Ever had a question about Linux but felt too afraid to ask? Well now’s your chance, ask any question about Linux, no matter how noob or repeated it is, and I and others will help answer them.
Previous noob question thread: https://lemmy.ml/post/14261893
To install at minimum you’ll need to likely shrink existing partitions and create new ones for linux if you don’t want to wipe the drive, that would be a dual-boot setup with Windows still installed along side. Or you can just wipe the drive entirely and have only Linux.
Regarding the files you should already have backups of anything important, if you don’t, set it up ASAP.
Messing with partitions can easily cause data loss if something goes wrong.
You also never know when hardware failure, malware, power surges, lightning strikes, or whatever other disaster will happen and cause data loss. 1 copy of files might as well be 0 copies.
I’m pretty sure anything of value is already backed up to my NAS. I’m just paranoid that my kids might freak out that I destroyed their state fair winning Scratch project or something.
I just do full system images for that reason, easier than trying to pick and choose what should be backed up. Used to use Veeam, currently using Synology Active Backup.
For online backups I don’t due to size, but for local backups it’s just way easier.
Truth. Full system would be easier.