For questions you may have the !linux@lemmy.ml community is very welcoming. In theory there are also !linux4noobs@programming.dev and !linux4noobs@lemmy.world which should be more targeted at new users but they seem to be quite inactive lately (won't hurt anyone here to go take a look there and try to keep them alive :-)).

YouTube is honestly the best place for tutorials. I went from being a complete Linux noob to running more Linux in the house than I can count, just by watching video on YouTube.

Start using free software now, while you are still on Windows. Whenever you want to do something new, do a search for free software you can do it with. Then when you do finally switch, all the software you've been using is already right there.

If you want to get emerged into the linux world and get broad understanding then I recommend watching videos on youtube by DistroTube. Adjacent, kinda more advanced channels are Luke Smith and Brodie Robertson.

If you just want to use linux and be done with that topic, you can use linux mint. What you have to know is that you get all software from the software center, not from websites. The rest should be very familiar.

I recommend a virtual machine on your Windows PC as a host.

Start simple, e.g. do all your web browsing in the Linux VM. Don't try to transition entirely to Linux in one go, that's too much. Once you're comfortable in the web browser, add one more piece of software.

Eventually get to the point where you're doing everything in the VM for a month or so, and then boot into it directly. Or perhaps buy a second PC and a KVM for your keyboard/mouse/monitor. Because you might find there's one thing (e.g. games) that works better on Windows.

You should first dual-boot. It means you will keep your Windows partition and when you turn on your computer, you can choose Windows or Linux to boot up.

To choose a distro, there are plenty of YouTube reviews. I'd recommend Ubuntu, Pop!_OS or Linux Mint for a beginner. Dual-booting is easy on these distros, you just have to select install alongside Windows and then how big you want the Linux partiton to be.

For putting on a USB, download the ISO of your chosen distro, and use BalenaEtcher to flash to your USB (it will erase everything from your USB, so back your data up). To boot into the USB, reboot while holding press Escape, and see if that brings up a boot device picker. If it doesn't, try other keys at the top of your keyboard or press the restart button in Windows 8+ while holding down Shift, wait for it to load, and in the blue menu, ho into Select boot device (or whatever it's called) and select the USB.

Before installing, you should check out if stuff works on Linux like audio (you can test these out because you are on a live system booted from your USB), and if it doesn't, check if you find a fix online, but everything should work fine.

For the software alternatives (if they aren't on Linux), I recommend alternative.to, and learn the new apps. When you feel comfortable, you can then move all your files to Linux and completely delete Windows (you should BTW be able to see your Windows partition from a files app).

OpenSUSE is very Windows like if you want a similar setup.