Hey you, do YOU hate your stupid fucking windows install? Do you want a free open source alternative? Wanna become more tech literate? Don't want AI baked into your OS? Oh boy do I have the thing for you. YOU CAN DO THIS IN 20 MINUTES WITH NO COMMITMENT OR RISK TO YOUR FILES. Links are marked in pleasant blue. You'll need: one (1) USB flash drive with at least 10-15GB capacity

a working computer with at LEAST: 2gb RAM (4gb recommended) 20gb hard drive space total (100gb recommended) Honestly if it runs windows it will run linux better A working internet connection (5MB/s or above recommended) the understanding that you WILL have to use the terminal (it's not that complex I swear) Step 1: Choose your distro! Unlike Windows or MacOS, Linux is only a kernel, the most basic part of an operating system. Therefore, there are over thirty configurations, known as distros or distributions, to pick from. You should research some distros that you might enjoy, there's no shame in trying a few to see what fits. I personally fully recommend Linux Mint for beginners, because it has an easy to understand installer and handles most of the things for you, it's a great step up from Windows. There is no singular "best distro". All of them have specific use cases. As stated before, for first time users, Linux Mint is my recommendation. As such, this guide will presume you have chosen Linux Mint. If you ask a community full of experienced Linux users what the best distro is, you will either start a flame war or they will tell you that there isn't one. Step 2: Grab your distro's .iso file. You can typically find it on the distro's website. If you want to use Linux Mint, find it here. The file will likely be a couple gigabytes big. I recommend the Cinnamon edition. Step 3: Once you have the .iso, download Rufus. The source code is here. Select your USB drive and previously downloaded .iso file. Leave everything else to the default. Don't use Balena Etcher, it's got telemetry and it's arguably worse. Step 4: Click "start" and wait for it to complete. Step 5: Reboot your computer and enter BIOS. The instructions on entering BIOS vary between motherboards, but you can likely google it if you know what brand of motherboard you have. Step 6: Go to the "boot" section and boot from the USB drive. Step 7: You should now be in what's known as the "live USB" environment. Play around with it if you want. Step 8: If Linux Mint detects a copy of Windows on your hard drive, it will give you the option to install alongside Windows. If you want to use Windows along with Linux, do this. Otherwise, select "Erase disk and install Linux Mint." Step 9: Follow the instructions on the installer. Once it shows "please remove the installation media and press Enter", remove your USB stick and press Enter to restart. Step 10: You now have installed Linux Mint! Everything past this is optional and basically just a crash course. Step 11: Log in and open the terminal, time to learn commands. For example, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

This command is actually two in one - it will prompt you for your password, and then update your system. It may require additional confirmations but that's typically as simple as pressing enter. Once it finishes, your system is now up to date. There aren't automatic updates to my knowledge so do this every once in a while. Hell, a fun project would be making a program to automate it. sudo apt install (package name) I didn't have the space in the paragraph to mention this before, but "sudo" is a command that elevates the following command to administrator privileges, and apt is the package manager (handles all your software for you. you will be using this a lot) for Linux Mint. In fact, here's a very detailed document on how to use apt. You don't have to understand this right away, but read it anyway. Anyways, sudo apt install, well, installs things. Typically once you install it successfully you can just type the name of the software into the command line to launch it, or view it from the start menu if it's a GUI application. Some fun packages to install to test this out are: sudo apt install cmatrix (makes a cool matrix effect!) sudo apt install fastfetch (Gives you a bunch of info about your system) sudo apt install libreoffice (Alternative to Microsoft Office. Free!) Firefox should come pre-loaded with Linux Mint.

It runs sweet as a nut under Zorin OS.

At this point, to be honest, all the stuff you have to do to Windows to de-AI it…turning off registries and installing programs and using the command line…

(For example as per this post:)

Installing Linux is in fact easier than doing all that. Like I mean that genuinely.

“But some people have to use Windows for work!” In which case they’re probably using a company computer and don’t have access to the registry or have the ability uninstall or turn off any of that stuff in the first place! This is clearly not about them.

This is about your personal computer.

What to use

I recommend Linux Mint: Cinnamon. It’s really easy to install and it’s really easy to use right away. You can do this.

You have three main options:

Run Mint off a USB and see if you like it

Install Mint alongside Windows on your computer so you can choose which to boot

Completely replace Windows with Mint

If you’re really unsure, I recommend #1. If you are convinced you absolutely cannot do without Windows for certain activities, go with #2. If you’re able to make the full commitment (like if you don’t need Windows or you have a spare computer), do #3.

…

And if you’ve read this far, you probably hate Office and Google Docs too. That’s where Libre Office comes in. It’s free. You can download it on your Windows computer to try it out if you want.

I run Mint on my old Windows laptop and it works great. I have Discord, Steam, and the internet. I run Libre Office when I need it.