just buy an extra ssd (i’d recommend 200 gigs at least, but if you’re gaming, obvs more space is needed), and install linux mint or pop os on it. imo pop is easier, but mint is more windows-like
set your bios to boot from the new ssd, and make sure you install everything on the same drive
and just keep the windows install, so if you need it or linux is too hard, you can go back easily
i think you have physical space for several more sata drives, so if you need even more space you can get a larger regular hdd, for linux stuff

fyi, while most games will happily run on linux, but you can’t use the same steam library folder, i’ve tried lol, so take that into consideration (however other loaders, like heroic launcher and lutris can run stuff installed on a windows partition, as long as the prefix is on a linux one. technically i guess you could use drm free steam installs too, but i’m already getting into the weeds, for simplicity’s sake, just use a separate drive)

you can use ntfs (windows) partitions, for example i use two for downloads, movies, music and other platform agnostic stuff

i’d be happy to help if you need it

if we’re being paranoid, unplug or swap out the linux disks while running windows
i wouldn’t bother though, windows itself doesn’t mount non-ntfs partitions (again, unless we’re being paranoid and assume that they do, since it is relatively easily done, it’s open source, technically they could be able to do it)
also people in this thread are not doing dual booting right, i have multiple pcs with windows and various linuxes, the latest machine has two distros as well, and i never had an issue, in many years (the oldest is an athlon x2 with windows 7 and mint 22.1)
i think the key to my success is that i install them on separate drives, so windows has its own boot sector and everything, and then the linux bootloaders find it and do their own thing

it seems fairphone is doing well, huh

just get an extra ssd, install mint or pop (or both on separate partitions) and try

there is a learning curve, and there’s always new stuff, more depth, but imo the above two are fairly easy to understand. pop is more osx-like both in looks but also, it’s somewhat locked down, which can feel limiting but it keeps things simple. i’ve been using it in the last few years daily. i was using mint before that, i started daily driving linux with it, but i managed to mess it up enough that every game was struggling to run lol, but i played hl:alyx on there without an issue for example

nvidia doesn’t make the best linux drivers, but some think they are completely unusable but actually it just means that there are some games that are glitchy or slow, for instance forza horizon runs better on my steam deck than my rtx 2080. although recently it went from 20-30 fps to 30-40, so it will get better at some point
edit: actually, the above was last week, there were some updates and it’s a sputtery 60 fps now

next build will have an amd card for sure, but nvidia is mostly usable too. the “anti-cheat” blockade is more frustrating imo

fyi you can use the deck restore image on an amd build, although probably there will be complications
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1b71-edf2-eb6d-2bb3#reimage
afaik chimeraos is the recommended alternative, which is a fork of the current steamos, with more supported hw (but not nvidia)

in theory, comet should handle it, but it is inconsistent for me. does it depend on the game? for instance, i only got achiements in brigador, but i played art of rally, dungeons 2-3, and a couple others which should have achievements, but didn’t get any

tbf with heroic launcher starting to implement comet (galaxy api), it might not be needed anymore

osx has an even lower market share (at least according to the steam survey), and they made one for it

but think of the achievements!!