Linux and Windows Q&A

[EPgrouch]

I'm going to start with a little background. I had been having problems with windows and BSOD's for nearly a month now every time I thought I had it fixed it'd happen again. just last weekend I got a new HDD and got it installed with no issue also did a little maintenance while I was at it shortly after this I got another BSOD with the same faulting windows module I went through the same trouble shooting I've done multiple times now with the same results of nothing wrong being found. I finally gave up and did an upgrade install from 7 to 8.1 after spending 2 days doing this I'm on the fence about upgrading to 10 or moving to linux.

This is where the Q&A comes in
I have not been hearing much good about Win 10. so what are the pros and cons of moving to 10?

what are the pros and cons of linux? as of typing this I have MX KDE installing on my old HDD that I put back into my old desktop.
my use case boils down to gaming(mostly old/older and emulation via retroarch, media, and web browsing.

 

[Flame]

I'm going to start with a little background. I had been having problems with windows and BSOD's for nearly a month now every time I thought I had it fixed it'd happen again. just last weekend I got a new HDD and got it installed with no issue also did a little maintenance while I was at it shortly after this I got another BSOD with the same faulting windows module I went through the same trouble shooting I've done multiple times now with the same results of nothing wrong being found. I finally gave up and did an upgrade install from 7 to 8.1 after spending 2 days doing this I'm on the fence about upgrading to 10 or moving to linux.

This is where the Q&A comes in
I have not been hearing much good about Win 10. so what are the pros and cons of moving to 10?

what are the pros and cons of linux? as of typing this I have MX KDE installing on my old HDD that I put back into my old desktop.
my use case boils down to gaming(mostly old/older and emulation via retroarch, media, and web browsing.

All pros, no cons of Linux. Unless you're using some Microsoft software or photoshop or something which is windows only. I see no reason you shouldn't be Linux only.

Plus Windows 10 is end of life and don't worry about virus on Linux.

 

[Uiaad]

don't worry about virus on Linux

For the moment, as Linux becomes more popular, it will become more and more of a target, but you won't have to worry about that for a good couple of years yet

 

[Flame]

For the moment, as Linux becomes more popular, it will become more and more of a target, but you won't have to worry about that for a good couple of years yet

Wait. This is not the year of the linux?

 

[tech3475]

The biggest problem IMO with Linux is compatibility.

If you have stuff that works OOTB or maybe good enough via e.g. Proton/Wine it can be ok.

As soon as it doesn't you have to look around for solutions which can have their own issues.

Just this week I installed Mint and W11, with the latter unsupported, on two systems as part of a multi-boot.

OOTB a friends Surface Pros touchscreen just worked on W11 whilst on Mint from what I could find it requires messing around with custom kernels, not something I wanted to do, especially since it was for someone else.

On my parents imac, the wireless Apple KB/M just worked on W11 but on Mint the Magic Mouse doesn't work and the Keyboard only works wired. I'm still looking into solutions but it was getting late.

Update for anyone interested:

Managed to get it to pair with "bluetoothctl scan on" in terminal, however I encountered another issue where by switching between Linux and mac os/Windows caused it to break.

I ended up trying Fedora but the same issue occurs, one kludge was to unpair and re-pair the two.

Source for bluetoothctl:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=387452

 

[Exnor]

If you dont use the pc for gaming, Linux is the way. Any major distro beats any windows version.

If you have some windows specific software that you need, just virtualize. VMware workstation Pro for Linux is FREE for non comercial use. And you have other alternatives if don't like VMware.

Even for gaming, Linux is becoming the better OS, just see how Valve made their SteamOS run games better than Windows, in some cases.

 

[janobi]

Linux and windows are infinitely different. And compatiability is a big issue on Linux, as is running games etc. You can now obviously get a front end for linux via gnome or other distro's that come with one as standard, but running games on linux can be difficult, and getting certain drivers to work can also be difficult.

So BSOD, or as I prefer to call it, the blue screen of information Is normally quite informative when coming to troubleshooting it. I've had various windows versions and whilst Windows 10 took a little longer to get used too, it's not as bad as people make out, and Windows 11 isn't bad either, bar the forced install of copilot.

If you're going to install windows, then your best bet is to get a cutdown version of it, or run an app to remove all the bloatware.

https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-debloater-tiny11builder-updated-with-25h2-support-copilot-removal-and-more/

https://winhance.net/

I run winhance after installing windows and check/uncheck what I want on the OS itself, and find that windows operates a lot better than a normal build of windows. I do use linux, but more so for work and stuff, than running it as a home OS. I have a macbook for home OS and websurfing etc, and had a windows PC simply to accumulate MS points, and torrent, or use for transfering of games to the switch.

Also you can run linux from windows now too, either via a VM, or via another tool that allows you to run it natively.

 

[InsaneNutter]

I finally gave up and did an upgrade install from 7 to 8.1 after spending 2 days doing this I'm on the fence about upgrading to 10 or moving to linux.

To put things in to perspective you upgraded from a version of Windows that has been end of life for 6 years, to another obsolete version of Windows and are now thinking of upgrading to another pretty much unsupported version of Windows.

Linux would be a great move at this point, you will get updates for pretty much as long as your hardware remains usable.

I moved over to Linux full time last month and have found it to be a very good experience, many of the programs I used daily had Linux versions already or good alternatives. The only exception to this is Photoshop, I have however managed to get this working on Linux using Bottles / Wine.

I chose Fedora Kinoite as i like the idea of an "Atomic" OS. Essentially the OS is a read only image, kind of like an Android phone is, This means it would be very difficult to actually break anything and easy to roll back to a previous versions if anything did break during an update. All your apps are installed from Flathub, however you can still install cli apps the traditional way in a toolbox, keeping your base OS clean.

If you are used to Windows the KDE desktop environment included with Fedora Kinoite is very familiar, after a couple of days I never really felt I was using Linux and was just using my PC as I normally would, with much better privacy compared to Windows 11. I'm only a month in, however I'm really impressed how far Linux on the desktop has come over the last decade.

 

[Uiaad]

Wait. This is not the year of the linux?

The current market share of Linux is between 3 and 6% it's still got a little ways to go, haha
I love Linux, I use Linux, but it's not my daily driver, as there is software I use that's just incompatible and nothing on Linux that can replace them

 

[wamble]

Your Windows BSODs. Many linux distros come with memtest86+ which you could use for overnight RAM checking. Or you could just download it separately. https://www.memtest.org/ No software will fix hardware issues. You need these solved first. It is unclear to me what you have tried.

Windows. Windows 10 is fairly often seen as the minimum Windows requirement for modern software. If that is not an issue for you, then you can use an older version, but don't expect any version to fix hardware problems. Like all mainstream OSs today, it is a profiling, advertising, privacy-invading, annoying platform. You can run Windows without an activation key with some basic limitations that shouldn't annoy most people. Expiry isn't a problem. This is very different to the past "Wndows Genuine Advantage" methods.

Linux. Linux is a touch of sanity for me. I'm not being advertised to. I can easily turn updates off. I don't need to run antispyware software. I don't need to completely remove Edge or Defender to get reasonable performance. I don't need to find a way to turn updates off permanently. I can do some things I can't do easily on Windows or MacOS. I can customise more if I wish. I can avoid AI infestations and spybots like Cortana (intro'd in Windows 10), Siri (intro'd in MacOS 10.12), etc. As mentioned by others, Linux can run some Windows games too. I haven't played with this too much, so others can say more. VirtualBox and Wine are both options if you have some Windows-only stuff.

Dual-boot. In case you are considering this, I think it's important to mention it. Windows will make your life hell. It will delete your partition eventually. I do not recommend dual-booting under any circumstances if you are running Windows of any flavour.

 

[EPgrouch]

To put things in to perspective you upgraded from a version of Windows that has been end of life for 6 years, to another obsolete version of Windows and are now thinking of upgrading to another pretty much unsupported version of Windows.

Linux would be a great move at this point, you will get updates for pretty much as long as your hardware remains usable.

I moved over to Linux full time last month and have found it to be a very good experience, many of the programs I used daily had Linux versions already or good alternatives. The only exception to this is Photoshop, I have however managed to get this working on Linux using Bottles / Wine.

I chose Fedora Kinoite as i like the idea of an "Atomic" OS. Essentially the OS is a read only image, kind of like an Android phone is, This means it would be very difficult to actually break anything and easy to roll back to a previous versions if anything did break during an update. All your apps are installed from Flathub, however you can still install cli apps the traditional way in a toolbox, keeping your base OS clean.

If you are used to Windows the KDE desktop environment included with Fedora Kinoite is very familiar, after a couple of days I never really felt I was using Linux and was just using my PC as I normally would, with much better privacy compared to Windows 11. I'm only a month in, however I'm really impressed how far Linux on the desktop has come over the last decade.

the only reason I went with 8.1 is that is what I had access to at the time my only other options were nothing and MX linux. I didn't have the storage space to back anything up and wasn't willing to risk it with linux I was also too unfamiliar with it. I now have MX installed on my old(weak) desktop and getting a little more familiar with it. my biggest gripe so far are flatpaks needing an internet connection to install I currently can't connect it to the internet as it doesn't have wifi and I don't have a spare wifi adapter.I found that MX
can use appimages I downloaded one for retroarch to my flash drive and was able to easily install it and run it without any cores currently it's too bad more things I want to use don't have appimages. my biggest concern still remains game compatibility I haven't checked on all the games I currently have installed or want to install but I know at least 1 that I play fairly regularly isn't supported or at least listed on either wine database or lutris games launcher.

Your Windows BSODs. Many linux distros come with memtest86+ which you could use for overnight RAM checking. Or you could just download it separately. https://www.memtest.org/ No software will fix hardware issues. You need these solved first. It is unclear to me what you have tried.

Windows. Windows 10 is fairly often seen as the minimum Windows requirement for modern software. If that is not an issue for you, then you can use an older version, but don't expect any version to fix hardware problems. Like all mainstream OSs today, it is a profiling, advertising, privacy-invading, annoying platform. You can run Windows without an activation key with some basic limitations that shouldn't annoy most people. Expiry isn't a problem. This is very different to the past "Wndows Genuine Advantage" methods.

Linux. Linux is a touch of sanity for me. I'm not being advertised to. I can easily turn updates off. I don't need to run antispyware software. I don't need to completely remove Edge or Defender to get reasonable performance. I don't need to find a way to turn updates off permanently. I can do some things I can't do easily on Windows or MacOS. I can customise more if I wish. I can avoid AI infestations and spybots like Cortana (intro'd in Windows 10), Siri (intro'd in MacOS 10.12), etc. As mentioned by others, Linux can run some Windows games too. I haven't played with this too much, so others can say more. VirtualBox and Wine are both options if you have some Windows-only stuff.

Dual-boot. In case you are considering this, I think it's important to mention it. Windows will make your life hell. It will delete your partition eventually. I do not recommend dual-booting under any circumstances if you are running Windows of any flavour.

I have run memtest with both windows and from my linux disc HDD scans, error checking, virus spyware/malware tests and have done SFC /scannow from powershell aswell as checking for missing hardware drivers I also monitor temps memory cpu and hdd usage with nothing being found wrong. the BSODs were always random it could happen when just idling on the desktop with nothing running in the background or it could happen when my browser was open while playing a game or just having my torrent client running in the background. the advertising and privacy invading is of concern as is the resource requirements a bit I know windows likes to be a hog there. I've been around windows long enough now that activation isn't a concern.
I have seen a few people mention running a VM to run programs within windows but doesn't that require extra resources?
about dual booting wouldn't it be easier to dual boot from 2 separate hdds than off the same one?

 

[Francie]

I'm going to start with a little background. I had been having problems with windows and BSOD's for nearly a month now every time I thought I had it fixed it'd happen again. just last weekend I got a new HDD and got it installed with no issue also did a little maintenance while I was at it shortly after this I got another BSOD with the same faulting windows module I went through the same trouble shooting I've done multiple times now with the same results of nothing wrong being found. I finally gave up and did an upgrade install from 7 to 8.1 after spending 2 days doing this I'm on the fence about upgrading to 10 or moving to linux.

This is where the Q&A comes in
I have not been hearing much good about Win 10. so what are the pros and cons of moving to 10?

what are the pros and cons of linux? as of typing this I have MX KDE installing on my old HDD that I put back into my old desktop.
my use case boils down to gaming(mostly old/older and emulation via retroarch, media, and web browsing.

funny how you mention an "upgrade" to windows 10 but give no mention of your current OS
it seems to me that you will have more problems with linux than you can handle
if I were you I'd just buy a prebuilt with windows 11 and call it a day

Post automatically merged: Jan 22, 2026

also this is not a "Q&A"

 

[DragonMals]

Linux is great for everything but for Parsec and Obsidian users who want to share what they're doing on Discord without using the official client.


If you don't game, then why are you still on Windows There's no harm in switching to Linux since there really isn't anything that's going to be missed outside of Office products (but Linux does have a popular alternative known as LibreOffice. Can be also installed on Windows, too!)
I mean... I can't call it office anymore, it's Microsoft 365 Copilot. What a mouthful.

Linux is also starting to become viable for gaming since Wine and Photon (the thing Steam uses to make Windows games run on Linux since SteamOS is a modified Arch ), so if you're not into games such as COD, League of Legends, or GTA Online, then Linux would be also great for that. Emulators are a no brainier since almost every notable emulator can be used on Linux

I have not been hearing much good about Win 10. so what are the pros and cons of moving to 10?

Windows 10 iot LTSC is your best bet upon moving to an actively maintained Windows 10 since as of 2024, Extended support for normal editions of it ended. Cons of using Windows 10? You don't get Windows 11 features but that MAYYYY be a good thing since if you don't use Tiny11 or Windows 11 iot LTSC (through the tiny11builder), Windows is riddled with AI tools to just keep your system bloated.

 

[wamble]

.I found that MX
can use appimages

They will work on nearly all Linux distros. Closest thing to windows "exe" files on Linux but arguably better since they don't require installation, as such. A permission change and then creating your own links in the Desktop Environment you are using to 'integrate' them (optional).

it's too bad more things I want to use don't have appimages.

Some other offerings are kdenlive, openshot, musescore studio, clipgrab, xnview mp, gimp, krita, upscayl, darktable, raw therapee, MusE, losslesscut, guiscrcpy, cpu-x, qbittorrent, avidemux, mkvtoolnix, qtractor, etc.

The point being there is still a decent amount of software out there in appimage format, but yeah not everything. I absolutely despise downloading something, expecting it to be installed offline later, or on another machine, and then it requires to be online to download more. Easily one of the most annoying things, and often encountered when downloading .deb files with too many dependencies (in the case of MX Linux, for instance)

my biggest concern still remains game compatibility I haven't checked on all the games I currently have installed or want to install but I know at least 1 that I play fairly regularly isn't supported or at least listed on either wine database or lutris games launcher.

the BSODs were always random it could happen when just idling on the desktop with nothing running in the background or it could happen when my browser was open while playing a game or just having my torrent client running in the background

I suppose it's possible that this is still happening and not being detected in memtest, but I wonder how long you tested in memtest? There is a possibility it's a software problem but I would try this first, copied form an internet search:

To stop a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) from automatically restarting in Windows,
navigate to System Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Settings, then uncheck "Automatically restart" under System failure. This allows you to read the error code for troubleshooting

. the advertising and privacy invading is of concern as is the resource requirements a bit I know windows likes to be a hog there. I've been around windows long enough now that activation isn't a concern.
I have seen a few people mention running a VM to run programs within windows but doesn't that require extra resources?

Yes, it does. Primarily RAM but it also doesn't hurt to have a half-decent CPU. I personally wouldn't try gaming in a VM, but other tasks, yes.

about dual booting wouldn't it be easier to dual boot from 2 separate hdds than off the same one?

I have done this in the past and Windows still does its damage. I would never do it myself under any circumstances as long as Windows is involved (especially with updates) but of course don't let me stop you. I have had this happen no less than 3 separate occasions spanning several years before I stopped being a masochist. Hah. These days I have very little patience for re-installs, so 3x bitten, 6x shy. Again, don't let me stop you. Microsoft is very hostile towards competition and its customers in general. I mostly use Windows by itself or in VirtualBox, on the rare occasions I use it nowadays.

 

[Jayinem]

I'm using Windows 10 I'm just a dumb low IQ WIndows user, HOWEVER, I have about 100 different autohotkey scripts because I'm pretty decent with authotkey to make my experience better. Not saying Windows is perfect with these scripts but it works for me at least. I also have too many games and emulators and don't want to deal with what was mentioned already compatibility issues on Linux so I stay with Windows, even though I kinda hate myself for it. I can't stand Microsoft.

 

[Taleweaver]

Before deciding on an OS, pinpoint the reason of the bsod first. I 've got my criticisms on windows 11,but stability isn't among those. If your mother board or RAM fails, the operating system won' t do much.

So I'd urgentie to create a live usb and use that to stress test all the hardware. The below is just for when that's still great.


Now... Windows...
Windows 10 doesn't receive updates anymore. The security risk is a huge potential problem, especially given its popularity. Without a very decent backup solution I'd always argue against, and even more if more people depend on it (in businesses that's critical, but unfortunately I'm in a job where budget is tight and urgency is only there once things go awol).
The biggest question: why windows?

The only trumps left are specific games with anticheat, MS office, Adobe products and perhaps one or two others. If those are genuinely important to you, stick with windows.

Me, Ive been on Linux mint for over a decade now. But even that sounds pretentious, as I don't"use" Linux as much in itself. No, really: things are more stable, simple and"just work". Even upgrading versions is hardly different than an upgrade. I only use the console in very specific situations.

With Linux, there's this huge amount of choice to start with. Ubuntu, mint, bazzite mx, manjaro, arch...
Most distros i know are written to a live usb and then booted from there. That's your best place to start: try this out. At this point, nothing is written to your hard drive yet, but you can see exactly what you'll get. Do some internet browsing, check what software it comes with, check how to install software. In short: play around with it. I recommend Linux mint cinnamon myself to start, but imho you should at least try around a bit before clicking install.

Second: the distros i know offer aan option to create a dual boot option. If you've got enough hard drive space left, go for it. Nothing wil convince you that it's NOT the pc that's slow like dual booting windows and Linux. At one point my win 10 partition felt like dragging through mud for 5 minutes to just properly start while mint on that same physical pc was ready for me in about 1-2 minutes.
Important for dual booting: start with windows. Adding Linux partitions (even multiple, if you want) is almost suspiciously easy. Windows just nukes the previous setup by default.

Post automatically merged: Jan 23, 2026

The current market share of Linux is between 3 and 6% it's still got a little ways to go, haha
I love Linux, I use Linux, but it's not my daily driver, as there is software I use that's just incompatible and nothing on Linux that can replace them

While those numbers are true, Ive got to point out that office pc's hold a lot of that percentage 'hostage'.
While i use Linux at home and build rigs for friends and family (even my 75-year old dad now uses Ubuntu since a couple years), it's a whole different ball game in an office environment. But when looking at home use, i think the number is already quite higher than that.

 

[EPgrouch]

I suppose it's possible that this is still happening and not being detected in memtest, but I wonder how long you tested in memtest? There is a possibility it's a software problem but I would try this first, copied form an internet search:

To stop a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) from automatically restarting in Windows,
navigate to System Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Settings, then uncheck "Automatically restart" under System failure. This allows you to read the error code for troubleshooting

Yes, it does. Primarily RAM but it also doesn't hurt to have a half-decent CPU. I personally wouldn't try gaming in a VM, but other tasks, yes.

I have done this in the past and Windows still does its damage. I would never do it myself under any circumstances as long as Windows is involved (especially with updates) but of course don't let me stop you. I have had this happen no less than 3 separate occasions spanning several years before I stopped being a masochist. Hah. These days I have very little patience for re-installs, so 3x bitten, 6x shy. Again, don't let me stop you. Microsoft is very hostile towards competition and its customers in general. I mostly use Windows by itself or in VirtualBox, on the rare occasions I use it nowadays.

both memtests that I did ran for 2-3 hours I didn't catch the error code but after checking the logs with bluescreen viewer it was always the same faulting windows module
ntoskrn.exe. I haven't had it happen for almost a week now but I'm no longer using my old os install which was 7 ultimate I'm on 8.1 pro currently.
I did somewhat suspect that my current pc specs

that doesn't show my gfx card which is a nividia GTX 745 yes it's old but with costs today and my woeful budget I can't upgrade.
it seems odd that windows would do that with a separate drive I could understand it doing it on the same drive though but it is pretty typical for them to try and bury any competition.

Before deciding on an OS, pinpoint the reason of the bsod first. I 've got my criticisms on windows 11,but stability isn't among those. If your mother board or RAM fails, the operating system won' t do much.

So I'd urgentie to create a live usb and use that to stress test all the hardware. The below is just for when that's still great.


Now... Windows...
Windows 10 doesn't receive updates anymore. The security risk is a huge potential problem, especially given its popularity. Without a very decent backup solution I'd always argue against, and even more if more people depend on it (in businesses that's critical, but unfortunately I'm in a job where budget is tight and urgency is only there once things go awol).
The biggest question: why windows?

The only trumps left are specific games with anticheat, MS office, Adobe products and perhaps one or two others. If those are genuinely important to you, stick with windows.

Me, Ive been on Linux mint for over a decade now. But even that sounds pretentious, as I don't"use" Linux as much in itself. No, really: things are more stable, simple and"just work". Even upgrading versions is hardly different than an upgrade. I only use the console in very specific situations.

With Linux, there's this huge amount of choice to start with. Ubuntu, mint, bazzite mx, manjaro, arch...
Most distros i know are written to a live usb and then booted from there. That's your best place to start: try this out. At this point, nothing is written to your hard drive yet, but you can see exactly what you'll get. Do some internet browsing, check what software it comes with, check how to install software. In short: play around with it. I recommend Linux mint cinnamon myself to start, but imho you should at least try around a bit before clicking install.

Second: the distros i know offer aan option to create a dual boot option. If you've got enough hard drive space left, go for it. Nothing wil convince you that it's NOT the pc that's slow like dual booting windows and Linux. At one point my win 10 partition felt like dragging through mud for 5 minutes to just properly start while mint on that same physical pc was ready for me in about 1-2 minutes.
Important for dual booting: start with windows. Adding Linux partitions (even multiple, if you want) is almost suspiciously easy. Windows just nukes the previous setup by default.

Post automatically merged: Jan 23, 2026

While those numbers are true, Ive got to point out that office pc's hold a lot of that percentage 'hostage'.
While i use Linux at home and build rigs for friends and family (even my 75-year old dad now uses Ubuntu since a couple years), it's a whole different ball game in an office environment. But when looking at home use, i think the number is already quite higher than that.

I have somewhat done this with my linux distro only it's on a dvd instead of a usbI still have an internal dvd as well as an external.
as far as linux goes I have been testing out MX KDE on my old desktop but sadly I'm already running into problems with getting it to connect to the internet.
I was using the usb wifi adapter from my current desktop the linux system was registering the adapter and showing connections but it appears I can't directly connect it to my router like I do on windows, with windows I just have to select my router on the list go downstairs and hit the button on the router and I'm connected, on linux it seems I can't do that and need the routers password which I don't have(god only knows where it is) so I tried using my phone as a hotspot. the linux machine was picking that up and even showing that it was connected as was the phone but every time I tried to use something that connected to the internet like MXpackage installer I would receive multiple messages about there being no internet connection. I tried multiple different settings under the network configuration menu but all had the same result I gave up on it for the time I was planning on looking into it more today and even asked a friend about it yesterday but haven't got a response yet. aside from the current issue with testing it out it feels a lot like windows already only it need internet for most things.

 

[lightwo]

nividia GTX 745

Okay, you just barely dodged the bullet in regards to Linux compatibility. While getting Nvidia drivers on Linux is not super straightforward for older GPUs, DXVK (DirectX game support for Linux) requires Vulkan support >1.3 (yours has 1.4), so that's great.

Yeah, you could try Gallium Nine + Wine Nine, but I have no experience with it, and it is largely forgotten by now.

 

[DragonMals]

what are the pros and cons of linux?

The Pros of Linux is that it's Free and Open Source (FOSS). Android runs on it, most embedded systems run it (I might be wrong due to Windows in Embedded Systems), and the stuff that powers most supercomputers use it. Linux is versatile, and it comes with many forms of it to tweak it to your liking. There's Debian/Ubuntu which is more casual friendly and provides the most support for most apps BUT it's package manager apt could be a bit troublesome to use,


Fedora which I'd like to call Debian's spiritual successor. Good with being the perfect middle ground between Debian and Arch, and it's for those who are little bit more experienced with it

Arch is bleeding edge so if you're always wanted to be updated, the soon you get an update, you update.

I think the only major con I could have in terms of Linux is that it's not as beginner friendly as the other two OSses. Linux is becoming more open to users who are new to it, but even with someone like me whose a nerd at retro gaming + tech, if can still feel like you'd need a manual in order to use it instead of it just being there and working, like a Windows or MacOS.

 

[wamble]

both memtests that I did ran for 2-3 hours I didn't catch the error code but after checking the
it seems odd that windows would do that with a separate drive I could understand it doing it on the same drive though but it is pretty typical for them to try and bury any competition.

I'm assuming that it messes with the EFI System (boot) partition, but some experts can comment more. All I know is that dual-boot is off my radar with Windows...permanently.

I have somewhat done this with my linux distro only it's on a dvd instead of a usbI still have an internal dvd as well as an external.
as far as linux goes I have been testing out MX KDE on my old desktop but sadly I'm already running into problems with getting it to connect to the internet.

https://forum.mxlinux.org/ Their forums are very helpful. Did you check here? I bet someone can solve your internet issue.