I get the feeling that Lemmy has a relatively higher concentration of Linux users. I’m preparing to move over to Linux when I build my new computer. I already put Linux Mint Cinnamon edition on one of my old laptops and I like it quite a bit. I figure that since I’ve been wanting to switch over for years, I should just do it. The games were the thing holding me back, and Proton seems to have taken care of that(I don’t really play multiplayer games that require anticheat… I’m a singleplayer kind of girl).
For me, anyway, I want to switch because Windows has been creeping me out with its telemetry. Windows 11 looks lousy, and I’d have to jump through some hoops to get my old hardware on 11, anyway.
To try out Linux you should install Linux Mint, or Ubuntu. If you search on Google there are a lot of guides made to help you choose between the two.
There are a lot more distributions than those two but they’re not tailored for beginners because they offer too much freedom, and you don’t have the experience to account for the mistakes you could make.
+1 to Mint for beginners, but I’d rather go Debian (stable) than Ubuntu tbh. It’s quite straightforward and I don’t think new guys would have a lot of issues with it.
Or you can wait till the next time you’re buying a new laptop/desktop and buy one from Systems76:
https://system76.com/
They come with Pop!OS pre-installed, and everything (including drivers) will just work like you’d expect in Windows.