There's a nice piece at ZDNet today on "The 4 easiest ways to test Linux on your old PC before Windows 10 support runs out."
When I encourage Windoze-using friends to migrate to Linux -- and any friend of mine will tell you I'm always encouraging my Windoze-using friends to migrate to Linux -- I usually emphasize how easy the installation process is (easier than any version of Windoze since after, say, 98), how there are so many flavors out there that it's easy to find a comfortable one if you like Windoze or Mac user interfaces, and how Linux is at least as good as (often better than) than Windoze for everything except specialized/proprietary software only available for Windoze.
One thing I usually forget to mention is the "live instance" option that tops the ZDNet list.
It's simple: You download an ISO of the Linux distribution you're interested in, burn it to a thumb drive, then boot your computer from the thumb drive. Voila, you're running Linux. You're running a little slower than if it was installed on your hard drive, and configuration settings and such don't get saved for future boots, but it's great for figuring out whether you'd like to take the next step and install it, either wiping out your old Windoze distribution or making the machine "dual boot" between Windoze and Linux. If you decide against, you just reboot the machine without the thumb drive and you're back to Windoze.
Another way of fiddling with Linux to figure out whether you'll like it or not is one I hadn't noticed before the ZDNet article: DistroSea. It lets you run various versions of Linux right in your web browser, with no impact on whatever OS you're running on your computer. At least some of these distros seem to go to command line rather than GUI, and while running an instance of my own OS (Linux Mint with xfce desktop) Firefox (yes, Firefox, inside an online instance of Linux, inside Microsoft Edge inside my own desktop machine's instance of Linux) didn't seem to be able to actually browse, but it will give you an idea of what the OS looks like and how it acts.
I don't really recommend the other two options in the ZDNet article -- virtual machines (because I generally don't like them) and installing on an older spare computer to try out (because if I'm installing on any computer I plan for it to be for keeps, and why temporarily ruin an old machine when you can just use a live instance on your current machine and know whether you like it or not?).
Go "live instance" to try out Linux. If you like it, install it -- and if you're not really, really, really sure about it (or maybe have some PC games or proprietary CAD software or whatever that you want to keep), just tell the installer to keep Windoze, install Linux beside it, and ask you which one you want whenever you reboot your computer.
For most applications, I expect you'll find Linux at least as functional and easy to use as Windoze, maybe better. And when it comes to the recent Windoze phenomenon of spending six hours installing updates every time you enter or exit, it's vastly superior (Linux installs updates when YOU TELL IT TO, not when it decides to).
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