One of the handy things you can make use of to try Linux without installing it is Virtual Box.
That way you don't have to worry about messing up your Windows partitions or have to take time to learn how to shrink your Windows partition in order to install Linux.
Here's how Virtual Box looks on my Debian Linux distro installed on my M2 drive:
Once you have Virtual Box installed you can head over to distrowatch.com and pick a Linux distro. If your new to Linux I recommend Linux Mint, Linux Lite or Zorin OS. Before you download your .iso make sure you download the correct .iso. In other words think about your computers architecture is your machine 32-bit or 64-bit?
Download the .iso from the operating systems main page and don't forget to check/verify the integrity of the .iso file. The checksum, MD5 or SHA should be on the page where you downloaded the Linux distro.
When you open Virtual Box click new and it will walk you through setting up a new VM. When your done setting up your VM click Start and Linux should load for you.
Another 'alternative' is to download the Linux .iso of the distro you would like to try and than just make a USB thumb drive that you have bootable with Linux.
To do that you will need a program called 'Rufus'.
See my Blog Post: "How To Make A USB Thumb Drive Bootable with Linux".