What I would recommend is either getting a new hard drive and swapping it with your current drive, or creating a back up disk image of your current computer on an external drive. That way your old computer is safe if you mess anything up. (You probably won’t need it tho, it’s not as hard/scary as it initially seems).

Linux has very recently become much easier to use. The current version of WINE (a program which allows you to install and run Windows programs on a Linux PC) is incredible, so you really shouldn’t lose anything capability-wise in the switch either.

If you just add a Windows partition on your current disk, Windows 11 will randomly delete the entire Linux partition (I’ve read about this happening to multiple people). So you’d want a clean installation of Linux to avoid Microslop’s spyware and malware.

I still have the old hard drive with my Windows 11 system on it, but I never needed to use it, and I’ve been switched for long enough that I would not use it now… I should wipe that drive and put it in an enclosure to be an external

I had the same experience long time ago: attempted to install, failed in figuring out how to mount a hard dive and gave up. Last year i tried linux mint, loved it. Easy transition, minimal learning curve.

Ive also found that if i had issues with windows the error messages were crap ans the web was filled with garbage advice. On linux, i find whenever i want to do something the support is better, advice is clearer and when you need it there is much more clarity on what is working or not working.

Grab yourself a usb stick, get your linux distribution of choice on it. Most distributions allow you to boot your machine from the stick to try out linux with zero impact on your existing machine. You can check ifndisplay, sound etc works and if you like the feel of it. If you do, install is a few clicks away using the same stick.