silly me. i'd like to give linux a try at last but struggle already to create a persistent usb-system. failing at this point makes me wonder if it's worth to change and if i personally have any advantages. i might be too old for this thing. or too young...

You can only be too middle aged. I am 15 and I use linux, my grandpa is REDACTED and he uses linux (totally not because i installed it on his PC and just told him where chrome and libre office is).

go for a battery included distribution like fedora, ubuntu or mint. just flash it on an USB, and boot from it and you are usually good to go. (sometimes there are problems with certificates, but other than that you should be fine)

if you want to install it on a hard drive you have to pay attentiom because you probably dont want to already delete your windows.

i used lili and ubuntu on usb runs well as live system, but even if i set the persistence nothing is stored (language, keyboard layout, wifi password, not to speak of de- and installed programs).
<whine>so its not as userfriendly as a mid-aged father-of-three with a non-dev full time job but a load of dev-projects would wish for.</whine>
makes it a bit difficult to test for every aspect of every day use when most of the time is to look up linux commands and suddenly the spare time is over. 😅