I do one of these at least once a year, but the Deltacable portion of the side hasn't had one of these purges yet and it's one of the oldest sections of the site, so I desperately need to revisit it

I'll also revise the Halloween and Christmas themes since they haven't been adjusted to the new code yet. I know there's time until then but I might as well get to it now x)

I keep forgetting otherwise!!

https://artfight.net/~NE0Nbandit anyway does anypony want to draw my oh sees

youtube! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mUI3CMjmMc) If you don't care about a full hard drive wipe installing most distros is super easy, including going back to windows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i been using linux for over a decade now- best thing is probably to join some community or have some good linux friends you can bother to help you fix all the issues you will no doubt run into. most the linux peeps are super friendly though, i have had people spend hours of their time just to help me get past the simplest things!

the cheapest functioning laptop from a thrift store would work wonders for 'gettin into it'

I cannot have a full hard drive wipe so I'm backing up my stuff since I worry I'll mess up somehow and lose everything 😭 I'm looking into a tutorial for how to have it be a dual boot with Windows at least to try it out ;v; I'm not helpless with computers but I'd rather stay safe

i would suggest try a good beginner friendly distro like linux mint. also, you can go to distrowatch to find out about other linux distros you might be intrested in

I dual-booted Linux Mint alongside Windows on my laptop for a while, it was pretty good! I went with Mint because I heard it was among the easiest for a Windows user to understand, and I think that advice was right. You might find some good advice on sites like Stack Exchange or r/linuxquestions, if you don't mind going to Reddit. It's a bit command line centric compared to Windows, but not too hard to figure out.

Adding onto my last comment because I'm a yapper: you can use Rufus to create a boot drive for your distro of choice, you could either just run it from the drive to play around with it if you don't want to commit the space on your hard drive just yet, but if I remember correctly, it should give you the option to install it to your drive alongside Windows. It's just been... years, I forgot exactly how, lol

Thank you :3 I'm seeing a lot of stuff recommending Mint so once I'm done backing up my stuff, that's what I'll try

Distrowatch is good but mainly for looking up reviews / specs for distros you might be interested in, I've personally found it pretty overwhelming for a beginner and choosing a distro was one of the most difficult things for me. Lots of people say Linux Mint is good for a beginner. I'd start reading about desktop managers and some of the most popular Linux distros that many are forked off. 1/2

The Debian documentation is good at showing an overview of desktop environments (they're like the GUI of your desktop): https://wiki.debian.org/DesktopEnvironment Usually distros will give you a choice of desktop environment. Here's a brief bit of history about some major distros (not a full list but might help get you started): https://linuxiac.com/major-distributions-in-history-of-linux/ I'm using Debian 2/2

Also seconding Rufus for setting up a bootable USB!

From what I've heard Linux Mint Cinnamon is the closest you'll get to a version that's similar to windows!! I've been using it here and there for a several weeks and despite the workarounds you have to go through to get some creative programs installed (like clip studio paint), it pretty much works out of the box!

also this: https://distrosea.com/

Test things in a virtual machine first, get confortable with it. Linux isn't hard, specially with beginner distributions like Linux Mint and Zorin OS, which you don't even need to touch the terminal. I can help you if you need, just send a message! 0/

that's not a problem, you can find tutorials everywhere and my first linux distro was arch so... no linux is not hard

Go with Mint or Ubuntu, they're probably the easiest for newbies to get into. You DON'T have to do most things via command line, you can install software through the "store" just fine and so much can be done with the GUI. Let using the CLI be your absolute last resort. I agree with cheap laptop as others have said.

Start by watching tutorials about Linux, install VirtualBox on Windows so you can first try installing distros on virtual machine to get a hang on things. I see you want dual boot with Windows. Always install Windows first, then Linux, as Windows messes up Linux' boot registry. If you want Windows dual boot with both systems encrypted, good luck lol (i know from experience, it's super confusing and weird to set up)

As others mentioned, Mint is probably the most beginner friendly, then Ubuntu (I personally prefer Kubuntu because it has more Windows-like UI by default). Even if you're not installing Arch distro, Arch wiki is very detailed and offers great help with plethora of topics. I hope you have fun with Linux! :)

the terminal also isn't actually as scary as it seems btw! it is a bit at first and defo takes some getting used to, but if you don't know how to do something google is awesome (i think i look up basic commands very often lol), but as everyone else said especially with those distros you dont even need the terminal much unless you're working on like dev stuff maybe

i've experimented with linux over a few years but i plan to try actually switching once windows 10 is out of support. also adding onto the google thing, the "man" command (manual) is usually also quite helpful for command help. yes, *do be careful with commands* (commands like "rm" can be scary and should be treated with care), but once you feel comfier with the system it can be very useful

Rufus is good, but it works only on Windows. You'd need a different program to create a bootable drive *from* Linux, and that's assuming the OS is working. So I recommend choosing two distros— like two of the Mints or two completely different options— in case your first pick doesn't work well for you and your hardware.