I dumped Windows for Linux bout 12 years ago, but because I wasn't too sure, I didn't do the jump all in one go. I spent about 12 months "dual booting". What this means is that you install linux to a USB / pen drive (Mint seems a great option). Once you've installed Mint to a USB drive, you can boot your Windows machine into Linux Mint from that USB drive. That will give you the chance to poke around and try it out as often as you like. Just remember that it won't be as fast as it would be if you installl to your hard drive. If you like it, then you can install it alongside your Windows system. This is dual booting. When you power up your laptop or PC, you get to choose whether you boot into Windows or Linux. All this was quite daunting for me at the time, as I wasn't "techy". But quite quickly I'd become quite comfortable as it is easy once you've done it. There are a range of tutorials online about creating a bootable USB drive with Linux and how to get your machine to boot from it. My best advice is to give that a try.