I know it's a very frequently asked question so I hope it doesn't break any rules but I didn't see any and the wiki seems quite outdated.
I currently use a desktop with windows 10 as my main computer. As the days of forced transition to windows 11 approach and i don't want to have this bloated spyware (yes I know ironic considering I already use W10 and have some kernel level ACs but heh), I want to switch to linux.
My PC is a bit of a ship of theseus that has, technically, been moved over and over since like 2012, although no original parts are left now. Most of the components are from ~2021 but many were older specs already, but it still runs very well. Here are the specs:
- CPU: Intel i7-9700F 3GHz
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660
- RAM: 16 GB
- Hard drives: I have two. Windows is installed on a "Crucial MX500 3D NAND" with 2TB (SATA) while I have another drive, a "Western digital SN750" 1TB (NVMe)
As for usage, I mostly play video games. From my limited understanding of it all, my steam games should be fine thanks to valve making these games work on linux? But I also play War Thunder heavily, a game which has Easy Anti Cheat. I also play some Riot games like Valorant, and from what I understand their anti-cheat is actually problematic. A friend of mine told me that, if it's unsurmountable, I could always have windows 11 on a dual boot just to play valorant. Aside from gaming I also sometimes do code a little bit, but it's small scale and none of what I do should pose an issue.
So with this usage, which distro would you recommend? I don't need something complex, I want something decently easy to use and user friendly.
And how would I go installing all of that? There are lot of programs installed on this PC over many years, files all over the place. I would obviously clean the place up a lot before moving, but are there any significant risks I should be aware of? Do I need to uninstall some softwares to be safe? And could someone link me to a ressource to do this transition? And considering I would likely still use windows 11 for the games that require it, wouldn't it be better to just upgrade to W11 and then add linux on top of it, then setting it up as the primary OS?
Sorry that's a long post but I hope this is decently clear. While I do have some layman knowledge on how things work in the grand scheme, I don't know how the actual systems work. Most i've done with linux is tinkering with a raspberry pi.