TrueCrypt isn't hard to set up and they have extensive documentation on their web site. Take some time to read through it. If you're not sure if Linux is right for you, Ubuntu and Linux Mint have Live CDs. Pop them in your CD ROM and boot them up. Play around and see if you like them. No installation required. They don't touch your hard drive. IF you're ready to install, it's an icon on the desktop. The nice thing about the latest versions of Ubuntu and Linux Mint (which is based on Ubuntu) is that full disk encryption is a one-click option during the install process, and they use LUKS, an encryption scheme for which the ElcomSoft software isn't designed to steal the keys from RAM -- although I'm sure that's coming. If you want to get really advanced, you could apply the TRESOR kernel patch, which puts the encryption key in the CPU registers, preventing them from being stolen from a memory dump, cold boot attack, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRESOR This guy has a nice tutorial on that https://grepular.com/Protecting_a_Laptop_from_Simple_and_Sophisticated_Attacks The main difference between Ubuntu and Linux Mint is the user interface. A lot of people dislike Ubuntu's latest UI, which is called Unity, so Linux Mint offers more traditional looking UIs. You can check out the screenshots on their web sites or Wikipedia. Besides FDE with LUKS, some other advantages of Linux: -- malware, while technically possible, is effectively nonexistent on desktop Linux -- it's free, so if you fuck something up you can do a clean reinstall without worrying about licensing bullshit (remember to make backups) -- it's free, so if you need to destroy your data, you can nuke the whole hard drive (more secure than individual file deletion) and reinstall -- gpg comes with every distro by default -- a lot of networking stuff is more advanced -- scripting via the command line is fast and powerful The major drawbacks: -- very few professional games -- few professional software packages on the level of Office and Photoshop -- support for specific kinds of hardware can be dodgy, but that's gotten a lot better in recent years (running the Live CD gives you a chance to test your hardware) If you want use this laptop exclusively for secure drug stuff, Linux is a good option, but if you want it for general computing, gaming, professional stuff, stick with Windows.