Linux

I was in your spot recently so I may relate to your situation better than others. I’ll try to explain it as simply as possible.

Step 1. Pick a distro: Any distro should work, it’s just a matter of what works for you. Are you mostly playing games on it? If so, check out Bazzite. Not gaming much? Maybe try Linux Mint. If you give me your specific use case I could help a bit more with finding a distro.

Step 2. Pick a desktop environment (DE): If you decide on Mint, I’d recommend Cinnamon which should be the first one that pops up on the downloads page (link to downloads page on main screen). It’ll be pretty similar to windows and very user friendly. If you’re going for Bazzite, I’d recommend KDE Plasma, which is also very similar to windows but with more customizability. But if you want, you can look up comparison videos and chose for yourself.

Step 3. Downloading the distro: You’re going to need a clean flash drive/USB stick. Anything that’s currently on it will be wiped so keep that in mind. Either back them up somewhere else or buy a new one. Once you have a flash drive ready to go, you’re going to need to download a program to “flash” the ISO file (basically the OS file) onto the stick. Simply downloading the ISO onto the stick won’t do anything. I like Ventoy as it lets you add multiple ISO files onto it so you can try out a bunch before deciding on one, but Balena Etcher also works. Whichever you choose, download the program and follow the instructions. It should be relatively straightforward but if you get stuck there should be tutorials online, or I can try to help you too. For Ventoy, I believe all you do is download the program, follow the instructions, let it do its thing, and when it’s finished you can add whatever ISO files you want to the flash drive. For Etcher, I think you download the program, then download an ISO file somewhere on your pc, then use the program to choose the flash drive and ISO file, and let it do its thing to flash it.

Step 4. Changing your BIOS settings: Once your flash drive has an ISO file flashed onto it, you’re going to need to edit your BIOS settings. I believe on Windows 11 you can go to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery, then click "Restart now" under Advanced startup, and select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings > Restart to access the BIOS (this was from the web, I had to look it up because I couldn’t remember, apologies if it’s slightly inaccurate. Let me know if that doesn’t work). You should be in your BIOS settings now. Use the arrow keys to go to boot settings, turn off secure boot, then find boot order (might be named something slightly different) and make sure USB is first. Then save and exit (probably on the last page), and when the device restarts you should be in the menu for either Ventoy or Balena Etcher, whichever you chose. Select your distro, select boot in normal mode, and then you should get a pop up to install or test out. The rest should hopefully be easy to follow, but if not, let me know and I can try to help. If you have any more questions let me know, or if this was too confusing let me know and I’ll try to clarify