Aw, thank you, I appreciate the encouragement!

You know what feels great? Not having that feeling. Not having the whispering chorus of surveillance like a fat fucking argus of paranoia weighing on your psyche while you attempt to use YOUR computer.

For real! I saw the "windows wants to restart" icon next to my "Hibernate" option last night and I cringed internally. Every update they want to do makes me think "oh great, what creepy shit are you potentially going to slide in this time? (because it never feels like an update ever fixes anything I have problems with...)"

The Virtual Desktop sounds interesting, I didn't know about that. I'll give it a try first before attempting to do the install! Backing up my files is the first thing I plan to do, I'm kinda dragging my feet on that right now, but hopefully after I get that done, giving Linux Mint a try, especially with this Virtual Desktop thing, shouldn't be too difficult.

I'm not too good with IT kinda stuff, so I'm not sure if I can figure out how to do a partition. Unless it's easier than I've been led to believe. Though I guess if I backup all my files it won't be a big deal if I accidentally mess up lol.