If he drops Windows for Linux, he might as well opt for a free writing software. I read that Manuskript has pretty much all the features of Scrivener and is somewhat similar so the learning curve should not be too steep.
Maybe best to set it up in a separate partition or PC for a trial.
See also : https://alternativeto.net/software/scrivener/?license=opensource
People may not like the idea, but you can get pretty decent laptops from AliExpress for like 250$, which was like 50% of the price of a similar laptop from any local sales channel at the time. I did buy one for my son when he entered university and it still runs well: 5-6 hours battery life, 8 MB RAM, some older generation core i7 inside, full HD screen. The touchpad and keyboard are not great, but after 3 years they still work. The specs today would be better, I guess.
Lazy theory. Think about cars. If the diversity of alternatives was putting off people, I guess we would still all be driving black Ford cars.
I have been using Linux since 1996 and what is putting off people is:
Buy yourself a second PC or laptop to be able to use both at the same time.
As others said, check if it is a single case or if it repeats at the next shutdowns. Anyway, the main question this brings to mind is: do you have a good backup of your system / data ?
I have fucked up somewhat like you in the past and needed to repair my system. In Linux you can boot into runlevel 1, single-user mode, where you are effectively root and can remove the root password, the re-enter one after you boot in the usual runlevel again. See these links: https://www.debuntu.org/how-to-recover-root-password-under-linux-with-single-user-mode/ https://www.debuntu.org/how-to-change-boot-runlevel-with-grub2/ https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/run-levels-linux/
Yes, I have a Pocketbook and it runs on some Linux distribution variant. Very happy with it.
8GB of course, and a 256 GB SSD if my memory serves me well -_-'