Really good comments here, so I will follow on, if Mod don’t censor me…
Raspy brings up the premier reason/excuse to not jump out of micro$oft squirrel cage. That is, if you rely on Quicken or any other product that does not directly run on Linux. I will table the “dual boot” suggestion for now.
Lavarock gives one of the most excellent ways to try Linux without much (or any) change to your computer. That is to boot removable media (like CD/DVD) or in this case USB. My favorite method is to use YUMI (Pendrive) tool to create a bootable USB, possibly with several systems on it.
With all that said, I will go thru some of the ways to get Linux, from least to most intrusive. My thinking is that a newbie should stay away from most intrusive! Been there, done that!
- Build and boot from removable media, leaving host computer unaltered.
- Build on a disposable computer/disk, giving it a second life.
- Build a virtual system to run on top of main system.
- Build a dual-boot system so you can switch operating systems.
The primary reason I don’t like dual boot is because of the possibility of destroying the system you are trying to turn into a dual boot even though success is very likely these days, The other reason is that the “other” system will likely languish and just take space. I’ve built a few and quit for that reason.
A virtual system is very cool but requires a resourceful computer with sufficient disk and memory. To me, building one is not hard but I would not recommend for a beginner. Once done, you would have a complete “other” system running at same time as main system and you can easily switch between them on the fly.