How is that percentage calculated? I use both Windows and Linux, am I included to that 4%? How does GOG know which I am using? Google works.

First decide which Linux to try. For a gamer/home-user, I propose Linux Mint (or Ubuntu). So google where you can download e.g. Linux Mint 64bit XFCE, installing it is not any harder than installing Windows.

If you want to do or achieve some thing in Linux, then just google how to do it. It is advisable to include also the Linux distro name (and version) in the google search because many things are done differently in different distros, starting from basic things like "how to set a static IP address" (probably not needed for home-users who generally use DHCP) or "how to change the hostname" or "how to add sudo (=administrator) privileges to a user".

While you can do lots (most) on the graphical user-interface, it may still come as a surprise to a Windows user that in Linux many things are easier to do on the command prompt. When you google for advice, usually the instructions tell how to do it in the command prompt because it is more straightforward and universal. Just copy&paste the commands to your command prompt and you are done, instead of trying to follow dozens of pictures or a Youtube-video how to do it on your chosen graphical user-interface. No idea about that, I haven't experienced that, but then 99% time I don't need to specifically ask for something, but just google for answers as hundreds of people have already asked the same question before.

My guess would be that even if that's not the case, chances are that it will work sometime soon since all the prerequisites are in place. Proton seems to push for what Wine can do while removing the necessary fiddling you would have to do with Wine to get games to work.

Proton (Steam) and Lutris are doing wonders for gaming on Linux, I barely miss a single game.

Take my guesses with a grain of salt though since I'm not knowledgeable enough in this area to say anything with certainty.

It does for me, so why shouldn't I claim so? There was nothing special about it when I installed Linux Mint 64bit XFCE on my ASUS G75VW gaming laptop. Maybe the most "complicated" thing was to separately install NVidia graphics drivers suitable for the Geforce 670M (to replace the basic graphics drivers), but in the end it was just about googling for the answer, and it wasn't really any harder than installing the same drivers in Windows. Linux Mint even gave me a choice do I want to use the open source drivers, or the proprietary NVidia drivers. I've tried both, haven't seen much of difference in performance (playing Team Fortress 2 online in Linux) or anything.

Your mileage may vary. Not sure what were the peripherals for you that didn't work, some printer-scanner or no-name web camera, or what? For me even my Samsung phone connected fine with USB, out of the box, the same as in Windows.

Maybe I am lucky, but I don't recall having any actual problems with Linux Mint and NVidia Geforce 670M. Admittedly I have used the drivers only for playing Team Fortress 2, but I didn't see any difference in performance when switching back and forth between the proprietary NVidia drivers and the open source drivers.

The only hiccup at some point was that when I used the driver manager application to change from the proprietary drivers to the open source drivers for the first time, after that I couldn't change back to the proprietary drivers, the option was greyed out in the driver manager for some reason.

However, simply googling for the problem led me to one or two commands to run in the command prompt, to clear the problem, after which I could switch back to the proprietary drivers in the driver manager application.

That issue was not any bigger than back when I couldn't install vanilla Intel HD graphics drivers in Windows because the proprietary HP drivers wouldn't let me. The workaround was to first uninstall all the HP drivers, after that I could finally install the genuine Intel HD drivers.

BTW, that is one reason why I propose Linux Mint to home users is that it doesn't seem to be so gung-ho about "everything must be open source!", and how some Linux distros didn't at least previously include some audio or video codecs because blaa blaa blaa. I personally don't care if drivers or whatever is open source or proprietary or made of the skin of baby seals, as long as it works.

That is a good point. I think all modern Linux distros use LVM by default because then it is easier to e.g. expand the partitions later, and/or merge several physical hard drives to look like one partition to the user.

Instructions tend to explain these things in command prompt so at first it may be a bit daunting to read about pvcreate lvcreate vgcreate whatever. In the end though, you start appreciating how there is no C: or D: in Linux etc.

This doesn't concern home users but for professional server administrators, there is one thing easier in Windows: expanding the partition where the OS is (root (/) partition in Linux, C: in Windows). In Windows you can expand it without rebooting the machine, while I haven't found a way to do that in Linux yet. A home user doesn't care if the system needs to be rebooted once (for increasing the size of the OS partition), but a server system admin does appreciate that he doesn't have to agree with anyone about a short downtime to the server. :) Data partitions can still be expanded on the fly on Linux.

You have received detailed answers, I'll just throw my 5 cents.
Ubuntu is very user friendly if you come from Windows or macOs environments. Wine kinda works but honestly is a hassle sometimes. You will say goodbye to many utilities you are used to and not always have a proper Linux equivalent. You will not be able to play anything you want. That said, have fun whatever distro you choose and be ready to learn Terminal commands to make things work.

I miss the no-nonsense Italian keyboard, the much better screenshot function, I only went back to Windows because of gaming and was annoyed when I was building my desktop machine that my audio card of choice didn't have Linux drivers after more than a year from release.
No FL Studio, I was limited to 32 bit if I wanted to install Guitar Pro. Linux enthusiasts would tell me to install some amateurish freeware equivalent that looks and work like it's straght out of the 90s.

* Go on distrowatch.com
* Download ISO image of most voted distribution
* Install ISO on an USB with Rufus application (download from portable apps website)
* Reboot PC with USB key installed and take first steps in a different world (not necessarily bigger)

Ad majora.

I like to thank everyone who provide assistance on the mater of getting into Linux.

I have one additional question though. Can someone direct me to some kind of list of "Linux speak" as reading through the comments i sometimes came about terms and words that I kinda understood or outright didn't.

Also, are there any websites that I should avoid while downloading the software? I know it might sound weird, but I like to learn about the mistakes that can be made while using Linux so I could avoid them myself.

1) There's no exact glossary, but this should be a good start.

2) This is multifaceted. If you mean where to download the distributions, then there's basically one place alone. The actual website of said distribution would be the only logical source. (Fedora's posted as an example. You can either directly download an ISO or something or get a magnet link to get it via distributed download.))

If you mean packages and programs after installing, in most cases that will be handled by an internal package manager and repositories, or goddess help you; Debian's system of Personal Package Archives, which are maintained typically by one user alone, can vanish in an instant, and aren't centrally located. (Arch and Fedora have similar concepts in the AUR and Fedora COPR, but the difference is, those are centrally located.)

It is hard to give any comprehensive list. The best way to learn is to google, when you see a new (Linux) term you don't understand. That is what I do all the time.

LVM? Google "linux lvm" or just lvm => https://www.howtoforge.com/linux_lvm
sudo? Google "sudo" or "linux sudo" => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo

etc. etc.

My advice: Always use the distribution's repositories for software whenever possible. If you are using a major distribution, there should be a lot of software available there for free, and it will be updated with the rest of your system. Furthermore, installing from the repository is really easy (on debian, for example, all you need is apt install $packagename and you're all set), and updates are just a couple commands (apt update and apt upgrade and you're up to date!). Doing this should get you pretty far, and avoids breaking your system. (Note that you shouldn't combine packages from different versions of a distribution, however.)

Note that the distribution you choose matters: Debian stable's repositories (aside from the backports repository) have
only older, well-tested, software; the advantage is that doing a routine update won't suddenly change your workflow. (I note that Windows is not that nice in this regard.) Arch, on the other hand, has more recent software, but sometimes an update can break things or require you to adjust your workflow (like if a feature you commonly use in a program has been moved elsewhere on the interface).

By the way, for the $name convention I put above: In the Linux shell, anything starting with a dollar sign ('$') is a reference to a variable, and if the shell sees something starting with one, the shell will replace it with the value of that variable. For example, the following shell script: will output the number 3. (Note that there can't be spaces around the equal sign here.)

As said, www.distrowatch.com is the best place to explore official distributions, their popularity and reach their official pages.

Each distribution (aka distro) page have nice reviews and will provide a huge amount of information, describing target audience (expert, novice) and strength points of that specific OS.

Most importantly, have fun, as Linux provides a huge amount of variability, as not many games ;)

The website for the GNU operating system is a good start for concepts, philosophy, and terminology. It also has a listing of GNU/Linux operating systems and where to get them.

In contrast, that website also has a listing of GNU/Linux operating systems they don't endorse and why they don't endorse them.