Linux

If you need Windows for some applications (e.g. Fusion, Call of Duty, etc.), dual boot it , but only the LTSC versions of it. Here are the links for the LTSC versions of Windows. I know that they're not from the official source, but I checked them and the checksums match. Otherwise, use Linux.

If you have a laptop and a desktop put it on the laptop fully rather than dual boot

Until proton came out I kept dual booting but I always ended up booting into windows because I didn't know how to do x on Linux

When I just wiped windows completely and put it on my laptop I distro hopped for a bit but never went back

Ended up switching my PC over too after about 6 months and I no longer own any windows machines, nor feel the need to besides the odd firmware upgrade of a peripheral or something

I jump shipped to arch when I first started out. But I had experience with Linux vms for school already

My recommendation would be dual-boot until you get everything you need working and have had everything working for a month or two under Linux. Then do a full image backup of the Windows partitions with the Windows backup utility and keep it around just in case. After that spin-up a Windows VM for any edge cases you might come across and enjoy Linux.

dual boot, you never know when will you be forced to use windows again

• and for those who suggest VM, there are situations where its a hassle to make thing work or its impossible all together ( updating bios is one of those )

Jump ship. If you can make do without windows, do so. It takes away so much of the frustration, and you just learn to let it go when devs won't make linux-compatible binaries: after all, it's basically them telling you they need to be able to spy on you, so why use their app?

Using Rufus (https://rufus.ie/en/) and a fast USB thumbdrive, such as Kingston DataTraveler Max - https://www.storagereview.com/review/kingston-datatraveler-max-review, you can make a "Windows To Go" installation.

Now you have a Windows install that you can boot directly from the thumbdrive when the need arise.
Perfect for booting up if your bios can't updated directly from the usb drive and forces you into Windows, or to run that one software you can't replace just yet and that refuses your attempts to run with wine.

Just make sure that it's an ssd usb thumbdrive or it's gonna be too slow to be any use.

Jump ship with us all! 😁 At this point, the very few games that I am leaving behind are only the ones that use anticheat systems that do not work with linux, and I don't think I'll really miss letting a game company rootkit my macine...

I would go the VM route first, and if you run into any troubles then you still always have the option of installing a 2nd hard drive for bare-metal windows dual boot later. If you do need to dual boot, I don't recommend partitioning one hard drive. Windows isn't good at sharing.

If you're new to linux and unsure about what distribution to install, there are plenty of better sources online with distro recommendations. I tend to use Debian on server/headless and Fedora for desktop/laptop. But I will say, picking an option with the KDE/Plasma desktop environment will probably be the easiest transition. It should feel and look pretty familiar to what you are used to with Windows and many distros offer an installation for KDE/Plasma.

Dual boot and give it a shot.

1. LTSC + WSL (Better than VM)
2. Dual Boot
3. Linux only