For those considering switching, but don't want to outright nuke their Windows installation, there are a couple of options to try it out while keeping Windows around which isn't a bad idea when your learning.

1. Install VirtualBox which is free software that can create virtual machines which you can run Linux in. There are loads of videos on Youtube showing how to set it up and install Linux. This is a great option to play around with Linux and get comfortable with it. Don't expect to run your games in a virtual machine though.. it can be done if you have two graphics cards, but it's complex to setup.

2. Another option is to look into dual-booting windows and Linux. If you have lots of disk space, you can resize the windows partition using the disk management utility and install Linux into the freed up space. When you start your computer, you will get a boot menu from which you can choose windows or Linux. Again, as much as Youtube sucks, there are loads of video tutorials which will show you how to do this step by step.