After some experience with Linux Mint, I gathered the courage to try another distro. I’d like to turn an old laptop into an IPTV receiver plus FTP/OpenVPN/HomeAssistant server with occasional desktop use. I first installed Windows 11 just in case my family needs to use it (it fucking sucks, the built-in PS/2 keyboard doesn’t work half the time but that’s an issue for later) but now I’ll be turning it into a dual-boot setup with Debian as the primary option. Please give me some encouragement, I’m really afraid of new things.
Mint is solid, if you use it and it works for you why change? Do you need to bother with windows? What do you use that can’t be done on Linux I wonder? Perhaps work out how to set a VM and try out Debian and even windows in a test sandbox so you’re comfortable with the processes before taking the plunge. Check out KVM, QEMU, and Virt-Manager.
I have worked with VMs before and still use an XP one sometimes. But modern Windows in a VM on an old laptop with 4 GB of RAM? I’ll pass…