Linux

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.

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.

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.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean with AV software, antivirus or audio / video? If the latter is the case, check out Blender, Kdenlive, OpenShot, Flowblade, GIMP, Krita and Inkscape for graphical and video work. Pix is great for managing your photos and RawTherapee might be sufficient for your raw photo editing needs. On the audio production side, if you need a simple but powerful audio editor, look for Tenacity (a fork of Audacity). For music production, you can wonderfully work with Renoise, Reaper and Bitwig Studio natively on Linux. To make Windows VST plugins work on Linux, check out the plugin host Carla. But there are also many great linux-native VSTs out there, for example the TAL-Sampler. Great quality, free plugins are offered too, for example from https://calf-studio-gear.org/. There are websites that list other sources.

Btw, it's quite likely that your audio interface just works plug 'n play, if it is not too exotic. You can google that in advance though.

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.

I would suggest setting up a VM trying a few distros that are known for having a lot of documentation and active community members to help. But more important than the distro is to try out different Desktop Environments. This way you can customize your user experience exactly how you want it. Also when you get frustrated (and you will) remember you are trading Windows' convenience for Linux's freedom, privacy, and customization.

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.

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.

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 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.

Consider reading the content on Linuxjourney.com

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.