I have no experience with Linux, but I’d like to give it a try. I’m looking at the System76 Meerkat and Thelio with the Pop!_OS option.
I don’t see myself gaming on it because I have a Windows machine for just that. I’d mostly be using it for learning Linux and doing basic things like web surfing and word processing (Libreoffice perhaps).
Any recommendations or advice? Thanks!
You don’t need to buy a new computer just to learn Linux. You can create a bootable flash drive and install it on an external SSD and boot from the SSD when you need to use Linux. If you don’t want an external SSD, you can dual-boot and keep Linux on a separate partition on your machine.
In terms of distros, I’d recommend Ubuntu or Pop!_OS to get started with. Other distros like Elementary OS, Linux Mint, or Debian can be suitable as well.
Be warned though, windows update likes to remove other partitions from the bootloader (at least from grub) so that may cause some headaches