Linux is better.

I use Linux every day inside a VM on windows 11 on a framework. I’d be comfortably happy with linux as main and only operating system but I find this setup works well for a sort of “best of both worlds” type scenario. If you run via hyper-v there is basically no performance loss.

I think windows 11 can be very nice too if you run a debloater (I used windows 10 debloater powershell scripts) and an app like ‘0&0 shut up’ — and yes it would be better if we didn’t have to do that - but we do, and after you do, windows 11 is pretty nice and I have my VM & WSL2 for even nicer work environments

I have had more issues with Linux, but I use it for everything I can. Honestly Windows is just ridiculous sometimes.

Give it a go. I use windows, macOS and Linux. Love all three and use all 3.

If you’ve never used Linux before, try Ubuntu or Pop OS. I use pop OS for my dev laptop.

If you are passionate about privacy, enjoy tinkering with your computer, or program in your free time, then Linux might be right for you.

If you hate tinkering or you use a lot of proprietary software, then sticking with windows may be wise.

Try it.

If you have another device, try installing it on that.

Otherwise you could try a dual boot on a device but that sometimes confuses things if you need to fix your Windows install.

If you have enough resources on your PC you could install a virtualization solution (I have used VirtualBox for years) to create a virtual machine upon which you can try out various Linux distros without affecting your main Windows install.

The first thing that you would have yourself is: Do you use any Windows-specific prgrams? Things such as Adobe Suite, the desktop version of MS 360 and if you do, how dependant are you on those. If you are then I’d say stick to Windows because not onluly does Windows programs run better on Windows (duh), making them run on Linux is a chore and very complicated, and that is on top of learning a whole new way of doing things. If you play games, well, unless you know thst your games run on Linux, I’d stay on Windows for now but if you mainly live in a web browser, you won’t have to worry.

If you don’t, the next question is that are willing to discard most of your knowledge regarding using a computer? Linux is altogether a different way of doing things than Windows, it’s closer to MacOS actually, but only a little bit. Linix does things its own way and is not interested in imitating other OSes. Some conceptual things will be different. For example, you don’t normally install programsby finding an install file on the internet, you do it through your appstore, or that tje file system is very different to Windows.

You will have much control over your system, but with power comes responsibility. It’s up to you to run the updates if necessary, it’s up to you to reach out if there’s a problem, and you’d have to keep in mind that often supporters are volunteers, not paid employees, make of that what you will.

Just like Windows, expect stuff to go wrong from time to time, not often, but sometimes you might have a light or something that only comes with Windows drivers.

I’d recommend that you learn a little bit of commandline. Yes it looks scary, and actually for daily use you might even get away with opening a terminal at all, but it’s still an useful thing to know, especially on Linux. Think of it as a direct way of talking to your computer.

If all that doesn’t deter you, come aboard! We hope that you’re have a very good time here, and we think that with some tinkering, you’d have a much better time here than on Windows. You can either jump head first or try Linux in a virtual machine. In time you’ll realise that for the most part distros are not that important, but for now, you could go with either Ubuntu or Pop!OS for a more MacOS vibe, or Linux Mint for a more traditional Windows vibe. Just download the iso, stick it in a virtual (or actual) machine and browse around! See if the programs that you need is there, if not then if you can get around it, try it out. Especially if you doing this on bare metal, see if everything works (keyboard shortcuts, trackpads, fingerprint reader…). Fingerprint reader are perhaps the trickiest, other stuff for the most part just works, but just test around.

Or you can just ignore everything I said and install Arch 🐧

Modern linux DE are super easy to set up and works out of box most of the times

Try Linux. You’ll feel lost, confused, it’s a bit frustrated at first because you will realize how much Linux is the same as windows, but a bit different. The small everyday task are going to be “small learnings” and will take longer than usual in windows. But Linux is not changing a lot against your will every major release, and all functions added are there to add something that users need, not to generate profit. In the long run, it pays off because it makes sense

Yes. Ubuntu is a great distribution to start with.

If you do, start with a distro that’s easy to use and well-supported like Ubuntu 22.04 or similar. Some people make the mistake of acting like they’ve got to prove they’re already the PC expert like Linus thinking he has to go straight for Arch-based or Pop OS in the Linux challenge. Start and learn with a well-supported, stable debian distro with stable kernel builds on slightly older (last year’s or older) hardware or something that has official vendor support (I’ve personally found Framework’s support for 22.04 on the AMD FW13 is excellent, even though there are still small issues with the bleeding edge 7840.)
U22.04 defaults to the crappy Gnome3 interface, but you can easily fix that by installing Unity, XFCE (gnome2) mate (also gnome-2 like) or other desktop after install. (It’s safest to do vanilla Ubuntu as the starting point.) “sudo apt install ubuntu-unity” at the terminal and you’ll have a good start.
With Ubuntu, you can do a web search prepending “ubuntu 22.04” to pretty much any question and find good advice and instructions on how to do what you want. Steam + proton will play almost any game whose devs aren’t spending a lot of effort just to prevent them working on Linux. Look up how to install Glorious Eggroll Proton builds if any games give you trouble.
Linux is the best if you want to control what happens on your machine. It has plenty of guardrails and safety nets, but they’re the sort that are designed by advanced users for their own convenience, not by corporate middle managers who want to constrain behaviors they consider undesirable. With Linux, you are much more in control. It can be a double-edged sword, but if you approach it as someone who’s willing to learn, just play around with it for a while, and get used to it, you’ll eventually find that you can do far more on Linux than on any other OS.

I use Ubuntu on the Framework 13 11th gen Intel and it works really good. It is different than Windows but the learning curve is similar

I’ve been using Linux for more than 20 years. I have found that computing is an inherently and unavoidably frustrating activity. However, you do get to decide what kind of frustration you experience. If you use MacOS or Windows, the frustration will be the result of a highly sophisticated and carefully choreographed strategy to manipulate, then bully and finally to coerce you into giving more of your money to one of the two wealthiest companies on the planet. If you use Linux, the frustration will be the result of some volunteers, among whom about a third are idealistic teenagers, making some unintentional fuckup for which they will be genuinely sorry.

Linux actually has a superior “out of the box” experience on most hardware these days, including the Framework. All the drivers are built in, and most of the application software is packaged and usually installed by default. Where it’s likely to be frustrating for a new user is mostly due to the fact that it just works differently and makes different assumptions.

For me, it’s absolutely worth it, though, simply to have a little less corporate bullshit in my life.

Yes

Try it on a Virtual Machine first!

That way you can mess around and mess it up as many times as you like before risking anything on your daily OS.

I came from a Mac and I miss macOS a little if I’m honest but I tried HEAPS of different things on Linux on VMs first so by the time I installed it on hardware for the first time I had a good idea of what to expect :)