I’d suggest the hands on approach personally. It may take some tomato get up though.
You can install a distro onto a USB stick and boot from it to play around and see if you like it.
Here’s a quick tutorial:
docs.fedoraproject.org/…/preparing-boot-media/
And separately the distro I’d reccomemd using:
fedoraproject.org/spins/kde/
After you create the live CD you should be able to keep it plugged in and boot to using this method from howtogeek:
howtogeek.com/…/beginner-geek-how-to-change-the-b…
To be clear if you stop there Linux will not installed, you won’t lose any data, and you can just unplug the USB stick to allow windows to boot up when you restart.
One note, sinceit’s installed to a USB stick it’ll be a bit slower than if you installed it on your PC. Still though, it’ll be the same idea.
Here’s a full guide on how to install it:
oppy1984@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Linux Mint, as someone who switched about 10 years ago it’s what I always recommend. I tried several distros, but mint has been my daily driver for the last 9 years.
Also it’s set up similarly to Win 7, so it’s far more intuitive for a Windows user. And Mint seems to have the best documentation and community when you can’t figure something out.
*And before anyone says anything, I’m speaking of the Debian based distros, I know REHL has some distros that also have great documentation and communities, I’m just a Debian guy so that’s what I’m comfortable speaking to.
stormeuh@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Even though I haven’t run anything Debian based as a daily driver in about a decade, I still recommend Debian based distro’s to beginners. With Ubuntu being so widespread it just makes sense, because whenever you search for “how do I install xyz on linux” it’s going to be a guide for Ubuntu 99% of the time, which should work on other Debian based distro’s most times.
oppy1984@lemm.ee 1 week ago
I found Ubuntu to be a bit to foreign when transitioning from Windows, it was actually the first distro I tried. It has more of an old school Mac feel to me, and I just couldn’t get used to it. I get what you’re saying about the guides though, I do still get Ubuntu forums a lot when I forget to add + Linux Mint on the end of my searches.
For me it was Ubuntu, then back to windows for a while, then ZoronOS for a while, then finally settling on Mint. I’ve tried a few other distros over the years but I keep coming back to Mint.