Switching from Windows to Linux on an older computer is like when you finally get around to clearing the bathtub drain after years of hair and crud building up. Who knew a bath could drain that fast!? And now there’s no pool of water building up when I shower. Anyway, I highly recommend both Linux and clearing the drains.
Back when all I had was one computer with Linux and I got in trouble I had a bootable USB stick so I could load up a browser and search forums for a solution.