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Windows 11 just lost 5% market share in two months despite Windows 10 losing support.
(www.windowscentral.com)
According to Statcounter, Windows 11 held a 55.18% market share in October 2025. That share dropped to 53.7% in November and dropped again in December. Now, Windows 11 holds a 50.73% market share.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide
Many are rollback to Windows 10, but Linux is increasing as well.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
You may very well need specific instructions to convince your motherboard to boot to the Linux live USB media.
(Edit: As suggested below: You may need to find and toggle "secure boot" to "off" in BIOS. The point of "secure boot" is to prevent exactly the kind of change you are about to make. You can turn it back on later, if you have a use for it.)
Although, if you replace the Windows harddrive with a blank harddrive, many motherboards will then do the right thing and boot to the Linux live USB key.
(Warning: Get your files off the Windows drive first. The windows drive is probably encrypted, and so won't be useful for recovering files later.)
Getting booted into the Linux live media is by far the hardest part.
Once you're booted into the Linux Mint Live USB key, make sure Linux Mint detected and is able to get on the Internet. You'll need your wifi password.
Once you're happy with that, click "Install Linux Mint" and just follow the prompts. The hardest question for me was remembering what my time zone is.
Linux Mint will tell you when to reboot, and will even remind you to remove the Live Media USB key.
Reboot and enjoy Linux.
Yep most BIOSes will have a toggle for Secure Boot. Make off.