Sure this few days/weeks switching will be hard. But one day it will click and you realise how much you are doing without worying about what microsoft is doing to your machine.

I tend to recommend Linux Mint, it's pretty easy to grasp for noobs (i've installed on two of my family's laptops, no complaints). Zorin OS also seems nice.
You can "flash" the installation disks onto a USB drive and boot from it to test it out without actually installing it. It'll be slower but you'll get to test-drive it.

I made the switch a few years back, and have fucked with zero kernals. I installed Linux mint, and it just works.

Every now and then I'm forced to use a windows machine, and every time I go back to my rig, it's a huge relief. It works so much smoother and faster, no bs.

It doesn't slow down everything, because logging my data on my computer through my Internet connection just isn't a thing Linux does.

Its like when I talk about cars.

I dont speak in make and model, I speak in chassis and engine codes. Replacing an engine is a 1 weekend job that I could do half drunk back when I was drinking. Unless you're swapping the engine for something not meant for that car I would describe that job as big but easy.

And then I remember a lot of people know make and model and thats it.

I did it last year, and I've been very happy with the results.

I'm reasonably tech-savvy for a user. I can follow instructions, but I don't understand the super technical stuff. I watched a few YouTube videos and read a few tutorials, and it was all pretty easy.

The system updates are easier than Windows. I don't have to understand what a kernel is; I just have to click the update button.

Meh, that's tech details that you won't have to deal with at all

I've used Linux on desktop for decades now (started way back at 2002) and the lady time o touched the kernel for normal desktop stuff is literally multiple decades ago

Windows too has a kernel but nobody talks about it because you can't really do shit with it unless you're a developer

With Linux you can do whatever the fuck you want and it's all relatively easy. I can access and modify the Linux kernel in 10 seconds flat if I want to. THAT is why people talk a lot about the Linux kernel, because it's so easy and powerful to use. Microsoft Windows kernels aren't even worth talking about.

But as a common user, you don't HAVE to do stuff with the kernel if you don't want to. My 70 year old mother doesn't either and she's fine using the Linux desktop that I installed for her.

For high intensity gaming you might have to make small modifications here and there in human readable text files, and usually documentation about it is excellent.

Most of Linux is so fucking easy to setup that last time I installed both Linux and Windows, the Linux (Kubuntu) cost 30 minutes to install and that includes the time to download the ISO and burn it on a USB and includes drivers for printers and GPU which were all setup and installed out of the box.

The windows 11 install cost me 7 hours divided over 5 days.

Amongst all the problems I ran into, I had to make BIOS modifications because it refused to install at all, it fucked up badly because I had the gall to burn a standard ISO with a standard ISO burning tool on Linux, completely forgetting that Microsoft always sabotages their software so that it won't work well with Linux. I had to install windows on a virtual machine install some special fucking Windows ISO burner tool, burn the USB there, then it worked. That cost me hours over multiple days of searching the Internet on why the frack such a basic thing failed, plus the time required to set all that shit up just to be able to START the installation.

Then during the installation I got so many questions, so many questions... So many... Please sign up here, please pay more money, please rent our services, please please fracking please! The install itself took a bloody hour to finish

What I'm trying to say is: Linux is friggin easy. Windows is hell. Windows costs money, spies on you, serves you unwanted ads and your computer is no longer yours.

Why does anyone even use windows to begin with? I don't get it.

Linux Mint with Cinnamon is the easy one with good, widespread adoption. Been good for me.

I've written a microkernel for an embedded device before and enjoy that kind of thing. I haven't had to use any of my kernel experience in the year or so I've been on linux.

My linux install (Fedora) took a while because I was reading up on a bunch of the options instead of just taking the defaults. Ended up mostly just using the defaults and the ones I did change, I kinda regret because the snapshots that I wanted to save disk space by avoiding would probably come in handy if I break something and don't know how to fix it.

Ignore it's just either passion or online flexing. You can use any of the main well supported distros in full chill mode. Power on use shut down.

I run stock Pop OS and I've only recently wanted to give a shit about macros.

You should only care if you're running a specific software. By and large its AS SEEMLESS as using Windows.

Note that its not really BETTER its mostly just DIFFERENT.

The only difficult part as a newcommer are the installation process, partitioning and choosing between different things you pretty much know shit about.

Anything debian or debian based is a good start KDE plasma for that windows feel Learn how your particular package manager works and thats it.

Unless you have some compatibility issue, it's pretty much straight forward.

Gaming has its things, but it is super doable. I have been a debian usdr for 14 years, but kept a winfows partition for gaming. 2 months ago switched to arch for gaming. So far, i have played +10 games with no issues, steam pretty much just works and lutris (think of it as a foss game launcher) needed some tweaks, but is pretty good.

If you have doubts, you can always try it on a virtual machine, meaning, you dont risk anything.