I’m still in the research phase of switching to Linux and don’t know if this concern is reasonable. I’m not tech savvy. I’m comfortable in the windows ecosystem and could use the dos prompt fine when they used it. I played with QBasic and C++ when I was younger and have built a few computers but that was a couple decades+ ago.
My concern is dealing with malware. I know that Linux has less issues with malware than Windows but, as I understand it, that’s primarily because it has a comparatively small market share. I feel like I’m getting into Linux just as it’s getting more popular and that it will get worse if the EU moves away from Microsoft because they will most likely adopt some form of Linux as their new standard. More less tech savvy people like me moving to Linux makes it a juicier target for people who create and use malicious software. It’s not a reason to stay with Windows but is it a reasonable concern? Are there sufficient tools for people who don’t really know what they’re doing to be reasonably secure on Linux and will they keep up if the threat profile expands as Linux picks up more users?
Others have addressed a lot of this - I think your best approach is to to use a structured learning process, like 30 Days of Linux. I’ll drop a link when I can find it again.
I think the biggest risk for a new user is running commands as root that you don’t fully understand.
Fortunately distros today default to creating a user account during setup so the average user doesn’t run as root by default.
Edit: Link to Linux Upskill Challenge
You could do this in a VM before switching.
Thank you for this! This looks like it’ll teach me some stuff, too!