I really am asking for a friend since I don't use windows and am clueless about it. Also, my own computers are pretty old and don't have UEFI, so I'm clueless about that too.
My friend just bought a new Lenovo Ideapad Slim 3 with Windows 11 Home preinstalled and it immediately sent her into some kind of Microslop enrollment hell, so (yay) she wants to trash Windows altogether and switch to GNU/Linux. I'm trying to help her through it. I do it myself all the time by writing a Debian MATE ISO to a USB stick, booting from USB, and running the Debian installer. But,
- that's already too complicated for a not-really-nerd, and
- that doesn't do anything about UEFI since I haven't had to deal with that. IDK if her new computer has UEFI.
I prefer staying with Debian MATE since I'm used to it and the MATE UI is fairly familiar to Windows users, and GNOME is crap imho. But I'm open to whatever if that simplifies installation.
It would be great if there was a downloadable Windows executable that simply does everything. Install it, click it, it downloads a CD image and either writes it to USB or just manages to boot the image somehow. In days of yore you could do that with SYSLINUX or related stuff. Maybe there is something equivalent now.
Added: I appreciate all the responses but should add that I'm not looking for recommendations of distros unless Debain is for some reason seriously harder to get running, like because of UEFI. Otherwise I'm looking purely for installation advice. Distro choice mostly affects usage post-installation and MATE is what I'm comfortable with so I'd rather have my friend stick with that for now. Unfortunately she's in another state, so I can't go help her with the install in person.
First thing I would do is get a bootable Linux USB and run it on the laptop. Make sure there are actually drivers for all the hardware before you go any farther.
If you make and sell Windows laptops, you’re grabbing parts that fit the spec for that - no guarantee that, say, the Bluetooth device is some weird thing they only ever wrote Windows drivers for.
I had this very problem with my last laptop and ended up with an unusable touchscreen (good riddance, but lesson learned).
But if your friend is already used to the Windows ecosystem, bear in mind that changing an OS is A Big Deal, and they might not be aware just got much they’re signing up for. I know there are Windows-adjacent projects that help to de-slop Windows while keeping the core experience there. If making a switch is going to bring too much pain, that might be a wiser option.