Advice for a middle-age, moderately pc knowledgeable person to finally switch to or become proficient with Linux?

Rather than trying to muck with dual booting, I would recommend picking up a Lenovo T430S or better laptop on Amazon from around 150.00-500.00. Lenovo ThinkPad T series laptops are incredibly well supported by Linux. Then install Linux Mint. This is a great way to get started with a low barrier to entry. As you get better, you can start tinkering with the innards. By getting a cheap spare machine with which to learn Linux on, it will be the least disruptive to you.
- This is what I did when I was getting started.
- While this is a valid advice normally, OP has already tried this with Linux on a netbook and a dual boot chromebook. Since OP wants to do AV stuff it's probably going to be a lot better experience with a desktop (assuming more capable than laptop) and monitor(s). Going another laptop route might be fine for learning but OP wants to switch and that's not going to happen unless it's on OP's main rig.
  My advice would be leave the windows installation alone and add a new drive (SSDs are pretty cheap these days) and install Linux on that. Use the BIOS to set the default drive to the new Linux drive and install and use Linux. You'll have your windows install exactly how it is when you want to go back and just pick that as the boot device from the boot menu. Making Linux the default boot drive also helps with habit forming.
  
  That's a super solid alternative to running a VM ! Completely agree on this method, much more robust than dual booting on the same drive. Reading he's planning on doing this to a work computer running AV software gave me pause
- Second this best way to get started

- Epic post, really good advice, MInt is the way to go IMO as well, the Xfce version is perfect for my needs and really stable, indeed having dabbled with linux for years this is the only version I have used for more than a year, actually just checked and I have been on mint now since 2020 with just the one upgraded installation. I actually duel boot but never actually boot into window for anything other than occasional work needs.
- That's awesome! Are there any draw backs to the debian version? I feel like they'd just abandon Ubuntu if there was really no difference.

I would go from the bottom up instead of top down.
Make a list of software and tools you use, and search for functional Linux native equivalents. Then find the distro that supports up to date versions of that software (through flatpak or the package manager).
You can honestly do 100% of this without even touching the command line if you choose something user friendly like Mint, Pop OS, Ubuntu, or Fedora. Don’t fall into the rabbit hole of finding the perfect distro. Go from what you need to what supports it.
keep the windows partition around for a while until you are 100% confident you can fully make the switch.
- For finding applications alternatives AlternativeTo or reddit is best resources!
  
  I love AlternativeTo, I go there just to browse when I'm bored.
- I second this. It helps that basically every distro is highly customizable, so if you don't like some default settings or something's not supported on a specific distro, it's usually still possible to get it working with some manual tweaking. You don't want to be spending the time for every application though, so finding a distro that supports most of what you need out of the box is a good suggestion.
- Personally wouldn't recommend Fedora as a newbie distro because most guides assume Debian/Ubuntu-based package managers. When I first switched from Pop!_OS, I couldn't understand why my apt-get commands weren't working. Of course, that was until I learned about other package managers like DNF, Yum, etc. Also, Nvidia proprietary drivers and media codecs can be a pain.
  Pop!_OS, Ubuntu and Mint are all great recommendations though!

Pop OS is a good beginner friendly Linux distro. Like Ubuntu, it is also debian based. This would make it easier to get used to for you since you have some experience with Ubuntu.
- I've been really happy with Pop on my laptop. Tiling was a lot more useful than I expected, it's nice being able to flip it on and off as needed.

I'm a middle-aged truck driver. I've been using Linux Mint (Cinnamon) now for about seven years as my only operating system (without dual booting) since Windows XP Pro became totally obsolete. Granted, I'm a hobbyist programmer and lifelong computer enthusiast. However, there are definitely some easy to install and use distros out there these days.
- I also endorse Linux mint as a Windows replacement distribution.

General tips:
Don't look for Linux versions of the Windows software you use. Instead look for software that fulfils the same purpose.
If you're cutting-and-pasting a lot of stuff from those articles, give yourself a check on what those things actually do. See it as a small investment of time to economise time later on, as you'll rely less and less on those articles.
Stick to popular distros. And for the desktop environment (DE), use whatever works for you.
Keep it easy. It's fine if you need to log into Windows once in a while, but over time you'll notice yourself doing it less and less.
- give yourself a check for what those things do
  To add, don't kick yourself for forgetting and needing to double-check something. For example, even as a Linux vet, I still sometimes need to double-check whether it's -r or -R for recursive on whatever command I'm using sometimes.
  
  Also it’s good to get into the habit of using man or - -help instead of or in combination with searching on the internet. Makes you less reliant on searches and also ensures that your are using commands that correspond to the version of the software you are using
  IE: man rm | grep recursive
  
  history | grep <part of the command that I actually remember>
  Saves my bacon almost every day!
  
  Scp vs cp, yeah.
- Use something + reddit word in search for finding answers to your problems. This chatgpt's articles are full trash usually. Stackoverflow is also sometimes helpful!
  
  I predict that the "how to shoot web site:redditcom" trick will eventually wear down, as the place is slowly becoming a dumpster fire. A better approach is to handle search in a way that SEO crap backfires:
  lots of "apostrophe usage" to force specific expressions
  usage of -negative terms to sort out things used in SEO
  simple keywords instead of full sentences
  The Arch wiki, Ubuntu forums and Mint forums are often good sources of info, regardless of your distro.

Dual booting can be problematic. Windows is the most retarded OS ever which sometimes decides to overwrite boot partition.
FOr trying out stuff, you van install Linux as a virtual machine. Check there if your sw works there and is available.
- Absolutely! Dual booting on a work machine running AV software. Sounds like a nightmare just waiting to happen..... It'll break when you least expect it and your client is gonna flip shit.
  VM is definitely the way to go. Give it max resources and run it full screen until you get a secondary tinkering tool or succumb to WSL
- Ugh, yeah. Dual booting is such a headache lol
- Once the opposite occurred to me. Fedora overwrote my Windows installation. Dual-booting isn't safe.

I love when people switch on the same machine and experience a performance boost. They finally start to understand all my under breath muttering about hating windows and it’s geriatric bloatware.
- Windows is a liability. I'm forced to use it because of the propriatary nature of the games (and tech) I play.
  There is nothing awesome coming out of Microsoft.
  
  Proton and steam work pretty great these days. Try it out.
  
  Agreed, derivative me too stuff is what they’re doing. But then, with the world using Office, they don’t have to work too hard to keep the lights on and their bellies full.
  
  I agree with the first sentence, but the second is wrong due to Proton, and the third is demonstrably wrong if you take a look at their GitHub. Windows Caldulator is better than anything Linux has, and WinGet is a decent attempt at making Windows finally have a native package manager.
  WinGet even does manage packages like you'd expect when installing and uninstalling MSIX packages, and the ease of merely requesting manifests even beats the OBS.
  Of course they're making good software. Why wouldn't they be? They're a competent software development company that much of the world chooses to rely upon. There's gonna be a reason for it. System admins on a whole generally aren't totally stupid.
  Even whilst Balmer was CEO, some under-the-hood Windows and Azure changes were quite impressive. He merely screwed up everything he was able to touch, which admittedly was an absolute tonne.
- Especially when the potato laptop stops being so potato all of a sudden. It's satisfying.
  
  Exactly, vindicating. Best example I have is my 72yr old mother, with her very old Celeron laptop that originally came with Win7, but Win10 has bogged down: stick in a current kubuntu usb live image usb and she doesn’t have time to make a cup of tea while it boots anymore. She won’t have to buy a new one anytime soon either…but an SSD upgrade may be a good idea.
  
  My wife and I have identical 7th gen i5 laptops, except hers has Windows while mine has Mint. I regularly use mine in front of the TV, and recently she tried to do the same. We had to turn the TV volume up and it took a minute to figure out why. The fans on her laptop were running flat out to keep it cool because Windows had so much going on in the background that the CPU was at 100%.
  She was ready to scrap the laptop because it was so slow, thinking that it was normal.

Kubuntu or Mint are great distro's to begin with when starting your linux journey. It's good to know down the road these should really be moved on from, but they're great to get the ball rollin for sure!
- Agree. Kubuntu is easy. Then you move on once you get going. Super easy.
- What about them means that you should move on?
  
  There's a wide user base in mind with each, so rarely does anyone use all of the included packages. This could be defined as bloatware, plus proficiency in linux to me means anything can be done via terminal or GUI. The base distro's have some task which require the terminal, while mint and kubuntu are managed via GUI.

Not a pro take here ... but when I was playing with various distros back in early 2001-03 I favoured Ubuntu, simply because it was the most user friendly (still have an old laptop duel-booted with it).
distrowatch.com is a good place to look around and check out what's new and true to your needs.
The old-style web page is the same as it was in 2001; brings back good memories. :)
- I really appreciate all the answers here so far. But I wanted to thank you for that resource specifically. Maybe my googling isn't so great either, but I haven't come across that before. Much obliged.
  
  Just be aware of distrowatch rankings, they're sorted by visits to the site, impressions and etc, and don't necessarily reflect how much a distro is really widely used.
  As others have said, if your device doesn't have a Nvidia card, go with Linux Mint. If you do have a Nvidia card Fedora (maybe not the default GNOME version, as GNOME's workflow required some time to get used to) or openSUSE might be better options.
  If you're okay with a distro installer asking a few more questions than the basic ones, and you don't need super updated stuff, you can also try Debian.
  
  It’s not your fault, Google has become almost useless when it comes to things that aren’t commercial SEO optimized stuff. The course of popularity, I guess.
  
  Time to switch search engines
  
  You're very welcome. Glad I could help even a little. 👍
- This except Ubuntu has fallen. Mint or PipOS are better now.

Only one thing: never give up. You'll get things fixed by copy and paste until one day youll have a broken system and think wait I actually know how to fix this because I've been through it five times before.
- I was never happier than when I found Timeshift. https://itsfoss.com/backup-restore-linux-timeshift/
  
  Who needs time shift when you can just slowly break your system while trying to fix a bug and then just either reinstall the os or switch to a different distro bc might as well

First thing: Ubuntu is the right choice. As far as I’m aware, having run Linux as my main desktop OS for almost a decade and playing with several flavors (…which includes Arch btw 😎), it’s the most polished out of the box desktop experience for someone completely new. It will also likely be the OS with the most Q&A existing on the web for problems you won’t be the first to have encountered.
Secondly, and maybe this should be first, and it sounds like you’ve already got this part down: you have to want to do this. Linux is just not mainstream for the majority of desktop computer users. If you’re not really wanting to do this, you’ll be frustrated when this isn’t the same experience as Windows. (but it sounds like you’re sick of the Windows experience. That’s what started me into Linux years ago.)
Lastly, as far as my quick Lemmy comment goes: Embrace the terminal! You can get around for a while as a Linux n00b on Ubuntu without opening that terminal, but at the end of the day, the *nix shell commands are what make working with Linux great.
The switch will take time. You’ll occasionally need to look up how to do stuff that may have felt simple in Windows… and that will usually be installing and running software that targets Windows only. However, the support for that sort of stuff gets better and better with time. Wine🍷 has come a long way.
It’s worth the journey IMO. For me, I was a PC gamer and I jumped straight into Linux with 0 experience. I learned a lot, spending a lot of time trying to make my Windows games run on Linux. Friends at LAN parties would joke about how I’d spend half the LAN party trying to get my games to run right.
The jokes were a good laugh, but my career shifted since then and my Linux experience carried right over into software development. Everything I deploy is on Linux servers or in Docker containers. All those years fooling around and tinkering with Linux as a PC gamer were loading me with experience that people would pay me for one day.
Good luck! 🐧

Would start off with linux mint cinnamon edition, imo it is the easiest way to transition to linux, and dont be afraid to play around with linux. Go make mistakes, it is the best way to learn from

You've had some good advice here already, all I'd add is that you should install the package tldr as it's a very noob-friendly accessible version of man pages (the manuals which come with every piece of software on Linux).

Lol are you me?
I kept trying to run Linux and windows, both in dual-boot and separate system form, and always crutched my way back to windows. My largest excuse was gaming.
Once Valve proved gaming on Linux is possible via the Steam Deck, I was officially out of excuses. I formatted c: and installed Pop_OS and forced myself to learn it. The only thing I miss, and not even that much, is MS Office apps. There are perfectly serviceable productivity apps for Linux but none feel as comfortable (yet).
It’s been about a year, and I am finding myself copy/pasting a little less than at the beginning and becoming more comfortable and knowledgeable every day. Taking the nuclear option isn’t for everyone, but it worked for me.
- i have been doing Linux for 22 years and know it in and out for the most part and you never stop copying and pasting. sometimes I know it fully and still copy and paste out of pure laziness for longer one liners. but best advice I can give is. Don't ever feel like your not good at Linux case you use a DE vs window manager. or use one distro vs another. There is some gatekeeping people do just like with any hobby/community. Just ignore them and enjoy learning something new.
  Trust me, you will miss the wonder of learning and playing with a new interface and ways of doing things. its funny I go the other way now loading up windows 3.1 in DOSbox just to play and try and remember how to do things and get things working.
- Have you tried OnlyOffice? It's pretty much like MS office and documents compatibility is really good.
  
  Nope, but the screenshots look pretty promising. Thanks for the tip, will check it out

As an alternative (and since you need to keep Windows running for now), have you considered downloading VirtualBox and installing linux thee on your desktop? There's a couple of really good reasons behind this... First off, you don't have to mess with switching back and forth when dual-booting, but it also gives you the ability to play with some different distributions and find something that feels more comfortable without having to trash a machine and continuously starting over. You can even load up multiple distros at the same time on your Windows desktop and compare them.
Now for really getting going with linux... It's easier if you don't expect yourself to figure it all out at once. Pick a daily task, like reading your email. Maybe you already use something like Thunderbird, so that's an easy switch. Just shut it down on Windows and start using the linux screen for this every time. Web browsing might also be an easy switch, and you already mentioned you use Gimp. Have you played around with different desktops yet? With linux you can install several and select one of them when you log in, so maybe try KDE, Gnome, or Mate (this one is my favorite because it's fairly light on my older system but still lets me configure a lot). What else can you dive in to? How about configuring your login screen for different options like showing available users or automatically signing you in when you boot up the linux system in virtualbox? There's a lot of configuration you can do by editing files in the /etc/ folder so it pays to get familiar with that aspect of things.
Once you think maybe you found a distro or desktop you like, consider what other things you can do to really start getting familiar with linux. You could change your default shell, or your default command line editor. What about setting up a local DNS cache or maybe your own email relay? Maybe even set up your own web server and database, and use them to develop web pages locally. The point is, once you realize there's no limitations in what you now have available to you, your brain starts thinking about all the things you could do -- and that's where you really start learning how to work with linux. Sure you need to use online guides the first time you set up a web server or something else. Sure you'll have to continue to rely on the web for some time, but as you work through various projects you'll start to remember where you found things, and you'll start to see how they connect to other things, and one day that thing you've been re-typing from your notes suddenly clicks and you understand WHAT that thing was actually doing.
It's never an easy process to start something new. The first time somebody gave me a bunch of old PC parts and I powered up a machine on my waterbed, I looked at the blinking cursor and thought "now what?" (Yeah he didn't even give me a DOS boot floppy!) But here we are thirty-some years later and I'm running servers, troubleshooting multiple operating systems at work, and doing pretty much anything I want. Linux was a complete change of gears but it was totally worth taking the time to figure it out, you just need to work on one piece at a time.
- This, absolutely. VirtualBox is free for home users as well, and supports hardware graphics acceleration. Hardest part of running Linux is installing it - can practice at no risk and try out various distros until you're confident with it. Can even practice with a recovery disk and make sure that you can get back up and running if you cack it up.
  Also, make sure that you've got an install DVD / USB stick somewhere safe, just in case you do ever need it. Bit embarassing to be unable to start the only computer you have in the house.

This may not work for everyone, but the only way to truly embrace Linux was to wipe the windows partition and start using Linux. That’s it, you no longer have to option to run back to your dual booted Windows if shit doesnt work. You sit down and figure it out.

I would suggest Linux Mint Cinnamon. It's very Windows like, and just works. It's a great distro to get started. I started on it, and many others have. Non-techy relatives really took to it also.

Before I could fully leave windows, I spent a lot of time being lost in Linux distrohopping and ricing without even fully understanding what I was doing. Without a solid setup to live in, Linux had a weird experimental feel and it got frustrating when I wanted stuff done.
Coming to your case, there are 2 different priorities here: daily driving and Linux proficiency. You're tied into windows for the daily driving bit for now so your main focus should be learning, and that probably won't need a dual boot right away.
First up is understanding why there are so many distributions. Linux is the kernel, the common skeleton that you can't use on its own. There are other modular bits that go on top to make a full fledged OS, and the choices of what those are is what makes a distribution. Learn more about the options available for the modular bits - the ones that you should concern yourself with for now are:
package managers: the program responsible for installing and managing software. This is one of the main differences between the major popular variants of Linux(Debian, Arch, fedora etc). For example, on Debian and distros based on it, you'd use apt. That's why you would've probably used apt on Ubuntu, it's based on Debian.
desktop environment: all the programs involved with the user interface - the main UI itself. This is a subjective thing and people use different desktop environments based on their workflow.
Once you get this modularity based perspective, distributions wont be overwhelming and vague. You'll understand why people are recommending mint or popOS:
it's Ubuntu based and there are many popular Debian and Ubuntu based distros out there. You'll be able to get software easily and if there's some problem you need to debug, there's a relevant question and answer out there
mint's desktop environment is cinnamon, which is simple, clean and not too jarring for people coming from windows
You'll also know, you can choose whatever you want as long as it's Ubuntu based for your learning phase. Only at that point I think it will make sense to dual boot. You can boot in for particular reasons instead of a vague "let me understand Linux". The reasons will be finding alternative software to daily drive, learning how to use the terminal or just getting comfortable with Linux in general. From there, you can find your own way or reach out to the community with questions specific for your use cases.
- Distrohopping is the only real answer here. It's the only way you can experience all the stuff Linux has to offer and it can be a lot of fun.

Stick to the defaults for the time being and only do custom things when you have time to fiddle around. This is not specific to Linux though.

If you can, find another old computer that still works, maybe replace the mechanical hard drive with a solid state drive and install Linux Mint or even the new Debian 12. I have Debian running on an old computer with an Intel i5-2500k processor and it is rock solid. As far as learning linux, I recommend https://www.learnlinux.tv/ as a starting point. Jay is very good at explaining.

I'm far from experienced in this but from what I heard: Linux Mint.
Then libreoffice for office (I think it's pre installed on Linux Mint). See this https://youtu.be/4qWgrGc4g20

The best thing to do is to just jump in.Pick a distro, doesn't matter which and just start using it.
For software just browse the Music category of pamac, discover, or whatever app-front you decide to use. There's some really good stuff in there.

Ubuntu my dude. I started fiddling with it years ago and it's my go to when I need a good desktop / gaming system. Any distro is gonna be a steep learning curve and a great way to go about it is to get a crapola system and start banging Linux on it. You'll be frustrated and then search and find that there is a massive amount of community support for most distros. I use a Raspberry PI 4 running Ubuntu 64 for all my AV needs... Drives the projector and stereo and also serves as a retro gaming over the projector deal. We're all fed up with windows.

I dual boot Fedora and Windows on my PC, have had a good experience so far. I would say Fedora is beginner friendly and is a good choice for a distro, everything just works.
- I guess if you have a new laptop, I can imagine that with newer kernels than what is debian based, that said before debian 12 recently came out. I'm personally a bit worried of recommending "corporate funded" distros, help me if I'm wrong, but what heppened with RHEL, I can't stop thinking it will happen with fedora.. It is just my opinion/fear

Start with something like Pop!_OS and learn by working out how you do all your daily tasks. Once you are competent with that, try tweaking a few things to run how you want, or try new technology. Enabling wayland for example. Then before you know it you'll have a large beard and preach the benefits of free software
And every time you need to run a command, work out what it does. Use the built in manual (man command)

My advice is, learning new things can be a pleasure, so try to improve your learning skills. Everything is possible then.

Eh, just use a super really easy linux distro like ZorinOS or Mint and stick with it.
t. Currently 39 years old and been using Linux since around 10 years ago.

I have an arguably bad piece of advice, but one I hadn't seen in skimming the replies.
You could always install Windows in a VM. Libvirt and virt-manager offer a pleasant GUI experience so it's easy to do. If you give the VM a heavy resource allotment (while leaving a reasonable amount for the host) it should still perform well. The VM video driver is the only place you take a not insignificant performance hit, but for A/V manipulation I don't think it'll matter. Unless you use GPU based video encoding. In which case it'll be CPU bound now so slower. You can potentially do PCI pass through to your GPU but that adds complexity.
A big downside here is that as far as Windows is concerned, this is different "hardware" so it won't activate based on your physical device. As I recall, it only allows the use of one core while unactivated which is pretty much unusable. So a pretty hefty expense relative to a personal VM, I think. But it is an option.
- "A big downside here is that as far as Windows is concerned, this is different "hardware" so it won't activate based on your physical device."
  You can transfer a Windows licence from another installation, so in OP's situation, from the original installation. During Windows setup, select the 'I don't have a license key' option, then once Windows is installed, go into settings, click the Windows isn't activated option, and go through the activation troubleshooter.
  I can't remember exactly where, but somewhere in there is the option to transfer the license from another installation. It has to be the same version of Windows.
  
  The license transfer also depends what edition was being used. OEM may be stuck with the hardware, traditionally you could take a retail license to a new install.

I personally finally made the fulltime switch in November 2021 after years of on again off again attempts. The one I was finally able to stick with was Endeavour OS with KDE desktop. It's basically just an arch distro with a good installer and som QoL apps. Easy to maintain and a good community if you need assistance.
And with the creation of Bottles running windows software has been surprisingly easy. I do some home studio recording and just got EZdrummer setup as a vst in Ardour, and it just works.

My advice is to restart with Arch (I use Arch btw). Not Manjaro, I'm talking Arch.
I think using/installing Arch as well as its barebones nature FORCES you to understand how Linux works differently than Windows with concepts like root, bootloader, terminal emulation, and disk partitioning, just to give you some examples. At the same time, Arch has excellent documentation, a great package manager in pacman, and rolling release model that greatly simplifies maintainance during daily use so you can tune it to exactly how you want it.
I believe doing it the hard way at first will make it easier for you in the long run if you really want to understand Linux, and Arch is just the right amount of difficult to make you learn Linux, whereas Gentoo would be too hard and you don't learn enough from using Ubuntu/Debian/Mint.
But yeah, if you just want to use something that works well out of the box, then Ubuntu is great, there's nothing wrong with using the more user friendly distros.
- I tried that after already having about 2 years experience with Ubuntu desktop and an Ubuntu server (but still mostly a Windows user). I'm also a software developer.
  And I failed to install Arch on a laptop the last time I tried it out. Ubuntu ran flawlessly, trying to go step by step through the Arch installation I hit a random error (at a step that was very straight forward and easy in the documentation) and got stuck. Messed around with it and at some point gave up.
  I mean that's years ago, it probably works a lot better nowadays and especially on more modern hardware, but even so for someone new to Linux I'd never tell them to go with a do-it-yourself install. Slap Ubuntu on that bad boy, let them install a few packages, do a handful of terminal commands and they'll get much farther. Instead of giving up three hours in because a random command (that they still don't understand) is broken.
  
  If you look at the original post, his goal is to learn and understand Linux and he is on his third attempt after already trying Ubuntu remix, which is why I made this suggestion.
  Again, if he just wanted to use Linux on his computer, then there is nothing wrong with using a more user friendly distro at all. But for his particular needs he described, then Arch is a better distro for learning how Linux actually works.
- Arch is amazing for all of these reasons, and I agree that by design it'll give you a lot of insight in to what's under the hood that most other distos tuck away.
  I've used it in the past and ended up moving away from it because it requires quite a bit more effort to maintain, which got tiresome.
  Arch has an active and dedicated community, so obviously there's a whole lot of people out there who feel it's worth the effort. Maybe OP will too. But it's not a distro to take on lightly.
- I didn't stick with Linux as a daily driver until I tried Manjaro. Learned enough to be comfortable installing Arch and ran that for a while, but after installing it a few times I was looking something a little bit simpler to setup. I now prefer EndeavourOS which is basically Arch with a nice installer and a few QoL apps.
- I'm a long time Linux user but I'm really lazy. I recently installed Arch to try it out again as last time I did it was maybe 2012. Personally, manually setting up the hard drive partitions on initial install is just annoying enough to be too much work (I have a lot of drives) but luckily there's an installer that does that part for you. Everything else you have to do is sensible and easy and actually ends up being less work in the long run. The wiki is also extremely informative, helpful and correct.
  Arch probably can be a beginner distro just because if you have a problem it's so much easier to find out how to fix it on the internet thanks to the wiki and the forums. Something as mundane as installing nvidia drivers in Debian can be a massive ordeal and the minimum required skill level to fix it yourself if it doesn't work on the first attempt is very high.
  
  Yea took me a while to understand that I need some drivers to install if I wanted to turn on hardware acceleration to watch videos on my computer.

I just made the full time switch to pop os and I've been happy so far

Install Linux Mint in a virtualbox VM. It gets up and running so quickly, and works extremely well.
I have been focusing more on learning Linux at work, between some Fedora VMs we use for various things, and the Mint VM I spun up myself. It’s great because jumping between windows and Linux is a simple matter of moving the mouse cursor to a different monitor. I usually just leave Linux Mint running full screen on one of my monitors.
I’m not experienced with lots of distros, but Mint is damned impressive.

Consider reading the content on Linuxjourney.com
- Second this, really great site.

The best advice I can give is to just use Linux. Back in early 2006 when I started switching over to Linux I would dual boot, and any time I ran into something that was hard to do on Linux I would just boot into Windows to save time. Eventually I decided to stick with it and not reboot when that would happen. Linux back then was not as user friendly as it is now, so for the most part this should be the exception and not the rule. Obviously some software is going to be Windows specific, but the best thing you can do to learn is just stick with Linux and use it.
As for distros, whatever is the most used which is probably Ubuntu right now, will be best as people will have plenty of answers and questions that will cover what you are going through compared to a niche distro. When you get more experience with Linux, you will get a better sense for what you want out of a distro like rolling releases like Arch, functional package management like with NixOS or whatever else may be important to you. So just stick with Ubuntu or whatever is more popular right now and reevaluate after you get to the point your comfortable with command line tools.

Get a pre-owned Thinkpad or Dell Latitude for cheap. Upgrade it if you want, especially with SSD & RAM. Get some Linux on it -- I recommend Linux Mint for ease of use.

Apparently ChatGPT is really good as a personal tutor. You can ask it specific questions and it will answer with detailed tutorials and step-by-step guides.

I use OpenSUSE, because it has YaST, which is basically the Control Panel in Windows. Without it, I'd have to use the terminal. It also installs on just about anything.

- Reaper is on a line with ProTools and has a linux port. I never like Ardour. Too much fiddly stuff.
- Ardour is another decent pick for DAW, though it was a little unstable when I used it ~5 years ago

The linux motto to any problem is "it's possible, but here are the pitfalls". You can do almost everything on linux (unlike windows), but the tradeoff is it can sometimes require more time to learn and troubleshoot issues. In my opinion, linux is great for those of us who dislike to use the mouse and take our hands off the homerow. Get used to using the terminal to launch apps, instead of clicking stuff on the desktop. Learn keyboard shortcuts. My recommendation is to use a window manager like i3 with an i3 status bar at the bottom. This will give you a minimal desktop, where you can move windows/tiles around all with keyboard shortcuts. Open apps with something similar to dmenu, where you just have to press a keyboard shortcut and type the first few letters of the app you want to open, and press enter. Learn vim-like keyboard navigation to edit text and reposition the cursor through the text all without the keyboard. Linux integration with this style of experience is vastly superior to Windows and Mac.
- I feel like this guy's at a 3 and you're giving him advice at a 7 or 8.

I have terrible distro ideas. I rock kubuntu or Fedora for basic server stuff. So I'd recommend dual booting Ubuntu or Kubuntu just cuz it's easy and you already have experince with it.
Mostly what I wanted to convey was a sense of excitement for you! No matter what option you end up doing there's so much to learn here. I remember when I was a very young lad learning how windows 95/98 worked. The jank.
FOSS Linux has that kinda jank. The unpolished functionality of OS' long forgotten. Idk. Makes me feel like a kid again.
I'm excited for you. Lmk what you end up doing, if you remember. Buying a laptop or dual booting or whatnot.

Being able to easily switch back to Windows hindered my attempt to learn Linux. When I wasn't in the mood to learn a new concept, or failed to get something working after a few tries, then I'd just boot right back into Windows. I was able to push on when I deleted Windows in a rage and now the alternative to getting over the Linux hill was going back down and doing the "no, no, no, no, fuck off" dance that is the Windows install process.
Websites recommending Ubuntu to noobs didn't help me much. The panel being stuck of the left size of the monitor after my friend boasted about customization on Linux really grinds my gears. Linux Mint was much better coming from Windows, and I'm still on it years later.
- @tabular
  @Andonyx
  Agreed on all points, I didn't end up finally switching to linux until I got so fed up with the auto update caused issue I was having that I just got rid of windows entirely
  And while I at first switched to Ubuntu, I wouldn't be happy until a few months later when I landed on fedora with KDE

As a 40 something who's used Linux exclusively a few times before but always came back to windows for one reason or another, I now use a MacBook as my primary. I hate the ads served in windows and the poor handling of focus.
MacOS to me has been like a more polished Linux with broader support for applications.
- I dislike anything that comes out of the Apple ecosystem. Keep that in mind when I say that I agree here insofar as MacOS being a better user option than Windows at this point.
  That being said, I would encourage OP in their pursuit to see if Linux can fit their needs. Anecdotally, I've been using Linux (Fedora, KDE) as my daily driver for years now. I find it quite polished and have no issues with finding applications that fit my needs.
  Realistically though, application support can be problematic. If a specific proprietary piece of software is required or important to you and it's not available in Linux, that could certainly be a non-starter. You could fuss about with wine and try getting that stuff working, but no guarantee it'll stay working so I wouldn't rely on that. I know OP is interested in A/V stuff. That's not an ecosystem I'm very familiar with. I know it exists, but I don't know how good it is. No harm in trying though, all it costs is time.