part of the disk constantly, so for SSDs in particular it extends the lifetime.

Nibodhika , 10 days ago

Yes, I use a swap file, but I don't think the installer gives that option, so I'm trying to play it safe. Also a file will always write to the same part of the disk too because you allocated it first, but it's easier to create another file and migrate to it.

SendMePhotos , 11 days ago

If you can install windows, you can install Linux. Easy distro are Ubuntu or maybe Mint. Medium may be fedora or something.

I might get hate but Fuck gnome and debian. Debian is solid af don't get me wrong but Holy hell it feels like the Apple of Linux.

ArcaneSlime , 11 days ago

Tbh Fedora can be harder, or you can click "automatic" and let it fly lol.

Actually I was trying to set it up the way I was used to with the custom-blivet option like 2 days ago to upgrade to 40 and it wouldn't let me install because of some firmware or kernel bug (the error was unhelpful), so I tried auto and it worked! Not sure if it's because this laptop is dying though, and I have a framework coming in the next few weeks so who cares, but auto worked when custom wouldn't!

Adanisi , 10 days ago

The Apple of Linux? Is that not Ubuntu?

SendMePhotos , 10 days ago

Ubuntu allows users to do things. Debian GNOME made me feel locked up and restricted.

Adanisi , 10 days ago

I think that's GNOME's fault. Debian allows you to do more than Ubuntu, for example by not ramming proprietary snaps down your throat when you try to use apt.

SendMePhotos , 8 days ago

You are probably right. I'm nowhere near experienced enough to know. I started using a new flavor that I enjoy and it turns out it's a branch of debian (according to a friend).

WhyAUsername_1 , 11 days ago

Go setup a Linux on a spare hard disk and fail as many times as you can.

Don't fail twice because of same issue.

That's all it takes to learn any skill really.

You can search online how to fix things, reach out to this community with logs. Over time you will learn how not to fail from many pitfalls, and voila, you are now a champion.!

solrize , 11 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

Buy a new SSD or hard drive. Take the existing one out of your computer and put it in a drawer. That eliminates the possibility of the Linux install somehow messing up your Windows drive. Put in the new drive and do your Linux install onto your new totally empty drive. Now you can always go back to Windows by swapping the drives again.

Seriously, Linux installation is pretty easy if a bit time consuming. I generally use Debian MATE since I don't like Gnome. Go to https://cdimage.debian.org/images/release/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/ , copy debian-live-12.5.0-amd64-mate.iso onto a USB flash drive, set your BIOS to boot from USB, plug in the flash drive and boot and follow the prompts. Give yourself an hour or so for this since the installer is going to install 100s of packages one at a time. You mostly won't have to interact while this is happening though.

Invertedouroboros , 11 days ago

A little off topic but I'm kinda new to Linux myself, why do you dislike Gnome?

solrize , 11 days ago

I don't remember exactly, just something about being unable to get some crap off the screen. But it's a matter (in my case) of subjectively preferring the MATE UI. It's fine to try them all and see what you like best.

PM_Your_Nudes_Please , 11 days ago

Gnome is like the Apple of Linux. It’s a bunch of “we know better than you do, so use it in the very specific way we want you to use it” devs.

Feathercrown , 10 days ago

I agree. It's very opinionated, which in Linuxland means they end up trying to force everyone else to do things they way that they want, instead of providing any sort of compatibility effort.

haui_lemmy , 11 days ago

Dont install it, yet. Make a bootable usb stick with balena etcher and put a linux distro on it (I highly recommend mint, pop_os or ubuntu (standard version) as ISO on it.

Ubuntu is very controversial in the more advanced sphere but I learned on it and its great for beginners.

If you want to go a little bit over the top download ventoy and put it on the usb instead. You can then put as many ISOs on there as you can fit and just select one of them at boot.

The most important part for beginners is the desktop environment anyway so gnome should be fine. If you have tried it for more than an hour and still feel like this could be fun, click install and give it a go.

You could also dual boot but windows might fuck you over since they‘re not great neighbors as an OS.

Feel free to ask if you want to know more. Good luck.

refalo , 11 days ago

Ubuntu is very controversial in the more advanced sphere

I would argue only turbonerds really complain about it. But in my experience, for professionals who just need to get things done it works perfectly fine 99% of the time. Same for Windows or OSX to be honest.

Of course there's going to be those one or two guys from the vocal minority with some esoteric hardware that didn't work chiming in shortly I'm sure.

Grass , 11 days ago

I think its an outdated recommendation. They keep making weird choices and one of only two friends that was willing to try Linux went and tried Ubuntu without my input and decided to go back to windows for a bunch of mostly mundane reasons that could have either been configured away or been preempted by using a different distro. The other guy will be back but on bazzite after trying my steam deck he only left for shitty rootkit anticheat games that he's now sick of. He started on one of the arch easy install methods and was already a power user on both windows and Mac.

haui_lemmy , 11 days ago

In fact I used ubuntu until version 23.10 iirc so no, its not an outdated recommendation. Actually I still use it on my servers because it doesnt need a desktop there and I‘m not changing OSs unless I have to. 22.04 is still perfectly fine on there.

The issue with power users (I‘m an admin myself) is that we‘re used to being in control and some new OS feels weird as we might get stuck for a bit. Not everyone likes to deal with that.

Still valid opinion I think. Have a good one.

haui_lemmy , 11 days ago

In fact, I dont use ubuntu on my desktop anymore because of their snap craze. I also think talking down to people shows lack of character btw. Have a good one anyway.

refalo , 11 days ago

There are ways to remove snap and prevent it from (even accidentally) being installed again, that's what I do. https://www.baeldung.com/linux/snap-remove-disable

But you can tell me how you think I was talking down to people? I'd like to know so I can correct my behavior if necessary.

Was it the word turbonerd? Sure not everyone may agree with that, it was said jokingly and I really just meant non-professional users who are passionate about Linux, wasn't trying to make fun of anyone.

haui_lemmy , 11 days ago

I highly appreciate you asking for feedback and acknowledge a possible opportunity for growth. Very rare, doubly so on the internet imo.

The intention you use something with - sadly - does not communicate over written text well. If you use common derogatory language in a „funny“ way doesnt change that it is derogatory. Think calling a black person the n word or a woman the b word but „meaning it funny“.

The word turbo nerd is exceptionally derogatory and akin to making fun of disabled people.

screaming at themselves or cursing can be a sign of tourette, the IT world has a very high rate of autistic people and hearing them scream can be a sign of a meltdown. Thats not something to make fun about.

In any case it never is your business to make fun of someone except the person gives consent (ie is a friend who is cool with being treated that way or does the same with you). Taking away people‘s agency that way is indeed what can lead to horrible outcomes. Just dont do it. You can be funny in a different way.

Feathercrown , 10 days ago

The word turbo nerd is exceptionally derogatory and akin to making fun of disabled people.

This is really not true in any way, and he never mentioned screaming. It is good that he's being conscious here, and I don't want to assume anything about your personal experiences, but I felt like I should offer my perspective because I feel that yours is not representative of the common view.

haui_lemmy , 10 days ago

Listen mate, please read before you assume. I cited a source because thats what you do when you claim stuff so I did.

Using degrading language isnt okay and neither is trying to dismiss someone explaining it because its „not representative of the common view“. I never said it was.

I was explaining how I made the conclusion. No reason for you to jump to their defence. I was explaining. Have a good one.

Feathercrown , 10 days ago (edited 10 days ago)

Listen mate, please read before you assume.

?

Speaking of assuming, you assumed he was using the Urban Dictionary definition. What I was trying to say is that he likely didn't mean it in that manner. It's good to be conscious that the UD definition exists, but it seemed like you were saying he was intentionally using that definition.

Hope your day is going well too.

haui_lemmy , 10 days ago

Exactly. Just that I didnt assume that he meant anything. I‘m not going off of any ideas of others‘ minds as I cant know what goes on in there. I‘m talking about a common interpretation which people will follow if no other context is provided.

teawrecks , 11 days ago

If someone is leaving windows for privacy reasons, it doesn't make sense to go to Ubuntu.

Croquette , 11 days ago

Ubuntu is a great gateway distro to Linux. It ressemble Windows a lot, stable and straight forward to install and use.

So a new user is not too lost when switching over.

And, yeah, privacy is not that great, but having installed windows 11 on a new PC, Ubuntu is a lot better than windows

skullgiver , 11 days ago

Why? Because it asks the user if they would like to send feedback to Canonical during setup? Because that's the only privacy issue I can remember re: Canonical, after their weird Amazon lens was quickly killed off.

refalo , 10 days ago

Why is asking for feedback a bad thing? IMO it's better than just being on by default, and still gives the developers an opportunity to at least get SOME useful feedback instead of all the people that screech about how telemetry should be banned entirely. I would bet money none of those people are professional developers.

lemmyreader , 10 days ago

Why is asking for feedback a bad thing? IMO it’s better than just being on by default, and still gives the developers an opportunity to at least get SOME useful feedback instead of all the people that screech about how telemetry should be banned entirely. I would bet money none of those people are professional developers.

Indeed. Programmers really love feedback to improve their applications. I bet that everyone who installs apps for iOS or Android from the Google Play Stor will have lots of apps that have crash-a-lytics, or whatever it is called, installed.

skullgiver , 10 days ago

I don't think it's bad to ask; even Debian asks you for feedback. Ubuntu, Debian, and a bunch of other distros are doing the right thing by making this feedback opt-in, but for some people even that is already too much.

I have no idea what supposed privacy issues Ubuntu has these days. Snap is certainly A Controversial Thing, but it's been years since they made a deal with Amazon.

refalo , 11 days ago

Can you list some reasons why you think this is true?

teawrecks , 10 days ago

I admit, everything I know about Ubuntu is heresay as I don't use it myself. But I was under the impression that there was a lot of telemetry that they send back, and ads/bloatware they ship with to subsidize their development.

refalo , 10 days ago

everything I know about Ubuntu is heresay

Then why did you act like you knew what you were talking about?

teawrecks , 10 days ago

You have better things to do, why are you asking me that?

refalo , 10 days ago

I don't. I ask because confidently wrong people are one of the biggest reasons why the internet sucks IMO, and I want to understand why people do it.

teawrecks , 9 days ago

I don't.

Oof, fair enough.

The only part I think I was wrong about was the level of consent requested from the user. I was under the impression that they were kinda like Firefox, opting the user into telemetry sharing by default, making the refusal of data sharing more obtuse or hidden than it should be. But my impression that ubuntu still serves ads and still feels like someone else letting you use their system sounds accurate.

It sounds like you use Ubuntu, so you could probably let me know where I'm wrong.

lemmyreader , 10 days ago

There is a lot of Ubuntu hate and it is easy to go with that and repeat.

• 2012. The Amazon button on the Ubuntu desktop (I believe it was not in the Ubuntu flavors) was removed after criticism.
• Ads in the terminal. I've only seen those when using ssh to a server. Ads like the k8 server options of Ubuntu. No flashy jumpy colorful big ads but just small text.

Telling people that there is no difference between installing Ubuntu and Windows is kind of cruel imho. A fresh Ubuntu installation allows the new Linux user to learn Linux and after some time they can decide to go for Arch Linux, Debian (The install is not that easy as with Ubuntu for a beginner Linux user), MX Linux or whatever they prefer.

teawrecks , 10 days ago

Oh yeah, totally agree it's not the same as windows. I said if their concern about windows was privacy, Ubuntu won't feel different. It'll feel like they're letting you use their PC. I still get that sense from all descriptions I hear. I forgot about the ads in the terminal, that's wild.

skullgiver , 11 days ago

Every server I've encountered in my professional life runs either some kind of enterprise™ Linux like Red Hat (licensed, expensive ones), Ubuntu, or Debian, or some extremely customised Linux that's unusable for any purpose other than whatever it was built for. Dev machines run Ubuntu, or maybe Fedora or some enterprise™ Linux.

I've heard from a lot of startups using nixOS and your Arch flavour of the week, but I'm pretty sure that's only used because all four people in the company are Linux turbo nerds who have managed to agree on one specific obscure Linux distro.

Business people do complain about Ubuntu, though. They don't like automatic updates (because their weird proprietary software only works with the specific versions they picked and they can't be bothered to actuslly fix their code) so snaps are a threat. Ubuntu Pro expanding threatens their "use software someone else pays maintenance tax for without any bill" business plan. See also: "I like Debian but I dislike the way they patch things and how hard it is to install proprietary blobs onto it".

They want their free software to be maintained for free not because they care about software freedom, but because they're cheap, and Canonical and IBM starting to charge businesses for the software development they do threatens that business model.

Feathercrown , 10 days ago

I'm using Nix and it's basically the same as every other Linux distro except settings and packages are managed slightly differently. It's the DE that really makes a difference for people I think.

skullgiver , 10 days ago

Conceptually, Nix is just the next evolution of tools like Ansible, and tangentially related to projects like Silverblue, but in practice, it's only used by enthusiasts. And, of course, you can use Nix outside of NixOS.

Unless there's a tool I don't know about, there's no equivalent for Discover or Gnome Software for NixOS. Because that's the class of boring people that make up the silent majority: the people who don't know how to, or don't want to edit configuration files. This was how Valve made Linux on a console a success, and it's why Ubuntu is still popular despite their experiments causing them to be decried by the community over and over again.

Feathercrown , 10 days ago

I wouldn't even say boring. They just want to get stuff done lmao

skullgiver , 10 days ago

I meant boring to !linux :)

Boring is good when it comes to operating systems, cars, and other utilities, unless you like maintaining that stuff as a hobby!

Feathercrown , 10 days ago

So true

toastal , 8 days ago

Try out [distro based on Ubuntu], [distro based on Ubuntu], or Ubuntu? These are largely on in the same. Either test drive something with a non-.deb base & a different package manager, or suggest what a lot of folks really notice when discussing the feel which is the alternative DEs (desktop environments) on offer. Fedora & other big names usually offer ISO varieties with the major DEs. I think finding a DE is a better starting point since most DEs will be offered by most distros.

haui_lemmy , 8 days ago

No. Thats exactly the reason why folks get frustrated with linux. Because folks cant fathom how much handholding a user needs in the beginning.

apt and systemd based distro is great for beginners, so is gnome. They‘re very popular and a lot of folks know how to troubleshoot if possible.

I suggest you make your own suggestions instead of trying to „correct“ others‘.

toastal , 8 days ago

If the person is supposed to test out a distro, the stuff they will remark on is the default apps & layout of their DE first & foremost that it’s disingenuous to the larger landscape to make 67% of your recommendations are GNOME & all are the same base. GNOME’s UX sucks. Others might like it, but a lot like me probably won’t so why not include an option with KDE Plasma, Cinnamon (listed), XFCE, & maybe a tiling manager if you know the target audience well enough for your short list is a better take. Who new to Linux is going to be able to tell you the difference between Pop_OS & Ubuntu? …This is why your list of 3 is a bad suggestion--too much of the same that leads a new user into thinking there isn’t a world of possibilities.

The frustrating part at the beginning is all the under-the-hood stuff that isn’t visual like the DE. I never suggested talking about systemd, musl, pipewire, Wayland/X11, GNU coreutils, or any of that other stuff that is harder to understand.

haui_lemmy , 7 days ago

You really have issues mate. I couldnt give a damn if you think that gnome‘s ux is bad. Thats your opinion and neither did I ask you for it nor is it helpful to others. But good luck with that attitude.

toastal , 7 days ago

If you show someone GNOME & they don’t like it, then show them another GNOME ISO they still aren’t going to like it & think that is what Linux is as a first impression & decide it’s not for them. Variety & finding something that fits you is an important appeal & likely to create a convert if the ‘vibe’ of their new OS is right.

Sorry you think all suggestions are some antagonistic shot at you personally rather than trying to reach the common goal of getting more folks to try & convert to Linux. But good luck with that attitude of calling folks unhelpful, dismissing suggestions & concerns for something you might be overlooking.

delirious_owl , 11 days ago

Go to your local Linux Users Group meetup

rab , 11 days ago

If that's a real thing that sounds like absolute torture

realbadat , 11 days ago

It is a thing, it's not a chore though. Usually it's a talk about a cool project someone is involved with, sometimes guests from a major project give a talk.

And then snacks and chat after

DrillingStricken , 11 days ago

I was just like you, but one day I got a USB stick and decided, 'Heck, I'm gonna install Linux today!'. And it was surprisingly easy, I haven't seen anything weird.

Just remember to back up your important data before making any changes. There are a lot of helpful comments already, but if you need anything, the community will always be happy to help you figure it out. No need to worry!

groche , 11 days ago

In my opinion the hardest thing in linux is leave to use propietary or exclusive software for windows, the first think you must do is leave to use propietary software in windows, and when you can live without windows exclusive programs, switch to linux.
You can start for ubuntu or other linux friendly distribution, doesn't care, afther the migration you can try other for curiosity without risk

toynbee , 11 days ago

Alongside many of the useful comments here, I'd like to add one great thing about installing Linux on a new computer: you can't accidentally anything on the new computer! There's presumably no data to be lost, you can even install Linux without ever booting into the Windows environment. If you don't have it connected to your network, there's nearly no risk; even if you do, that risk is minimal. I always feel a distinct comfort imaging a system that's never been used.

As for the how, others have covered it, but just identify your distribution of choice (Fedora and Linux Mint are great starters), download the ISO from their website, plug a thumb drive into any running system, and download a USB imaging tool. Balena Etcher is a popular one and the one I use, but many others are available and popular as well if you have a preference.