My (almost) 1st time installing Linux

[usually_quiet]

My take today is... . Linux is still not ready for the general public to use.

Don't tell my wife that. She's been running it on her computer for over a year now and has never had any issues. She is also computer illiterate. I installed Linux on her PC because I got tired of fixing her Windows system every two month or so....

Probably because you have her system set up so that she cannot make any changes that might get her into trouble.

I agree with TreeTops. If you are going to run Linux on your PC, you either have know a fair amount about computers or have someone in your life who does.

Someone running Linux can't do something as simple as go to the office supply store store, buy any all-in-one printer they want, and be assured it will work with their Linux system. A computer illiterate person would not know how to research peripherals on their own, and the box is unlikely to give them any help. If someone has a Windows system, they don't have to worry about a new peripheral being incompatible unless they have a very old version of Windows or a very new one.

[hello_hello]

edit: for mpc-hc, like I said the only way to know is to try. It has been done :
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=12915

It looks like I'll have to put as pin in that one and come back to it.
I'm downloading and installing VirtualBox at the moment, then I'll install XP in it.

The revised plan is to try the Windows software I use running in Wine, and failing that I'll try installing it on Virtual XP instead, and failing that I'll look for a Linux alternative. Running a Virtual XP might help ease the transition a bit.

MPC-HC in Wine just caused MPC-HC to crash, then Wine, and from there I'm not quite sure.... I reset the PC in the end. I tried the current 32 and 64 bit versions of MPC-HC and the stripped down MPC-HC from K-Lite. No go unfortunately, although I figured even trying was being overly optimistic.

[hello_hello]

Nice and easy..... now I have XP running in VirtualBox running on Linux Mint.

USB and audio are working and I'm pretty sure XP's Device Manager can see my TV Tuner/Capture card. It's an unknown device, waiting for drivers, but that's normal. I might be able to run my PVR software without dual booting yet. I'm even optimistic I could go to an office supply store, buy a printer and install it on XP.

That's today's enthusiasm used up. Back to installing software tomorrow. Today's minor annoyance question.....

When I minimise a window, it's button on the taskbar changes to black and white. Well.... more like grey and white and and a bit hard to see. I don't think that was happening when I first installed Linux Mint (KDE), or maybe it was, but is there a "taskbar buttons/icons are always colourful" setting I can't seem to find? I've found the KDE equivalent of taskbar grouping and disabled it, and I discovered the setting allowing me to drag and drop the taskbar buttons to re-order them manually (without having to install a third party utility as I was for Windows), which makes sense.... given not being able to re-order them is totally mental. It's just the grey and white button/icon thing I'd like to change.

Thanks

[ackboo]

When I minimise a window, it's button on the taskbar changes to black and white

See here
http://askubuntu.com/questions/261247/minimize-windows-without-them-going-black-and-white

I can't seem to work out how to duplicate the FirstCap functions I want. Maybe I'll need a macro program to modify key presses. Why Caps Lock doesn't work this way by default is beyond me.

There are a number of options for caps lock behaviour in
System Settings > Hardware > Input Devices > Keyboard > Advanced

edit:A good read on desktop linux security, ubuntu did it right it seems
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BasicSecurity

[ackboo]

Some notes on FreeBSD. Unlike linux it provides mostly up to date documentation in the form of an handbook :
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/
If you need to setup a server one day try to follow these instructions, what you will learn will be useful for any Unix-like OS. One notable user and contributor is Netflix.

PC-BSD is an attempt at a a desktop BSD, it works but don't expect the level of hardware support you get from a modern linux distribution. Server class hardware will be supported, the latest laptop, not so much.
It is more secure in the sense that it is an even tinier market share for malware. FreeBSD security comes from the processes and tools used to secure servers, you can take a look at the security section of the handbook.

To provide CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of information systems), security professionals apply a defense in depth strategy. The idea of defense in depth is to add several layers of security to prevent one single layer failing and the entire security system collapsing. For example, a system administrator cannot simply turn on a firewall and consider the network or system secure. One must also audit accounts, check the integrity of binaries, and ensure malicious tools are not installed. To implement an effective security strategy, one must understand threats and how to defend against them.

Another option is OpenBSD, but that is a whole other level.

Notable FreeBSD based distributions include FreeNAS and PfSense, one is a ZFS nas the other is a firewall/router.

[racer-x]

Have Linux Mint banned Google searching in Firefox? I can't find a way to add Google to the search engine list. Not that it matters. I used URL Suffix to set up a Google search. I added www.google.com/search?q= as a prefix, made sure there was no suffix, and now I can type something into the address bar and it'll open in a Google search when I use Shift+Enter.

Click the Search drop down menu and select "Change search settings", then add the Google search engine to your list of search engine and then select it.

[hello_hello]

Click the Search drop down menu and select "Change search settings", then add the Google search engine to your list of search engine and then select it.

I swear there's no Google option. It's not in the list of search engines displayed through "change search settings" and the "add more search engines" link takes me to this page and "Why aren't some search engines included in Linux Mint?" Maybe I'm losing my mind, but I can't find Google in any of the search engine lists there either.

The "Google Default" add-on confirms the problem.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-default/
About this Add-on
the default firefox google search plugin, for people suffering from the modification by linux mint 13 or others...

Not that I'm married to searching in Google, but I was surprised I couldn't add it as a search the usual way. I recall reading something about Firefox no longer using Google as the default search engine, but it seems it's Linux Mint that's removed it completely.

[racer-x]

Scroll down near the bottom of the page you linked to. Look in the "Commercial engines", there is Google icon. Click on it to add it to your list.

[ackboo]

Since you use virtualbox you might be interested by the seamless mode. It allows you to run windows programs on the linux desktop.
http://www.howtogeek.com/171145/use-virtualboxs-seamless-mode-or-vmwares-unity-mode-to...irtual-machine

[hello_hello]

Scroll down near the bottom of the page you linked to. Look in the "Commercial engines", there is Google icon. Click on it to add it to your list.

Sorry, I may have remembered incorrectly. I must have created a memory of there being no Google icon on that page, but I probably clicked on it and it took me here: http://www.linuxmint.com/searchengines/anse.php?sen=Google&c=y

Google in Linux Mint
Why isn't Google included by default in Linux Mint?
Amongst commercial search engines, only the ones which share with Linux Mint the revenue Linux Mint users generate for them are included by default.
How can I add Google to Linux Mint?
In the top right corner of Firefox, click on the drop down list of search engines and select "Add Google".

If there was a mysterious method of adding Google I didn't see it, and I'm certain Google wasn't one of the search engines in "change search settings" until I installed the Google add-on.

I'm going to restart Firefox using a fresh profile in a minute to see if I missed this "add Google" thing.

Edit: So here's how they got me.
1. Click on drop down search engine list
2. Click "change search settings"
3. Click "add search engines" link
4. First Linux Mint page opens with Google icon in the list.
5. Click Google icon
6. Second Linux Mint page opens with more info. While that page is open, the drop down list includes an option to add Google as a search engine.
7. Check the drop down search engine list for an "add Google" option and add it.
8. Close the second Linux Mint page and the option to add Google is removed from the drop down list.
9. Go back to "change search settings" to make Google the default.

I guess it's obvious I reversed steps 7 and 8 and that meant I couldn't do 7 or 9. Well it's obvious now, but before.....

I still think there must have been an additional annoyance at some stage, namely Linux Mint not providing a way to make Google the default after it was added. I did wonder why the add-on I used is called "Google Default". It's just a theory, but maybe that's why.

[hello_hello]

When I minimise a window, it's button on the taskbar changes to black and white

See here
http://askubuntu.com/questions/261247/minimize-windows-without-them-going-black-and-white

Excellent. Thank you.

There are a number of options for caps lock behaviour in
System Settings > Hardware > Input Devices > Keyboard > Advanced

I haven't had lots of time to catch up with the all suggestions offered yet, but I'll check it out later. Thanks again.

[hello_hello]

Someone running Linux can't do something as simple as go to the office supply store store, buy any all-in-one printer they want, and be assured it will work with their Linux system. A computer illiterate person would not know how to research peripherals on their own, and the box is unlikely to give them any help. If someone has a Windows system, they don't have to worry about a new peripheral being incompatible unless they have a very old version of Windows or a very new one.

I mightn't be totally computer illiterate, but I am Linux illiterate, however installing my old Brother MFC-665CW wasn't too hard. If the best you can do is stick a CD in a drive, chances are you're not using Linux anyway.

The Linux Mint printer installation wizard is much like the Windows version. It has a large list of printers it can install or you can give it a PPD file to install something else. In my case my printer wasn't in the list and there's no PPD file for it, but it already appeared as a detected network printer I thought I should try getting it to work.
Brother seem to be on the Linux bandwagon. Their drivers page provided a link to some sort of script and step by step instructions on how to download and run it. From there I did nothing but sit and watch the printer and scanner drivers being downloaded and installed. The printer works, but I haven't tested the scanner yet. I think I'll need an image program capable of initiating scans.
The installation instructions on Brother's site won't load again at the moment, but this is a copy.

I bumped into this by accident today, for someone who doesn't mind spending a few bucks to make life easier. There's even a Windows version.
VueScan Scanner Software

[hello_hello]

I discovered today the Linux Mint start menu (application launcher) has a "classic" mode. ie it looks like the Win2000 or WinXP classic start menu. Heavenly......

I switched to using Nvidia's drivers and I have my favourite CRT refresh rate back.

I found a replacement for xplorer2 in the form of Double Commander (the Dolphin file manager was getting too frustrating) and it's surprisingly similar so hopefully I won't miss xplorer2 all that much.

Today's annoyances......

I can't find a way to move the panel toolbox button. I can move everything else.... taskbar, system tray etc, but not that button, and when I move the panel to the right side of the screen the panel toolbox button is where the Windows Start button used to be.

I bought an LCD 1080p monitor just before installing Linux and while I'm not blaming Linux, text on an LCD sucks and blows at the same time. I'm still going to be using my CRT so hopefully I can disable text antialiasing for it to keep sane, but so far I've not found a magic antialiasing setting for the LCD that makes me want to use it, and I've played around a bit. I almost prefer antialiasing disabled for the LCD too. The OS itself generally isn't too bad, but reading text in web pages isn't as much fun. If anyone has any clever antialiasing settings....

Cheers.

[usually_quiet]

Someone running Linux can't do something as simple as go to the office supply store store, buy any all-in-one printer they want, and be assured it will work with their Linux system. A computer illiterate person would not know how to research peripherals on their own, and the box is unlikely to give them any help. If someone has a Windows system, they don't have to worry about a new peripheral being incompatible unless they have a very old version of Windows or a very new one.

I mightn't be totally computer illiterate, but I am Linux illiterate, however installing my old Brother MFC-665CW wasn't too hard. If the best you can do is stick a CD in a drive, chances are you're not using Linux anyway.

I am not surprised that you could install your old printer. In general, Linux support is more likely to exist for older hardware than a newly released product. Compatible Linux drivers are frequently unavailable when a product is newly released.

The highlighted section in your reply would certainly describe a large segment of the general public, which was my point. The members of this forum tend to be more knowledgeable about computers than most.

[ackboo]

I discovered today the Linux Mint start menu

No no no, you are using KDE. Mint is the underlying OS. An ubuntu derivative.
https://www.kde.org/

The OS itself generally isn't too bad, but reading text in web pages isn't as much fun. If anyone has any clever antialiasing settings....

Oh fonts, font rendering, antialiasing, highdpi in linux, vast subject.
In the meantime if you want everything to look like it did on windows you can start by installing the Microsoft True Type Core Fonts.
Automatically http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15495/add-microsoft-core-fonts-to-ubuntu/?PageSpeed=noscript
Or manually by copying your windows font folder and importing them through the KDE font installer in System Settings

Then you will need to find the antialiasing setting suitable for your screen. In system settings fonts I remember good results with
sub pixel rendering RGB
hinting slight
your mileage may vary, too many parameters.

Then in firefox you will need to change the font settings and copy the ones from windows firefox

edit:

while I'm not blaming Linux, text on an LCD sucks and blows at the same time

Don't be afraid to blame linux, text rendering has always been a huge pain. It has improved a lot in the last few years. In the beginning you couldn't use a gtk app like firefox in (qt) kde without a lot of text config file tweaking plus some CLI commands. Or you had old apps who weren't aware of the system's fonts settings. It looked like a huge mess. Things improved and now with highdpi screens there are some growing pains.

You can use the ms core fonts or the Liberation fonts, they are best I think
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts

edit2:
never tried myself but you can also try the android fonts
the package should be named fonts-droid
more info here
http://www.binarytides.com/gorgeous-looking-fonts-ubuntu-linux/

edit3:
I checked my settings for ubuntu/unity
sub pixel rendering RGB
hinting slight

But in firefox preferences/content I have
default Ubuntu

Advanced
proportional Serif
serif Ubuntu
sans serif Ubuntu
monospace Ubuntu mono

Be aware that not all fonts react the same way when you change the hinting. Again your mileage may vary, I have a highdpi screen.

edit4:
Some websites rely on some of the preinstalled windows fonts to display properly, you will find them in your c:windows/fonts folder if need be.

[racer-x]

@ ackaboo, you are a wealth of Linux information. I want to thank your for your input in this thread. I learned quite a bit from your posts.....

[ackboo]

Well at long last all this geekery is paying off

[ackboo]

I will add this info here, I never tested this.
Don't try any of this unless you know exactly what you are doing. Work on copies only.

Using virtualbox it is possible to take an existing windows install and to convert it to a virtual machine running in linux (or windows 10). If you have an editing station that never touched the internet it is an interesting possibility (I don't recommend converting web connected machines since this situation is ideal for a blank slate install).

The idea is to make a raw copy (bit for bit, no compression) of a windows partition to an image file, then converting that image file to the VDI format using vboxmanage and importing it in virtualbox.

You might need to use sysprep on your windows install before making the image, this will reset the windows activation and do a number of things to prepare the OS (encrypted files will be lost, can be used to move a windows install to another physical computer).

It is a lot of things to research and learn if you are not into IT but depending on how painful a clean install would be it might be worth it.

In any case having a virtual machine with all your tools is a good idea since you will be able to keep this toolbox with you regardless of computer or OS.

edit: for windows vista and higher you can use Disk2vhd.

[ackboo]

I'm pretty sure XP's Device Manager can see my TV Tuner/Capture card

I found this info regarding PCI passthrough in virtualbox, lots of prerequisites.
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#pcipassthrough

edit:
after some research it appears that the current ubuntu desktop kernel has the necessary options enabled but not at boot.
you can check that in /boot/config-4.2.0-25-generic by doing

cat /boot/config-4.2.0-25-generic | grep IOMMU

and so on for the other necessary options

the rest of the prerequisites are hardware related
you can check that your cpu has Vt-d or AMD-Vi with

lscpu

for your motherboard you will have to check the manual

From what I gathered a workstation class motherboard is preferred for this kind of option to be reliable.

[ackboo]

I've not found a magic antialiasing setting for the LCD that makes me want to use it, and I've played around a bit

I've just remembered a possible cause for your problems. Sometimes the nvidia driver causes blurry fonts. Try disabling FXAA in the nvidia control panel.
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/886504/linux/nvidia-driver-makes-blurrier-fon...-intel-driver/

[ahhaa]

I'll just add that, as you seem to have an interest in media, you might find KODI useful.

http://kodi.tv/about/

It's free, multi-platform, open-source, and plays/organizes just about everything from streaming video & audio to slides, archived flicks, subtitles, VPN sources, etc.

I can say from experience that it runs movies flawlessly on a Raspberry Pi (which only draws 2 Watts, doesn't need a fan, and boots directly) in large screen HD. It should love your machine!

[hello_hello]

Thanks again for all the additional info guys. I'm not keeping up. I haven't been able to spend much time on things Linux this week. I'm going to try to catch up over the weekend. It's definitely going to be a long, slow process. Lots of experimenting and testing to do.....

I did manage to install Pale Moon, which I'll confess wasn't simple. I'm not 100% sure why yet, but I couldn't get the Pale Moon installer to run initially (I was getting an error about not having permissions), then it did work, then I had problems getting Pale Moon to run properly. The installer did warn me about Pale Moon not being compatible with something related to oxygen-gt (I think, I can't find where I wrote down the message at the moment) and I couldn't click on the menu bar without Pale Moon disappearing. Eventually I went through all the display settings and changed everything named oxygen I could find (theme, icon or otherwise) rebooted, and the problem went away. I've finished installing all my extensions (I did it from scratch this time) and Pale Moon is now configured the way I like it.

Another little thing I'd like to change. Windows Explorer has an option along the lines of "hide extensions for known file types" that can be disabled, so in "details view", instead of a jpeg being listed as (for example) "picture", it's listed as "picture.jpg". Dual Commander has a column for displaying the file extensions, but I'd prefer to remove it and have the extensions always display as part of the file name. Assuming files always have an extension as they do for Windows. Habit I guess, but I can't find a way......

Cheers.

PPS. Back on the text anti-aliasing subject for a second..... is there a simple way to disable it for my CRT but keep it enabled for the LCD when running dual monitors. Text anti-aliasing tends to make everything look out of focus to me, and I find it tiring, whereas I can read text on a decent CRT for hours on end as long as antialiasing is disabled. If not, I'll just disable it for both. I plan on continuing using the CRT as my primary monitor and the LCD mostly for multimedia stuff.

[ackboo]

Dual Commander has a column for displaying the file extensions, but I'd prefer to remove it and have the extensions always display as part of the file name.

Yes it is possible, in double commander go to configuration/options/custom columns or click on a column title and select custom columns
Click on default, click on copy
Click on default_copy, click on edit
Replace [DC().GETFILENAMENOEXT{}] by [DC().GETFILENAME{}]
Remove the Ext column by clicking the first cell of the Ext line
Click ok
Now go back to the main double commander window, click on a column title and select default_copy

is there a simple way to disable it for my CRT but keep it enabled for the LCD when running dual monitors

Not that I know of, it might be possible with a lot of config file edits but in the long run it is best to find a permanent solution.

Text anti-aliasing tends to make everything look out of focus to me, and I find it tiring, whereas I can read text on a decent CRT for hours on end as long as antialiasing is disabled

That's strange, did you try setting the system fonts to Ubuntu / Ubuntu mono, disabling fxaa in the nvidia control panel, installing the microsoft fonts ?
What LCD monitor is it?
Does it look out of focus on the crt with antialiasing on or on the lcd?

[Hoser Rob]

I don't have any nvidia cards but for that I'd look at ...

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

... first. While I don't have any ubuntu installed now you just can't beat their support.

BTW I actually installed via ppa in my laptop for the first time. It was HEVC codecs and that's about the only type of thing I want to use a ppa for. This is for Smplayer (which is my default for Linux as it was in Windows):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2272576&p=13261409#post13261409

And this for VLC:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2310743&p=13426737#post13426737

Both work just fine.

[racer-x]

I don't have any nvidia cards but for that I'd look at ...

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

... first. While I don't have any ubuntu installed now you just can't beat their support.

BTW I actually installed via ppa in my laptop for the first time. It was HEVC codecs and that's about the only type of thing I want to use a ppa for. This is for Smplayer (which is my default for Linux as it was in Windows):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2272576&p=13261409#post13261409

And this for VLC:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2310743&p=13426737#post13426737

Both work just fine.

Thanks for that. I just added the codecs and plugin for VLC and it works great.....

[wiseant]

Hi
I didn't want to start a new thread re Linux info . . .

I recently installed Linux Mint 64 bit along with wine, winetricks and playonlinux
I am able to run VirtualDub 64 and 32 bit but regardless of what I tried to do I couldn't install aacacm, ac3acm, lameacm, huffyuv, or xvid

from a Linux forum, I tried:
"Open a console terminal
type: wine cmd
Now you are in an good old fashioned 'dos' style command session
Use cd to navigate to where you have unpacked the driver zip file
Now enter this command:
rundll32 setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 128 ./yourfile.inf
Copy the .dll file(s) to ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/"

Of course I replaced "yourfile.inf" with huffyuv.inf, etc

I tried using windows cmd [within wine] using regsvr32
Then I tried using a .bat file with wine cmd that would run the necessary inf file

Does anyone know how to install these files?

Also, I was able to run a few of my favourite Windows apps in wine, but one problem I noticed is when I went to display certain text infomation it appeared briefly then disappeared - don't know if this was a problem with the recommended nvidia driver so I uninstalled it and went with the generic driver - no joy.

As a side-note, I was able to install Photoshop CS2 but unable to install IllustratorCS2 or AbbyyFineReader8

Thanks

[ackboo]

You fought the good fight but at some point you will have to realize that wine is not windows. If you need that much windows programs try installing windows in virtualbox. You will actually gain time and microsoft's policy on hardware support or forced upgrades will become irrelevant.

[wiseant]

@ackboo

Thanks for the feedback - I kinda came to the same conclusion. Does it make much difference to run XP or Windows7. Is there a performance hit?

Also, I noticed this from the doom9 forum:

"KDE recently went through a prod release for bug fixes and minor enhancements that I think youd find useful. I think as you progress mate with Mint, youll become more interested in what other distros have to offer. One of the best KDE Linux experiences is Opensuse. Or if you wanted to stick with Debian based package management like you have know with Mint, you can go further up the Debian tree from Mint to Ubuntu to Debian direct running say the Debian stretch test repos for more current software. IMHO Mints biggest problem is poor patching from uostream - theyre way behind in linux kernel releases for example and that many people who try to use Mint dont have a working experience if they have newer hardware. "

Would you agree with this?

Thanks

[hello_hello]

I'm still not keeping up with everything guys, but please keep posting suggestions. I will get to all of them.

Dual Commander has a column for displaying the file extensions, but I'd prefer to remove it and have the extensions always display as part of the file name.

Yes it is possible, in double commander go to configuration/options/custom columns or click on a column title and select custom columns
Click on default, click on copy
Click on default_copy, click on edit
Replace [DC().GETFILENAMENOEXT{}] by [DC().GETFILENAME{}]
Remove the Ext column by clicking the first cell of the Ext line
Click ok
Now go back to the main double commander window, click on a column title and select default_copy

A piece of cake! Thanks.

That's strange, did you try setting the system fonts to Ubuntu / Ubuntu mono, disabling fxaa in the nvidia control panel, installing the microsoft fonts ?
What LCD monitor is it?
Does it look out of focus on the crt with antialiasing on or on the lcd?

The monitor is a 1080p Benq 27", model EW2750ZL.
It's a cheap monitor to be sure, and maybe it's the relatively large size that doesn't help, and maybe I should have used it with XP or Win7 for a while before installing Linux so I'd have something to compare it to (I'll connect it to my XP PC later) or maybe it's just my brain. I've never liked reading text on an LCD. FXAA is disabled, the Nvidia drivers are set to "use application settings" and I've tried setting anti-aliasing to "system settings" and "custom" (sub pixel rendering RGB, hinting slight) although they look the same to me. I've installed the Microsoft fonts. Here's some screenshots, although I'm fully aware they don't let you see what I see, given a screenshot of a window on my CRT looks the same as a screenshot of the same window on the LCD. I think it's just my brain vs LCDs. Text doesn't look out of focus on the CRT when anti-aliasing is enabled. It just doesn't look as sharp. I haven't messed with any of the Firefox/Pale Moon text settings yet. I assume they're set to use whichever font a web page wants to use, if it specifies one.

The first page of this thread. With anti-aliasing:



Without anti-aliasing:



Same page: Windows XP screenshot:



The Dolphin file manager. With anti-aliasing:



Without anti-aliasing:



You'll probably need to open each image in it's own tab to stop the forum resizing them.
Not that I want to sidetrack the thread too much with my monitor woes (as I suspect that's what they are) and I've no idea how well the screenshots will translate when viewed on another monitor, but to me the anti-aliasing seems out of focus a little on the LCD, maybe over-done a bit when viewing a web page, whereas the OS itself (ie the Dolphin screenshots) look better with anti-aliasing enabled, even when viewed on a CRT.

[ackboo]

.....youll become more interested in what other distros have to offer. One of the best KDE Linux experiences is Opensuse.....

All linux distributions are slightly broken in subtle ways. All of them will have botched updates, out of date software etc.. As a beginner it is more important to become familiar with one major distribution and one major desktop environment and learn its limitations and how to work around them. And also how to fix it when it breaks. Stay away from the bleeding edge. As long as your current setup is compatible with your workflow don't overthink it. To try new stuff simply use a virtual machine. Mint is a bit behind in kernel updates, but mint is about sane defaults. It is a great place to start.

Is there a performance hit?

Yes of course but it's small, for CPU dependent tasks it's about 5%