Don’t wait. Experiment now in a VM to learn the basics.
If I go this route, is there a way to take that VM I’ve created and just roll straight into it? Just install it on the boot drive?
I’ve got a Pop!_OS VM going already.
MintLinux and Pop!OS are normally the two front-runners for new users. Basically, if you use Steam and you don’t play online-only games with bad implementations of anti-cheat software, you are good to game on either.
Make a USB that you can “live boot” from, so you can test out how they work with your hardware. Generally spearking, Mint works better with AMD, and Pop! works better with Nvidea.
Here’s the official basic guide for Mint:
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/And here’s the official basic guide for Pop!:
https://support.system76.com/articles/install-pop/Do Pop!_OS AND Linux Mint have KDE Plasma variants, for newcomers who don’t know how to swap desktop environments?
I don’t think they do. But once you’ve already started looking into swapping the desktop environment from whichever is the default, I don’t think you can call yourself a newcomer anymore.
Well, yes, that’s why I asked. Some newcomers to linux find Plasma more familiar than GNOME et al. Having it preinstalled can help them get comfortable faster, with less effort.
Wanting a windows-like environment makes sense. It’s not specifically Plasma, but Mint has Cinamon which is very Windows-like.
I was a Win XP/7 user that bought a laptop with Windows 8.1, emigrated to Linux, and found that Cinnamon felt more like Windows to me than Windows did.
