After an entire year of running Linux Mint, here are my thoughts for newbs.

Don't be scared of the terminal

It was the thing that always horrified me to touch when I was on windows.

Do some research, if you see a command on a blog or reddit post, run it through an ai agent or someone if its complicated, otherwise, just look up what the individual commands do.

Youtube tutorials may not be up to date

This one should be a given. Any video tutorial is basically cemented in time. Text tutorials from official sources are your friends. Well known sites, or Github repos themselves are almost always up to date. If there is a beta version of software, forks, or abandoned repos, video sources may be a better bet.

Always try to use text tutorials. They are more reliable.

App sizes

On any modern hardware, a software using GB of space, even a simple one, really shouldn't be an issue. However, as a Linux novice, and a Windows user, it was jarring. I was used to programs costing less than a gig of storage, but frankly, it really doesn't matter much.

It isn't bloat, spyware, poor coding, its just a product of making an app plug and play across a ton of distros and hardware products.

Don't abandon updates

Again, a given after using Linux for a while, don't neglect updating your system. Everything runs better, most of the time, when updated semi often.

Everything runs faster

I was so used to windows hogging all my ram, and therefore making everything run poorly. Boy was I glad when I switched. From the OS hogging all the ram, to very low ram usage, from updates breaking everything, to regular maintenance actually making things better.

You can still run windows programs

There are Linux packages and software that actually allow you to run windows software. Granted not everything works that way, Photoshop and Video editing software are notorious for this, but most everything else you would want does in fact run.

Gaming on Linux really isn't so bad

Some invasive or heavy windows only games dont run, but like regular programs, they can be run through Wine or Proton.

Ultimately, making the switch is a personal choice, one not to be taken lightly, but personally, Linux has improved everything about my laptop.