G'day Elena & George, Welcome to Linux.org
1. The OS (win 10) would only 'cost' you one time...probably when you purchased the HP from Costco.
Microsoft Office could be a whole different kettle of fish. That may be an Annual subscription. That is a significant 'slug' at $125 (CAD) per year.
2. Any of the Linux distros (distributions...Operating Systems) will include LibreOffice. May I ask, what you use m'soft office for....is this just day to day relatively low key use, or do you have a business use for it? (After we have shown you how to boot your PC to Linux, it would be an excellent idea to open libre office and
try it out, to see if fits your purpose. If you have any questions about how to use Libre Office there are more than enough people here who use it who can help with that.
3. As put forward by
@f33dm3bits &
@KGIII &
@Linuxembourg , the ideal way to "dip your toe in the water" is to take a USB stick (8GB)
load a Linux distro onto it (using a suitable app)....and then make your PC
boot to that USB Stick
Now...pay attention: When you have the pc boot to that USB stick, IT DOES NOT put that Linux distro onto your hard drives's.
Instead, it loads onto the ram (memory)..you have
12 GB of DDr4 Memory)
This simply means that you can "play" with the distro you have chosen, with no fear of messing anything up. You can find Libre Office in the Menu.....just type Libre office in and it will find it for you.......the most common one is Libre Office Writer....do anything you like with it.... you cannot hurt it.
4. The Linux that you are running in ram is called being booted into a "Live environment"
It is not quite as quick as it would be if it were fully installed....but it is more than good enough to show you what that particular distro looks like....where most things are....etc etc
Again....don't be worried about "breaking it"....give it a real workout.....if for some reason it crashed or whatever (please take note of any error messages if this happens).....just remove the USB stick and reboot it again.....and away you go again.
5.
@f33dm3bits suggested Ubuntu or any of the ubuntu derivatives, or Linux Mint.
Linux Mint (LM) is also based on Ubuntu, and I have used it for the past 6 or 7 years. It is quite similar to windows in many ways (except that it is free and it works!)
You can try any distro you like, but I am keeping it relatively simple here as you said your beginners.
If you wish to try Ubuntu as well as Linux Mint, just load the USB stick with one of them...try it out...and then load the USB stick with the other one. There is no need to format the USB stick in between or anything like that......the app (program) that makes the USB stick
bootable, just takes care of that for you.
6. Please take a moment to digest what I have written.
And then.....tell us a little bit about what use you put your PC to.
This will give us a better idea re what to suggest etc etc.
Linux has many,
many alternatives. Choosing the
right one for you can be a daunting experience. We can help take some of the drama out of that decision if we know what you use the PC for....eg browsing, youtube, news pages, facebook, messaging, some business enterprise, chatting to the nice people at Linux.org....etc etc
7. To make your 8gb USB stick bootable, you can use any number of apps....but the most common ones are
Rufus....or
Balena Etcher
BOTH of these works in Windows
So, you can download whichever one, and follow the prompts to put the ISO (that's the name of the Linux file) onto the USB stick (the download will be approx 1.8GB....be patient)
First....download (In Windows) the distro or distros you intend to try out,
Start Here
Both ubuntu and Linux mint are on the left hand side of the list
Make sure to download the file to somewhere it will be easy to find later when you use rufus or balena etcher
(If you are really adventurous you can visit
DistroWatch which has multiple hundreds of distros to choose from)
(My advice....keep it simple....)
Then open rufus/balena and follow the instruction they give to 'burn' the ISo onto the USB stick (make sure you plug the USB stick in before you start!) remember you do not have to format the stick.....rufus/balena will take care of that
When you have the USB stick 'burned with Linux mint /ubuntu etc.....you will need to Reboot your PC and as it restarts, the PC
must boot to the USB stick.
I am unfamiliar with your particular pc, but generally, to
alter the boot order it usually involves pressing the escape key...or sometimes one of the f keys....f11...?, as the pc starts.
When you have got that far....or if you have questions.....doubts,.....whatever.......just post back here and either myself or one of the happy chappies will answer you!
Bear in mind that we are in different time zones so a quick answer may not always be forthcoming.
You may need to read my blurb a few times to get the order sorted in your minds.
Don't be shy.....we all had to start somewhere.....and as complex as I may have made it sound, it really is quite simple. Just a question of getting the
procedure in place in your mind