fortune_p_dawg: nah. i might have tried that back when i was a teen or in my early 20s. these days though, between work, kids, etc that seems like far too much effort lol.
At least for me, installing Linux Mint is easier and more straightforward than e.g. installing Windows 7/64bit, like:
- Finding valid installation media, if your Windows was preloaded. Microsoft doesn't let you download the installation media unless you bought a retail Windows and instead tells you to use the "recovery media" you are supposed to have received from the PC vendor, but at least for me both in ASUS and HP those "recovery media" (which you are supposed to create yourself, and you are given a chance to create it only once for some reason) didn't simply work. Unexpected error and such bullshit, oh well.
I had to hunt down pirated Windows 7 media in order to get a clean Windows 7 installation, and then validate it with my valid (preloaded) Windows 7 product key. None of this shit on Linux, you just get the Linux installation media and install it, that's it. No fuss, no cuss, no tuss.
With Windows 8-10 this is made simpler and more straightforward with MS Media Creation Tool, but you still need to know which version of Windows exactly you are eligible for.
- With Linux, you don't have to know which version of Windows you are eligible to install. Home? Pro? Single-language version? Oh I have the Finnish version but I'd like to use the English version instead... but the stupid Home version has a restriction that you can't freely change the system language, only for Pro users.
Again, none of that shit on Linux. You are eligible to everything that any other user of that same distro is. Change the system language? Sure, why not? Run a server with assloads of users? Sure, why not, no need to buy any dedicated "Server" version of Linux. And so on and so forth.
In the end though, I guess most people don't really "need" Linux, if they are already using Windows. I just like doing many things in Linux instead of Windows... but currently gaming is not one of them. I love using bash shell instead of Windows command prompt or PowerShell, nowadays I use it even on Windows 10 at work whenever I can (git bash).