Boy, the good ole days are gone when it comes to Windows. I am posting just to help anybody that doesn’t know. This is like a creepy wire tap. If you are actually using Windows 11, make sure to disable and or reduce telemetry in Windows 11 (Privacy). If that actually helps, I am sure there are more ways they send data back but the video link is a simple how to for the telemetry. Here is more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtg_s1GQiMU
I got a new laptop for work, i could use linux for it, everything i do is within a browser, but it took me an hour tops to set up in windows 11 (well maybe a couple while i fiddled with settings, fuck you windows 11), jumping over to linux seems like an impossible task for me, who has never done it before
but i am planning to get a linux os running on my old laptop (8gb ram) that i use for torrents and streaming (browsers), i ran proton vpn. Give me a recommendation, maybe a tutorial i can follow, if you’re so determined, give me the nudge i need :p
There are so many options, but since I assume it would be your first linux, I’d start with something that just works at once and does everything you say you need in your comment. Zorin OS will just work at once (I might not prefer this dist myself, but I’m 20 years in the linux game… this is a distro that just works really well for first timers, and it’s a good distro).
As the other user said, get Mint Cinnamon on a USB. I moved to Linux last year (now on Bazzite KDE) and it wasn’t the leap I expected, more just a small shuffle. Everything is roughly where you expect it to be and works how you expect it to, but like actually where you’d expect and working how you expect. Like if Windows 10 had been designed just for usability without corporate interests clogging everything up. The only reason it may take a while to customise to your liking is that you can customise far, far more of it straight out of the box.
There are plenty of options, which is great, but also a cause of choice paralysis. Linux mint. Just start with Linux mint. It works. You can try it on a “live USB” before installing completely.