To answer your first question, ALL of the mirrors are safe. The idea with mirrors is that you choose one that is geographically close to your location (same country, maybe the same region or state) to help reduce lag in downloading the files. Any selection is valid, all of the mirrors will have the same content, but for your location some mirrors may simply be faster or slower than others.

One other thing you might run in to is different types of installers. Some may be a very minimal install which only give you a command line, while others will provide a fully configured desktop. You might also see an option for a “Live” version – that is something you put on a bootable memory stick and you can test out a working version of the operating system without actually changing anything on your computer, but all of your settings will go away when you reboot.

I haven’t used Mint so I can’t provide specific info, however some things that are common to ANY linux desktop – You probably want to start with printer drivers (install CUPS) and some office software (install LibreOffice). For internet access, Firefox and Thunderbird are good choices. LicreOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird can all also be used on Windows if you want to check them out ahead of time. There are many lists online that can point you to equivalent software, so like if you use Lightroom on windows, you might try Darkroom on linux. basically you just need to make a list of what Windows software you use and then install a similar package in linux.

Yes you will need some time to learn the new operating system and all the new software, very little will be 100% exactly the same, but they are “close enough”. You figured out how to use all these things once before, so you can do it again, and it will definitely be worth the effort.

The process is actually simple.

It can be a little daunting at first because it’s new, but don’t let that discourage you. You can mostly ignore the whole mirrors thing, just pick one that is geographically close to you to hopefully get a better download speed. Outside of that, all the mirrors lead to the same file just in a different physical location.

Installing another software to make a bootable drive. You can use Rufus, which has a portable version so there’s no need to install it. I put a link below, there’s one in the downloads list that says portable.

https://rufus.ie/en/

There are plenty of step by step tutorials out there, however since Linux is very open, a lot of guides may give different advice and knowing what to/not to do can feel confusing. (For instance, if you have an SSD in your computer, you really shouldn’t use a swap partition unless you absolutely have to due to limited RAM.) In most cases though you can get by with the defaults when installing something like mint.

That being said. You could simply make the boot stick and try out the live version of the OS before committing to wiping any of your drives to install the OS. Just know that running the live version from the boot stick will be slow, it may take a little time for things to boot which is normal since you are running the os off of a USB stick.

If you would like some help I could try to give you some guidance. I would just want to know the specs/model of your computer so I can make sure I lead you in the right direction.

Everyone always says Linux is easy these days. Until you start asking how to actually install it.

Ubuntu used to send you a CD-ROM ready to use free of charge back in the day.

I’ve done this whole process hundreds of times and it’s straightforward now, but the first times where really confusing, I totally understand you.

you basically want to put the installer file in a USB, but you can’t simply copy and paste it because it needs to be “bootable”, that’s why you use a tool like Etcher or similar.

any link in the official Linux Mint page will point you to reputable sources so just pick the first one. the beauty of open source is that it’s not as centralized as a big corporation’s software, you have choices, confusing at first, I know, but it’s worth it once you get past the learning stage

It really seems more complicated than it is. I switched to a dual boot of windows and Linux mint about a year ago and it was super smooth, have basically never used the terminal. if you still want to try and have any questions, feel free to ask. Linux is really a nice feeling of being away from MS bullshit.

Linux Mint (or Linux Mint Debian Edition), is one of the most user friendly Linux distributions out there. This is especially so for people used to Windows.

You can run Mint on a bootable USB drive, fire it up, and get a sense of how it feels running on your home setup. I’d highly recommend trying this with a few different Linux distros, to find one that you like.

Depends on what you are playing, but gaming in Linux has come a long way. Some games won’t work due to companies not enabling their (rootkit) “anti-cheats” for Linux, but other than that, there’s more and more games that simply work by the day. Check out https://www.protondb.com/ to get an idea of what’s working at the moment.

Configuring automatic login shouldn’t be difficult. Here are instructions on Ubuntu (should work on any GNOME system), and here’s how to do it with pretty much any KDE system. This is a feature of desktop managers (like gdm or sddm), not desktop environments (like GNOME or KDE), so if neither works for you, you’re probably using a different one. If that’s the case, reply with your distro and as much info as you can provide.

That said, what exactly is the problem you’re trying to solve? It’s usually a lot easier to login remotely using SSH instead of remote desktop, and then use console commands to do whatever you need. To login with SSH:

ssh <user>@<IP address>

So if your username is tux and your IP is 1.2.3.4:

ssh [email protected]

And then if you want to reboot:

sudo reboot

And if you want to shutdown:

sudo shutdown -h now

I use an app on my phone to login, so I can get it done while sitting on the toilet in like 10s (I use it to unlock my computer so my kids can use it). If you’re accessing from your computer and just need to run a single command, provide it after the command in quotes (note, sudo commands won’t prompt for a password and will just fail).

I have three ideas: First, you could switch the desktop environment to one of the ones that has a GUI settings tool to set passwordless automatic sign in. I think Gnome 3 on Ubuntu, and Mate Desktop on Linux Mint have that feature. There are probably others.

Second, you could switch your display manager to “nodm”. The display manager is the thing that runs the X server or Wayland, and it starts the greeter (the greeter is the program that shows the login screen). nodm is a special display manager that doesn’t use a greeter or ask for a password. It immediately starts the session using the username and desktop environment specified in its configuration file.

I use nodm for my HTPC and it works very well. The only downside is that you have to edit its configuration file, /etc/default/nodm , using a text editor. I’m not aware of any GUI configuration tool for it. However, it’s pretty easy to configure.

Third, you could abandon all display managers, and start the session manually, either from a shell script, or over SSH. This is a little more complex. You will probably want to get comfortable with SSH before trying this (SSH is the command-line analog of remote desktop).

I think the first thing is actually recommend is enabling a daemon that launches Plex at boot without login. sudo systemctl enable plexmediaserver For something like a Minecraft server I’d recommend reading up on the setup process. (It’s a fair bit to summarize)

If the application doesn’t come with a systemd service I’d recommend making a cron. They’re scary looking but actually pretty easy to use, I use it for automating maintenance on my server.

It may feel counter intuitive but Linux servers don’t really need a desktop to manage them so most the tools don’t really come with graphical apps. If you want an interface to check on things I’d recommend installing and using cockpit web based graphical interface.

If you want to do it proper on a systemd system make a systemd.service it’s not as easy to learn but you get extra tools to manage it.

I’ve heard there’s a lot of work that has been done in kde and gnome to get rdp (remote desktop protocol) with remote login.

I hope this helps! If not, almost everything can be done through the terminal and ssh(secure shell) makes that process really easy. I installed and setup my Linux laptop and my server that way.

If you just want to transfer files there is sshfs(secure shell file system) and the ability to go to your file browser and type in an sftp(secure file transfer protocol) address. In kde dolphin for example you select network and type in the bar sftp://(IP address or hostname)@(user):(working directory). Make sure you have sshfs installed on both machines and sshd enabled on at least the system you want to access.

I have a pi5 at work (upgraded this year) that I use to administer my work network from home. I use ubutnu mate with xrdp for the desktop. Works great, even the sound works. No monitor and even if you hooked one up it would just show a login prompt.

I use ardour as DAW, but only for recording on Linux. It’s also available for macOS and windows. So you can check if it fits your work flow.

I mostly only use Linux, but sometimes you just need a program with out support. In my case it’s sometimes qlab, Linux show player is great(and I have used it for many shows). But it’s not feature compatibel with qlab

Reaper is Linux friendly and free for 60 days, I would give it a try. It’s free after the 60 days but will prompt you to pay. The audio interface, I’m not to sure about, I personally do not run Linux.

I think a lot of people get caught in non existing platforms wars. I’ve always believed in using the right tools for the job and always encouraged people to try everything. If you don’t keep using this software or that os, your very likely to learn what you like and bring it with you.

And to be honest I’m just tired of companies being shitty towards their customers and it’s honestly fun to see people discover Linux.

It sucks man, I feel you. There are a lot of free options out there you might want to check out!

I’m not experienced in this field but prosonus is working on a Linux version of their studio one app. I think they are trying to make VST extensions work at least on their software.

I’m probably not the best person to answer that question but maybe it helps. Most proprietary stuff is typically designed for Ubuntu or redhat so Ubuntu based or fedora is probably your best bet.

I don’t know what rizon - Linux is is but I guess that’s just the internet. I don’t know what to say other than I hope you have better luck next time.

It definitely helps you become a lot more independent as a Linux user. The tools you learn when you troubleshoot things are incredibly universal. Tools on Linux are intentionally designed to be intuitive and informative which is quite refreshing to obtuse tools like regedit.

I do like that saying a little better. Most people are just trying to help and yeah, any amount of help is appreciated.

Some people could try a little harder to understand that we all started out knowing nothing and we all need a little help from time to time. It’s awesome to see so many people trying to be understanding here though.

They added telemetry. 100% of responses had internet access.

Couldn’t you do that in a VM with GPU passthrough? I use that approach for all kinds of stuff, including Gaming (with Looking Glass and SSD passthrough)

Also, some Photoshop version from 2021 runs pretty well in Wine: https://github.com/LinSoftWin/Photoshop-CC2022-Linux

Oh cool, Cunningham’s Law in action.