Penny7

Thank you, that's such a kind offer! I might take you up on that! It'll probably be a bit 'cuz I need to take some time to look into programs and such that I didn't think of before to make sure what I'm used to is compatible and then I'll go from there! :)

A Windows computer I had got massively fucked once like, 15ish years ago. No idea what happened. No new downloads or installs, I hadn't done anything different from any computer I've had before or since, just one day it stopped and it wasn't even that old, two years tops. Not a custom build, straight outta the box from Best Buy (maybe even Future Shop it was so long ago). My friend couldn't tell me what happened when they figured out how to get it at least booting up again. Only time it's happened. It was weeeeeeeiiiiird.

Glad to know about the performance boost. :)

Oh, I didn't mean to be mysterious with shit, lol. Just basic torrents of TV shows and movies, haha. (Never went the streaming route, kept sailing the high seas.) I might download a book once in a while, but that's actually on my main.

I use VLC and Media Player Classic as my main video players on Windows, so VLC should be ok and if it isn't I'm sure I can find something else (I know MPC is Windows only).

I only do mobile games, not PC games, so not a concern for me there.

Ok, wait...I thought a partition meant that it was in effect a wall between different OSs if you had multiples on one computer, not like separate folders like in Windows Explorer (which is what I'm getting from this comment, if I'm wrong please let me know).

I don't trust myself with swapping out hardware, but maybe one day that might be an option for me, lol.

I don't like how certain things are being forced onto us through almost every goddamn tech thing so yeah...I get that sentiment. Good to know that about Ubuntu.

Why would it be an issue to download a program if it's not for Windows or Mac? So long as there's a Linux-based option that works with your version, that is. There is one program I use multiple times a week that I doubt would be on any basic install package and the only place to find it is online. (Not an issue for the computer I'll be trying it out on as it's not my main, but if I find a version of Linux I like a put it on my main then it's something I'd have to consider.)

The sound of virtual machines on my main doesn't sit well with me. If I do something and brick my main laptop I'm fucked and I can't replace it and some of the programs I use won't run at all/run well on my old Windows 8 machine because it doesn't have the processing power. (I got a gaming laptop so I could have the video processing I needed for video editors to not take a day to render a 15min video on Windows 10, never mind and older Windows 8 laptop. sigh) Experimentation and tech FAFO'ing will happen on the Windows 8! lol

I've seen Pop!OS come up in a few comments here, so if I don't end up liking Mint maybe I'll try that one out next. :)

My Windows 8 laptop is an old one that I just use to download stuff. My main is a separate device, so all good there!

Right now that laptop is just being used to download stuff and on occasion I connect it to my TV to play a video, but it's really not often I do that. I'd still download stuff and then play around with basic everyday stuff on it to make sure I'm happy with it since that's mostly what I do on my main.

End game would be to switch my main to Linux if I like it. Beyond basic, everyday stuff that most people do, I edit videos on my main. That's about it.

The specs on the laptop meet the requirements for Mint according to their website so I assume that the hardware is compatible for it. But for stuff like my printer...somebody above mentioned that they were having issues with it working with Linux which isn't something I thought about.

Funnily enough, I did sit and wonder about the programs I use on my main laptop before right now, just not stuff like printers. My Office Suite is LibreOffice and as far as I'm aware that's Linux compatible since they're both in the open source world and the writing/author program I love has Linux options I just don't know if they'd work with Mint. (One is Debian and other comments were saying that Mint is based off Debian at it's core, so maybe that would work?)

ANYWAYS, without getting further in the weeds, I'll have to look into some things further in that regard. Thank you for bringing that up.

And this is probably a dumb follow-up question, but would my ISP be impacted by Linux then? Like, the router might not be compatible or something? The simple aspect of my printer being compatible didn't come to mind at first, so maybe that could be a thing, I dunno!

So anybody that I've ever personally known that I can think of and uses a Linux-based OS is either a programmer by trade, a CompSci grad that didn't go into the field in the end (but understands it if they were able to graduate obviously), or programs as a hobby. I personally know of no people outside of the realm of those that understand coding on some level that use Linux anything. So hopefully you can see how I would make that link in my mind.

I could have been confusing seeing somebody on Linux using the Command Box thing as more intricate coding, but for somebody in my shoes, with limited tech knowledge, it all looks like coding and is a little intimidating.

And yeah, the plan is to do an out-and-out install, not what I'm assuming a live boot is (I have a comment in a thread above). What I'm thinking feels very beyond me. An install feels like the better option for me. :)