wanna try LINUX

[C.G.]

You could try installing Linux under WSA 2 in Windows to try it out, not that difficult. That's how I run Debian.

Example install:

https://www.howtogeek.com/744328/how-to-install-the-windows-subsystem-for-linux-on-windows-11/

[p7m8jg]

Nice thing about it is you won't brick your laptop /PC if you try it when you use a USB thumb drive to do the install, just try it again.

Been running it on an old Acer laptop that sits on my kitchen table for years now. Ubuntu version.

[the86d]

I really like elementaryOS, looks like Mac OS,

but for straight people...

The UI is much better, and less glitchy than prior versions, and is pretty straight-forward, easy to use.

The CLI (command line) stuff is pretty-much the same across the board of distros, (with very few differences) that I have found.

[painkiller]

I think ubuntu is the easiest to use,can you dual boot anymore?

[arrix]

I would choose Mint + Cinnamon DE for a beginner. Out of the box it's quite similar to Windows and has very good support. It's based on Ubuntu (which is based on Debian) so switching to any other Debian-based distro will be a snap.

[Cowboy T]

I've put plenty of people on Ubuntu over the years. It always worked out well. Specifically, I would use the Kubuntu variant (Ubuntu with KDE instead of GNOME), because KDE looks and feels a bit more like Microsoft Windows. That said, the GNOME desktop feels more Mac-like, and it's also a good approach.

I've been "Microsoft Free Since 2003". Haven't looked back. Currently running Kubuntu here at home.

Haven't had to do hardly any "tweaking" when running any variant of Ubuntu. For me, they always have "just worked" after installation. Oh, of course I do the standard stuff that I like, such as installing NoScript on Firefox and/or Chromium, but that's the sort of thing I do on any system that I run.

update.....tried to install Ubuntu (download from web) ......failed to install. will try again after I do some research on install.

Indeed, can you tell us, specifically, what you did, step by step? Normally that installation goes very easily.

[the86d]

I think ubuntu is the easiest to use,can you dual boot anymore?

I haven't tried since BIOS' went to EUFI Firmware and MBR went to GPT, but I don't see why you would...
VMware Player, and Virtualbox let you run VMs inside Windows, and they run damn-near native speeds, when Windows isn't hogging resources (always, but VMs run close to native speeds, mostly [Some *Buntu varients are just a bit slower in a VM]).

If running a regular SATA SSD, you can always get a swap-able SATA drive bay/Caddy, but VMs work pretty well for me in most cases if using a NVMe.

[ldsnet]

Ubuntu and Mint are the two probably most common home PC distributions....
The most challenging parts of the builds are
1) burning the Install .iso into a bootable media.
2) being able to configure your machine to boot from the USB or the CDRom (which ever you burned the distro to)
3) being able to identify the HDD and partition space for installation.
Virtually every distro will allow you to boot a live OS into media without install .... (skipping step 3) and let you take your local hardware for a test drive and see what it looks like out of the box. Not "every" feature will work and it will have to start over every time you restart.

the other option is to use a Virtual Machine .... VMWare is probably the easiest to set up ... but some distributions of Linux don't work very well within the virtual environment (some have display issues detecting drivers when stacked in the VM environment).

I am using Ubuntu KDE Plasma at home; out of the box with a fair amount of tools, mapped all of my hardware and looks decent without a lot of tinkering.

https://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/

My hope is to move away from Microsoft completely in 2023 (Can't stand Windows 11 and had enough with their subscription business model).
I have 3 remaining programs that run in Windows; as soon as I can get them to run effectively in WINE (Windows In its Native Environment), I can ditch Microsoft all-together.

[Nick3]

Consider using Virtualbox as another option to experiment with

Aside from Ubuntu consider Manjaro for an Arch based OS

[pbsmind]

Just do it! USB stick, or VM is the way to go for just trying it out. The distro mentioned already are great. Personally running Mint and Manjaro... used to run Slackware and Redhat back in the day. Still run Redhat variants and Debian on servers though.

[DudeFromTheWest]

Always start out with Ubuntu as it has the most documentation and help available online for it, also if you take a class in it it will almost universally be used as a Linux Distro. For now stay away from other distros, unless you have a super specific need for them.
Also try it in VirtualBox first, or grab an old laptop off Craigslist, you don't care about, and load it on there.

[the86d]

I haven't used Virtualbox since VMWare Player went about fully-featured, for free.

I actually used Pear OS 7 (now discontinued, we think RedHat, or Apple bought them out?) as my native distro on my work rig, and ran a VM of Win7 for specialty stuff. It was a pretty-fast i7 machine. Win7 ran better as a VM than native.

[the86d]

Wow, it appears Pear OS is BACK!!!

Looks to be Arch Kernel, with the pear work slapped on top.

https://github.com/pearOS-archlinux/iso/releases/download/v22.08_alpha_release/pearOS-NiceC0re-2023.01-x86_64.iso

Almost no lag with wobbly windows in VMWare Player with 16GB of ram, running from ISO, we'll see how she chooches installed from a VM.

[the86d]

DAHM, PEAR is back on my menu boys!!!

[seblo]

There are multiple variations of Linux, and some distributions make it easier to do specific things like gaming, modification to ui.. etc... A good Starting point would be PopsOS! made by system 76, its really easy to use and easy to install, if you are going to start dabbling into command line tasks then there are a few simple commands we generally use, however most of everything can be done via the ui. Ubuntu is also a good option although it gets a lot of hate. PopOS! is based on Ubuntu.