As Barbarian mentions, a lot of the process of setting up Linux has been streamlined across distros by their creators.
The only one which can be considered quite scary is Arch but that’s due to the philosophy behind it. The Arch developers don’t want to constrain the users to what they like using so every decision is handed to the user to build the system as they see fit. It’s not for everyone. I’m a control freak so I like it.
I can point you to a tutorial of someone setting up an Arch system in about 45 mins if you want it but there are many options like Mint, Ubuntu. PopOS is a fantastic one which I recommend to people who play video games. It has one of the most innovative launchers I’ve seen and System76 is constantly updating it. I’ve heard good things about Fedora.
The mainstream distros do not need any technical knowledge. Installing it requires a bit of knowledge (setting up a bootable USB stick and getting UEFI to boot from USB), but that’s basically it.
The only wrinkle is making sure beforehand that all the programs you use in Windows either work on Linux or have an equivalent.
My very nontechnical gf happily used Ubuntu for many years. Switched her to Fedora about 2 years ago. She only really uses Firefox, torrents, VLC, and some Steam games (recently Witcher 3 and Tabletop Simulator), so it’s all very straightforward.
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As Barbarian mentions, a lot of the process of setting up Linux has been streamlined across distros by their creators.
The only one which can be considered quite scary is Arch but that’s due to the philosophy behind it. The Arch developers don’t want to constrain the users to what they like using so every decision is handed to the user to build the system as they see fit. It’s not for everyone. I’m a control freak so I like it.
I can point you to a tutorial of someone setting up an Arch system in about 45 mins if you want it but there are many options like Mint, Ubuntu. PopOS is a fantastic one which I recommend to people who play video games. It has one of the most innovative launchers I’ve seen and System76 is constantly updating it. I’ve heard good things about Fedora.
Here’s a little quiz you can do to help you choose: https://distrochooser.de/
The mainstream distros do not need any technical knowledge. Installing it requires a bit of knowledge (setting up a bootable USB stick and getting UEFI to boot from USB), but that’s basically it.
The only wrinkle is making sure beforehand that all the programs you use in Windows either work on Linux or have an equivalent.
My very nontechnical gf happily used Ubuntu for many years. Switched her to Fedora about 2 years ago. She only really uses Firefox, torrents, VLC, and some Steam games (recently Witcher 3 and Tabletop Simulator), so it’s all very straightforward.