Relax!

The laptop is probably ok. Try out something fairly easy to install and beginner friendly. I recommend Mint and Ubuntu, they both have a large userbase to ask for help if you run into problems. Good luck!

I have few advice for you:

• for your old laptop you should install Linux Mint. What I have seen is that LM works better for slightly older laptops.
• if you are using linux, you will definitely face problems, and most of the time other people has faced the same problem and there is a solution of it online.
• if you can’t find it online, ask about it in forums. Many will try to help you.

I too have recently switched to Linux, on multiple machines. It sounds like you’ve already found your solution, but I’ll put some of my own reflections in here anyway, in case it’s helpful and for other people who might be interested.

The first step I’d suggest in installing Linux on hardware not made specifically for it is to test your prospective distribution with a Live CD. Try to use all the hardware that you’d use normally. Linux has made great strides in compatibility, and I’ve had hardware that Windows has abandoned still work on The Penguin, but there are still plenty of hardware manufacturers out there who don’t care about Linux compatibility, especially if they focus on general consumer or creative fields. New devices that come out, that you might want, might not have Linux drivers. (I recently had to deal with this with an iskn “the Slate2+” that I had to take special measures to use with my Linux-running laptops.) I also have an old integrated desktop machine with a built-in touchscreen monitor, and support for the touch part of the screen seems to vary across distributions. Another issue is getting networking working if your machine has Broadcom wireless, still the bane of some prospective Linux users even after all these years. If you’re thinking on installing on a machine whose hardware you’re unsure of, especially, test it out with a Live CD first!

Second, pick a good distribution. There are two general types of distros, those that periodically release whole new versions of themselves that you’ll have to decide if you want to upgrade to, and “rolling distros.” Of the first type there’s Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora; of the second, there’s Arch, Manjaro and Gentoo.

Which you’ll want to use depends on your use case and technical skill and willingness to search for info on problems and fix them yourself. Upgrade distributions tend to be more monolithic, with all the software thoroughly tested, but except for specific software like web browsers, you probably won’t be using the latest versions of the included software, and instead will get multiple programs updated at once when you upgrade your distribution. This may not be a problem for you, but if you like using the latest versions of software you will probably get bored with waiting with an upgrade distro. The best upgrade distro for beginners is probably Mint.

The alternative is a “rolling” release distro. These upgrade software much more frequently (although again, not always immediately). Reduced testing is generally how they can release more often. One of these is Arch Linux, which is Not For Beginners, but Manjaro is based on Arch and is pretty beginner-friendly.

Another issue is software dependencies. When new versions of software are released, ideally they’ll be perfectly compatible with past versions, and will work well with all the other programs on your system that rely on it. But sometimes this won’t be true, it won’t be obvious how the new behavior breaks things, and so doing an update of one package will break something seemingly unrelated. This is why upgrade distos are a bit more stable. It also explains the rise of Flatpaks, a special means of distributing programs that bundle up all their dependencies with them, and run somewhat in isolation from the rest of your system. That part of Flatpaks is good; the problem is when you install one, and you’re informed that little utility you want to run may take a gigabyte or more of disk space. Flatpaks can be EXTREMELY wasteful in terms of used disk space, but because they allow developers to avoid having to worry about compatibility with different library versions, they’re quite popular as a means of releasing software right now, and some software (I’m looking at you in particular, Handbrake) only distribute in Flatpaks. I personally find Flatpaks to be tremendously wasteful and that they negate one of Linux’s biggest virtues, that it can be really compact and leave more space for your own files, but there will be times when they’re a lifesaver.

If all of this seems forbidding to you… I’d say that it’s really not that much different from Windows, but just in its own way? Windows has its own problems, especially with security, and Microsoft tends to overcome these problems by throwing resources at them, not just theirs but your computer’s too. Windows Defender imposes its overhead upon nearly everything your machine does. And they also always are shoehorning whatever crazy tech fad they’re in love with this week, whether it’s AI, voice assistants, widgets or what else. I’ve used computers long enough to remember “Active Desktop” and “Channels,” and I can tell you that Microsoft is CONSTANTLY doing this. And MacOS isn’t immune to it either, although it tends to be better.

There are certainly some Linux distros that do this too (esp Ubuntu, ask someone who remembers Ubiquity), but generally Linux is much much better about it. Ask yourself, how much do you really hate the idea of AI built into your computer’s OS? In my case, it was very much super angry rage, and so here I am on Mint. I hope it works out well for you too!

I would’ve wished for a rough step list when I migrated, so here you go:

• Download an ISO for a distribution of your choice.
• Flash this ISO to a USB stick. You’ll find tutorials, if you search for “Live USB”.
• Turn off your laptop and get into the BIOS or boot menu. Typically, you will need to press the power button and then repeatedly press one of these keys: Esc, F1, F2, F10, F12
  In there, you should be able to select the USB drive to boot from it, or you might need to set it as the first item in the boot priority list. If it doesn’t boot, you might need to enable USB Boot or disable Secure Boot.
• When it does boot off the USB stick, you should be presented with the Linux desktop. You can take a look around before committing to the installation. (This live mode is also great, if you ever need to recover something from a hard drive in a laptop which’s OS is broken.)
• Start the installation and go through the wizard. Typically, there’s a shortcut on the desktop to start it.

I suggest only mint for beginners

If you separate root and home (look this up, simpler thank you imagine) you’ll have the opportunity to experiment