This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Reading all this makes me sad; and I’m relieved to have switched to Mac years ago…
Yeah, I've been avoiding this stuff the past few months by only letting my laptop online for quick essentials things. It's windows, I can't replace it with a mac so it's gotta be linux. Most online stuff I can do on my phone. But I can't put it off forever; I'm going to have to try the linux dual boot thing sooner or later. I've been putting it off because I've not used linux since the 90s and I really don't have time to re-learn. Gotta be done tho.
Edit - your semicolon inspired me to try one of my own!
Just a warning, Windows doesn't always play nice when installed on the same drive as Linux. If you have two drives, try installing them on different ones. If not, there's a risk that a Windows update can mess some things up. Usually it's fine, just I've had issues with it and so have others.
Anyway, Linux is really easy now. I would recommend something with KDE, like the Fedora KDE spin as an example. KDE is very familiar to Windows users, though very customizable if you want too. It should be a very easy transition, as long as you go in not expecting it to be identical to Windows. You have to meet it where it is, which does require relearning a few things.
If you have questions feel free to ask. There's also plenty of other users on Lemmy who would be happy to help.
dual boot is very simple and stable, I've been using Ubuntu / windows 10 for years after following a 10-minute YouTube video and basically only switch over to windows for games.
It's a great setup overall If there are some windows applications you prefer or are more convenient.
I have nothing to add to this conversation, but properly used semicolons always make me smile.
