Linux

Linux Mint is great for beginners. Have you ever installed windows? Installing Linux Mint is as easy as that. The day to day use is not much different compared to windows. Don't be afraid to try it out, you can always go back to windows if it does not work out for you

As others have said, Linux Mint is probably the best distro for absolute beginners. You'll have several desktop environments to choose from (the software suite that gives you things like window frames, the taskbar, the application launcher...). I like KDE Plasma and Cinnamon - Plasma is a lot more customizable, but Cinnamon is more robust and (IMO) better suited for beginners.

You'll have to unlearn a lot of Windows habits.

• :q! is very important, remember it.
• You won't download application installers from the internet, you'll have to either use the system's own package manager in the terminal (APT for Mint), a GUI front-end, or Flatpak.
• You won't be able to choose where software are installed.
• There are no lettered drives. There is a single root filesystem (equivalent to C:\ on Windows), and every other partition has to be mounted somewhere within that filesystem. Most graphical file manager applications take care of that automatically.
• Updates are very important. Fortunately they are much less of a pain in the ass. Graphical package manager apps usually offer automatic reminders, or you can use the terminal to update manually.
• The terminal is much more important compared to Windows, and you should learn basic things like navigating the filesystem, handling files and directories, how to use sudo (eq. run as admin), how to manage running processes (top, kill/pkill/killall), and how to use the package manager.
• Use manuals and the man command. The Arch Wiki is an invaluable tool for every distribution.
• Ask your questions. There will be dickheads, but most people will be happy to help.

You want a quick how-to?

1.) Ordinarily I'd say the first step is to make a list of every app you regularly use and make sure it works in Linux (or that there's a viable alternative for Linux), but outside of CAD, Photoshop, and a few holdout games, this isn't really an issue anymore.

2.) Backup everything that matters to you.

3.) Pick a desktop environment before you pick a distro. The distro almost doesn't even matter. The most popular options are GNOME and KDE. I assume XFCE (my favorite) and Cinnamon are a distant third and fourth.

4.) Pick a beginner distro (like Mint, PopOS, Garuda, Fedora, or whatever else gets recommended in the comments) that has an edition for your preferred DE. (Just check the download section of their websites.)

5.) Grab an old thumb drive. 4GB is plenty, last I checked.

6.) Go to the website of your preferred distro. Download an ISO file.

7.) Download a program to flash the ISO onto your thumb drive. Balena Etcher is one. Run it, and flash the ISO.

8.) Shutdown your computer. On restart, spam the escape key, or maybe some of the F keys, depending on your computer. Instead of booting normally, you should get a menu.

9.) Navigate through the menus and disable secure boot and TPM. Then under boot order, move the USB to the top of the list.

10.) Restart, hopefully loading the USB's live environment.

11.) Play around in the live environment before installing. Test something with sound. Maybe load a youtube video or something. Make sure everything works.

12.) Run through the installer. Reboot. Spam esc/F10/whatever and get back into the BIOS menu. Reset boot priority to boot from hard drive. Reboot.

13.) Run through the steps on whatever welcome screen you see. If not prompted, update your system first thing. You can figure out the rest from there.

I'd say install virtualbox on your windows, download a few isos and check them out; once you've made your mind on which one seems a decent one (don't worry too much: it's not like you can't change distro later on) and have found out replacements for all the apps you use (well, some of them will have a linux version too) save your windows data somewhere, format and reinstall.

I'd say to stay away from dual booting if you can: honestly, it's a pain. Ah, check that your hardware works well on linux before switching!

Linux Mint with Cinnamon Desktop Environment, PoP Os with their Cosmic/gnome desktop environment, or Fedora workstation with KDE desktop environment. Pick one of those three and roll with it ;)

There are tonnes of reasons why these are good/bad choices but simply put. They are all very well documented (mint and Pop are Ubuntu based), Fedora has a very active and helpful community.

Cinnamon on mint and KDE on fedora are both very much like windows in the way they look and behave. PoP Os is a bit more Mac like with their desktop.

I personally use an Arch based distro (endeavour OS) but the three above are just much easier to sink your teeth into.

I started with Ubuntu because it’s so widely covered in tutorials/guides and troubleshooting docs. I want to branch out and try other distros, but I have had no reason to stop using Ubuntu. I use 22.04 on my daily driver and Ubuntu server for my home servers.

I can't believe no one mentioned this yet. I hope OP reads this comment. The first step is to make sure this new computer you want to buy is compatible with Linux. Otherwise your experience will be very frustrating, no matter what distro you choose. That is, if you can install any distros at all. Ask the vendor if this machine is compatible with Linux.

Stick to popular distros, mint, Fedora, kubuntu. Test out your hardware, i prefer using usb stick but vm will work Decide on a disto and install it to that partition or drive

I first used mint and made a duel boot machine If you are doing that.

Create a blank partition first in windows. Then install Linux

Grab a second SSD or HD, that way, keep windows in one as it will be probably be supplied with the computer. Add Linux to the other disk, Debian maybe, EndeavourOs much better. ThNo dual boot. And when starting to computer just choose which disk you want to use (F8 or F12 often) and later if and when ready, you wipe the windows HD and use it for backups

I have been daily driving Linux for a couple years now after finally jumping ship on Windows. Here are a few of my thoughts:

• it is important to make the distinction between the distro and the desktop environment, which is a big part of how the UI will look and feel. Many of these DEs such as KDE Plasma, XFCE, and GNOME will be common across many distros. I might do some research on which DE you like the look of. I personally have used KDE the most and that is what I prefer, but all of them are valid options.
• Coming from Windows, I would go into this with the mindset that you are learning a new skill. Depending on how advanced you are with windows, you will find that some things in Linux are simply done differently to how they are in Windows, and you will get used to them over time. Understanding how the file system works with mounting points rather than drive letters was probably a big one for me, but now that I have a grasp of it, it makes total sense to me and I really like it.
• It will also be learning a skill in terms of occasionally debugging problems. As much as I would like to report that I've never had a problem, I have occasionally run into things which required a bit of setup at first or didn't "just work" right out of the box. I know that probably sounds scary, but it really isn't with the right mindset, and there are tons of resources online and people willing to help.

It's been a few years, but I really liked Linux Mint and Xfce. The former is more friendly for beginners. But XFCE is responsive...like...you click and the computer responds immediately. It feels like the computer is really yours. Don't get me wrong, though, Linux Mint is really responsive, too, particularly in comparison to Windows.

You can always try them out, too, before you commit with your current computer. In the past, I've used VirtualBox to virtualize Mint/Xfce. Here's a tutorial. It sounds fancy, but it's pretty easy.

If you really plan on going full Linux, get an AMD card and use a desktop that supports the Wayland protocol (gnome or KDE)

My best tip is not to worry too much about distro. I like mint, but it's not too different from PopOS or ubuntu. They're just some nice starting points.

If you look at a few and like how they look or feel, you should know the majority of that is the desktop environment not the distro. Meaning you can change it out without re-installing or losing all your apps.

If you like linux mint with cinimon, but want to try out xfce, then just go into the app centre, search 'xfce', install it, log out, select xfce, and log in. Nothing is lost and you can go back at any point in time. Same with plasma, gnome, lxqt, etc. (PopOS uses Gnome with the pop shell).

Only negative suggestion would be to avoid arch based distros for the time being. They assume a bit more knowlage and break much more often. I use EndeavorOS but I understand that life isn't for everyone

Install windows first. Install Debian stable as dual boot after that. Add your user to the sudo group and restart. When stuff breaks, look up how to fix it on your phone or in your windows install.

You’re gonna have to gain a different set of troubleshooting skills to deal with Linux, but it’s pretty easy.

My advice is to just do it and figure it out from there. If you're at least moderately tech-savvy and you're willing to look up how to do things, you'll be fine. The installation process is painless.

Think of the software you use on Windows, and then look up if a Linux version is available. Failing that, odds are pretty good that there's a FOSS alternative to replace it.

Each distribution has a built-in package manager that gives you access to tons of software. The majority of the free software that you'll want to use will probably be available from there.

Quick edit: The Linux community is truly supportive, and you'll pretty much always find someone somewhere willing to help you figure things out.

You can try out Fedora Kinoite or Silverblue. Stuff just works and is very hard to break. Kinoite uses KDE which has a more Windows-like UI, and Silverblue uses GNOME which has a more modern UI but will take some time for Windows users to get used to.

After installing either of those, you should rebase to Universal Blue Bluefin if you chose Silverblue, or to Universal Blue kinoite-main/kinoite-nvidia for NVIDIA GPUs if you chose Kinoite. Alternatively, rebase to Universal Blue Bazzite if you do a lot of gaming.

This may sound intimidating, but the procedure is straightforward and beginner-friendly. Once you do it, you'll have a system that will be very stable and hard to break. All maintenance will be done for you.

what are some first timer friendly ones?

Q4OS -- basically Debian for Windows refugees. I've been running it since late 2018.

First thing you do is get yourself a USB stick for booting, I know others suggest virtual machines for testing, but in my opinion you really want to run the distribution on real hardware and since you're going to install the system anyway you might just get used to the booting process. The boot process has been complicated a bit by UEFI and that's why I won't recommend using minor distros to begin with, because you'll want something that just boots and later installs nicely on a secureboot enabled system. The major distros have bootloaders and kernels signed and ready for secure boot systems.

It's a simple as:

• Go grab Rufus for writing the .iso files to a USB stick. You can also use any other tool that allow you to write the .iso in raw form to the USB stick.
• Download fx. Linux Mint (pick a mirror from the list)
• Run Rufus and select your USB device, then open the .iso file you've just downloaded
• Click start and in the popup dialog choose to write as a raw DD image.
• When done, reboot and choose to boot from the USB stick in your BIOS¹ menu.
• You'll now be running Linux on your PC from a USB stick.

1: How to enter a menu where you can select the device to boot is up to your motherboard manufacturer, so consult the manual. Usually you can press Escape on boot or one of the F keys.

Start with a pre-installed laptop for an easy life? https://itsfoss.com/get-linux-laptops/

Use mint or Ubuntu and try a dual boot install if you have drive space. That way you can use both and gradually stop using windows

Start with something designed around a graphical interface, pretty much anything based on Ubuntu will do this (Linux Mint, Zorin, Pop!_OS, etc).

If you use Nvidia Pop!_OS has an ISO file with Nvidia drivers already installed. It isn't hard to get Nvidia drivers on other distros but the more done for you the better.

I'm a fan of the "just dive in" approach. You may encounter issues, but researching the solutions is where you really begin to learn. I personally like Fedora, but any of the other distros mentioned are also great choices. The great thing, if you don't like it there's tons off other options to try.

Try it out the worst that can happen is you install windows when you’re over it.

If you can, dual boot with two hard drives. Windows will work when linux doesn’t/you break it. Learn linux, distro hop, figure it out - and you’ll be able to learn at your own pace.