Resolve the hardware issues before you introduce more changes.

Dual boot

1. Based on your posts and responses here, I really don’t think you have enough knowledge/experience with Linux to be making this move and call for your parents. I’m not trying to be mean or discourage you in this, I’m just being real. You’re going to end up being tech support for this machine and nothing you’re saying makes me think you’re up to that.

2. Backups. Now. Loud noises on an aging machine are a bad sign. The hardware might be on its last legs, and you’re not gonna fix that by installing Linux. Get flash drives, get a DVD burner, get stuff onto the cloud somehow, do whatever backup solution makes sense for your situation. That really should be your first priority here whether or not you can get them to switch. Unless you know for an absolute fact that they don’t have anything important on their computer that they wouldn’t want to lose, you should still be making backups of some kind before making a big change to their computer like installing Linux just in case something goes wrong and you lose everything.

3. Have a plan to repair or replace that computer. Figure out what’s making those loud noises, and fix it if possible. Again, you’re not going to fix a hardware issue with software. Maybe you’re lucky and you just have some fans choked with dust and need to be cleaned out, or maybe the hard drive is failing. Pretty much the only loud noise you’re going to fix with Linux is if the computer is just that bogged down with windows crap that the fans have to be going full speed to keep the computer from cooking itself, but even then you still have to ask whether that machine has enough oomph in it to give them an enjoyable experience on Linux (and it very well might, but at 10 years it’s probably time to start thinking about a replacement, not that I’d want to be shopping for computers right now)

4. If you’re going to disregard those warnings, make a live USB, set it up their computer to boot from it first. Stick that in their computer and let them play with it for a week or two. Show them how to get to their windows files from there. Show them what programs are alternatives to the ones they use the most in windows. Tell/show them that if they don’t like it they just need to turn the computer off and pull the flash drive out and everything will be just as they left it. This is basically what I did to switch my parents over to Linux mint. For me it helped that their computing needs are basically just office applications and a web browser, so there wasn’t much to teach them. Give them a heads-up that it will probably run a little slower from the USB than it would once it’s actually installed on the computer (on my parents computer it was still faster than windows 11, but was noticeably slow and laggy to me, but is pretty responsive now that I have it installed.)

First things first, I’d but a new harddrive. You will want backups either way, it will give you space to run both Windows and Linux, but most importantly, sudden loud noises could mean your harddrive is about to crash, in which case you will lose everything anyway.

If you’ve got an old spinning harddrive, upgrading to an SSD is going to make your PC faster even if you don’t move to Linux. Although for 10 year old hardware, I’d definitely prefer Linux over the increasing bloat of Windows.

And while you’re getting the new ssd, also get a usb stick. They cost almost nothing. (SSDs, unfortunately, have gotten more expensive since last year.)

OK forget linux for a moment. Your 10 year old PC is making noises and you have 0 backups? That is not good.

Reinstalling the OS is not the priority - urgently backing up your data is.

Get a USB drive and back up your important files - the whole family needs to ensure whatever is important to them goes on the USB stick.

Once the data is secure, then you can consider OSes. But for now take the PC’s new noises as a sign of impending hardware failure of one form or another.

let them click around on a live image and see if they like it.

Back up the data without letting anyone know.

Eventually the computer will fail. By then, just replace it with one with an alternative system already installed. If anyone doesn’t feel happy about it, let them provide another solution.

People are hard to work with.

Don’t persuade. Let them fail miserably.

People are too damn dumb and beyond saving. Let them crawl to you.

Or just don’t bother.

You have a bigger problem at hand: you and your family’s data might be soon lost to a faulty hard drive. I wouldn’t wait for the inevitable to happen. How much data do you have that needs saving? There are cloud storage that offer between 15 to 20gb for free around.

I know this might seem counterintuitive but don’t change that desktop.

You are willing to take the chance and you might be excited for it, your family might accept it but they’re not excited about it. This means they will be a lot less tolerant of issues, and there will be issues. LibreOffice (or whichever you use) is not 100% compatible, there are corner cases, there are things that don’t work, and depending on what your father does with those documents it might be impossible for him to do it, if it’s work he might even get reprimanded for it.

If you go down that road try the alternatives first, most Linux programs are available on Windows, so you can install Firefox, OnlyOffice, and any other they might need and see if you all adapt well to it in the security that you can simply drop the test and go back to what you were using before.

Not having a backup is dangerous in and of itself, but not having a backup when purposefully formatting the drive is shooting yourself in the foot deliberately.

I would recommend you try to get your own system, an old laptop that needs to be plugged to work will do, I’m sure you can find one very cheap somewhere.

1. Copy your family’s unique files (docs etc) onto a flash or portable drive, or cloud storage.
2. Open computer. Remove your existing windows HDD and keep it safe.
3. Fit an ssd drive in its place, 120G should be fine, they’re still cheap. Install your linux distro of choice. Copy over the docs from storage.

Then, you know you have a full path back to where you started if you get shouted at. Just swap the drives over and you’re back in slow windows land.

Yes, running windows in a vm on a linux host works fine, as does dual-booting, although the latter runs a risk of making full recovery impossible if it goes wrong. Yes, running normal desktop stuff like Office apps and web browsing is pretty much identical, and non-technical users adapt pretty quickly to most linux window managers, IME

A 10yo computer may have a mechanical hdd which will be slow whatever OS you use, but unless you’ve kept up with Windows updates, it’ll also be very unsafe to be using online. That may be the reason why it’s suddenly running slowly - it’s got malware. Installing a new OS would solve that too.

Just install Linux and tell em “Hey, Windows got a massive update last week and it’s now 100 times faster!” and leave it at that.

First: back up the data on that disk. Inform your parents, that the disk may fail soon and they will lose their data, if you don’t make a backup.

Mirror the whole system to a fresh disk and replace the old one.

Now you are still running windows, but with a lot less potential for failure. Now you can install the programs your parents would have to use on linux, to see, if they would be sufficient, or just boot a live image, like others said.

1. Backup the data first (make sure you know what each user needs to backup)
2. Check if you know how to install windows (yes windows, see step 5). Do you have all you need (license key)?
3. Install linux
4. Copy backed up data for each user, but keep the backup
5. Let everyone use Linux for a month
6. If something goes wrong or after a month your family wants to go back - reinstall windows

Mate, if the hard disk is making weird noises :buy a new drive and back up the data.

You’re saying your parents are open minded, but it sounds a lot like you’re more afraid than they are.

Buy a drive to backup the data and another to replace the existing one. While replacing, just install Debian with KDE Plasma desktop. It looks most similar to windows and even has windows themes.

If you’re technical support, just make the decision and do it.

It sounds like your computer is on its last legs and your parents are computer illiterate/indifferent.

Best case they just won’t use the computer. Worst case they’ll blame the computer kicking the bucket on your linuxing.

I keep getting nudged into tech-supporting my MIL. She had a very aging Windows 8 laptop set up in a language I don’t speak that well. Also I haven’t used Windows for almost 30 years. What could possibly…

We bought her mid-range Chromebook and haven’t had any issues for two years.