Linux mint is in my opinion the best distro for a new user, but you may personally not be fond of the UI.

I don’t know how to write a guide for you, but if you have more specific questions feel free to ask them, best of luck!

I’d say don’t over think it. Just pick a distribution and try to stick with it. The vast choices is also a curse for newcomers. It definitely delayed my journey by years going back to Windows.

Start with something well supported, I’d pick Mint.

Get games or whatever you use the computer for the most to work OK. Nvidia don’t like Linux, pick AMD.

Be prepared to give up some old habits instead of forcing windows software on Linux. For example I had to give up Lightroom and as a photography hobbyist it was hard at first. Now I use Darktable and the switch back to Lightroom today seems equally hard.

So in short. Install a beginner friendly distro and get the most important stuff working and begin using the computer as much as possible.

I’ve been using linux for over 30 years, from Linux from Scratch to Mint. Dont’ pick a distro that makes you seem 1337 or anything. I must say, that for the not-so terminal-savvy user, linux Mint is a great pick, most stuff (if not all) can be done with the GUI, and the installer is a breeze.

Picking a distro is one thing, picking a desktop environment is, in my opinion, more important. With default Mint, you get Cinnamon, which is a great pick, a balance between saving resources and eye candy. You also have XFCE which is very light, but some integrations are lacking, and it’s lightness shows in the basic appearance. Gnome is another beast, can almost look as slick as MacOS, but is very resource hungry. And then there’s KDE. This is something your either love or hate, no inbetween.

And for every task you want to perform, you’ll need to have a little selection process, since there’s a lot of choices.

Steam works most of the time. I only know about NVidia cards, but with the right drivers (for which Mint has a nice tool) it works well.

As said, I’ve used a lot of different Linux flavours, from very hacky and compily ones to very UX oriented ones. In the end, the UX one did it for me, I just wanted something that worked. So I do recommend Mint with cinnamon.

The best way to switch imo is to first to switch some of your currently installed app on windows with others that have a linux version, so you will not be entirely lost when you switch os.

For example Microsoft Office is not available on linux so maybe try libreoffice or onlyoffice, another example Photoshop doesn’t have a linux version too.

Then maybe try to familiarize with the os on a vm or on a live usb, especially on a live usb so you know what works out of the box and with your hardware.

If you want to game look for you games on protondb if they work or not, for online games instead watch areweanticheatyeat to see if the anticheat work.

Last tip is to go with a know distro not something obscure like steamos or kali linux, they are not meant to be used as daily drivers especially kali and can give you problems that will not occurre in other distro!

The biggest advice I can give is to start with something like, as has been mentioned, Linux Mint, but also, don’t buy into the idea that you eventually need to move to a more “advanced” distro. If Mint, or wherever you wind up, works for you, and you have no compelling reason to switch, then don’t. All Linux is Linux, so to speak, the only things that distinguish distros are packages/package managers, default settings/configurations, and pre-installed programs. There’s nothing preventing you from eventually becoming a power-user on a “noob-friendly” distro, if that’s something you desire in the first place.

There are a lot of “linux for beginners” blogs/videos/whatever. They’re a good way to get an overview and learn the first steps. Don’t get into a rabbit hole, though. Watch a couple and start trying it out.

You can try out Linux distros in a virtual machine (VM). You’ll have to use your web-searching-skills to find a program that can run a VM as i can’t recommend one that runs on Windows.

That program runs the operating system on top of the one you have now, so you don’t need to reinstall over and over again while you find a distribution that works for you.

A distribution is what we call “a linux”. “Linux” is just a part of the OS, and a distribution combines it with other software to make something your computer can boot. If this is a bit confusing, don’t worry, it’s not important, you just have to remember the word “distribution” (or distro)

I use a distro called Fedora, but between that and Ubuntu and Linux Mint you should find one that works for you. Don’t overthink it. They all do the same job in slightly different ways, so just pick one and start using it for the stuff you usually use your computer for. Ubuntu is the easiest to search for help for, and Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, so 99.9% of solutions will be the same for Mint. Distros not based on Ubuntu works with the same instructions 90% of the time, but that might be too annoying when you are justvgetting your feet wet.

Note that a lot of distros have multiple “editions”, “spins” or whatever they decided to call it. They mostly differ in the way your “desktop” is presented. Just look at some Youtube videos and some screenshot and try them out.

Now go use your computer with Linux. A lot of the initial friction is from having to learn stuff over again. Search the web for solutions and if you don’t find them ask for help.

Your distrobution’s forums are usually a good place to start, so is places like this. Try to give information you think might be relevant when asking for help and and help people help you by following their instructions and providing the information they ask for. Finding solutions to problems is like a seperate skill you need to train, so if it’s confusing or you feel dumb for not understanding something, don’t get discouraged, you’re just getting better.

Welcome to the Linix community, we hope you like it.

So far my main struggle with any flavor of Linux has been battery drain and ram usage. I haven’t been able to get laptops to suspend properly, they only turn the screen off.

I started using Linux with a dual-boot and always booted back into Windows because it worked better since I set it up right and was confortable with it. Only booting Linux and taking the time to understand how to do whatever I want to do finally made me comfortable enough to wipe that partition.

So my recommendation is don’t be discouraged if things seem hard or annoying, it will definitely get better over time.

Chew

I personally started on Linux Mint and after 6 months jumped to Artix. Mint is a very good base to learn and I recommend to just jump in and search everything you dont know how to do and eventually you will know enough to be comfortable using Mint.

My main tips are: get the live ISOs of a few of the most used Linux distributions, I’d recommend in particular: Debian (my current one), Mint, Fedora and OpenSUSE.

For Debian and Fedora, get both the KDE and GNOME editions. OpenSUSE is mainly only KDE, and Mint uses Cinnamon. Those are the “desktop types”.

Try each live system on a virtual machine and see which one you like best. Your main choice tbh is the desktop environment you like the best (mine is KDE, also called Plasma), each distribution has it’s own way of doing a few things as well.

Then pick the one you enjoy the most. All of those are long-lived, stable and well-supported and documented.

Source: me, I’ve used Linux since 2003 and introduced all my family it and they have been using it for years with no issue.

Most people just use a browser these days, and they behave the same in every OS.

Steam has proton to run non native games on Linux, and works well enough for most things.

Try a few live images before making the switch.

My method was easy.

Completely removed and eradicated windows, and forced myself to adapt and learn Linux.

Used it for gaming and everything. No regrets.

I think my biggest tip is to manage your expectations. What you are attempting is not the same as simply moving to a new version of Windows – literally everything will be different. You’ve spent a lifetime learning how to perform all these tasks until they became second-nature, but now you plan to move to a whole new system. Thing will be in different places, the way you tweak settings or access content will be different, and it’s going to be very frustrating because hey, this task should be easy. Don’t expect to cram all those years of experience into re-learning a new system in a few weeks.

The good news is that there’s a huge support community, and just about anything you want to do has already been asked and can be found through a quick search. Stick with it, and you’ll discover that linux actually gives you quite a lot more control over what you can do with your hardware (not to mention nearly all the software is free). It won’t be long before you’re asking how you ever survived without many of these tools.