I am still a newbie, so what follows is what worked for me. I might know up to 12 Linux terminal commands, if that, so obviously you don't need to know the Terminal to benefit from Linux. Especially, Mint: it's the easiest of all the distros aka Linux OS programs, to learn as a newbie. Again, I am one, so that's how I know. (I've maybe tried 20 distros by now.)
First top tip: google on anything you don't understand. There's a Linux manual called 'man' but it's really hard to search and use. So just type in Google what you want to know using some long string, like 'how to put Linux on a usb stick' (answered next), not just 'linux stick'. Google is trained for long search posts, and the longer, the sooner you'll find what you seek. Also, it's faster to search in Google and better, versus any forum or website's own search. I don't know why. And what I typed YESTERDAY, can be searched today, in Google (but not here or within whatever site I was typing in, yesterday). So use Google! Or, to help the folks here in linuxmint, use Yahoo or DuckGoGo (I've had little luck with those engines, but your results may vary).
My next top tip is to ignore all those folks who tell you to use LiveUSB or Unetbootin to put Linux on a stick. Instead,
install Linux (i.e., Mint) directly to stick or external drive, via the 10 steps here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=197956 The same procedure works with any distro I've tried, not only Mint. I first learned it two years ago, made a video about it (but the 10 steps' link is easier to use). Just Google on 'brainout' and 'Linux' and 'Youtube' to see the vids. The descriptions are all outdated now, the 10 steps are better.
Install your favorite flavor of Linux to any size external hard drive or stick, and as a newbie all that talk about dual-booting and vm's, you can just ignore. Best of all, you can plug it into any computer you have with at least 512 MB of Ram, and you can function (2-4GB and up, is better). Use an external drive or stick of 60 GB or more, my fav sticks are 3.0 Kingston Data Traveller at Amazon. But Patriot Axle is nice too. Avoid slider sticks, the slider gets stuck.
Okay, but should you use 32-bit or 64-bit? If your favorite programs are over 10 years old, use 32-bit. If you are savvy about 64-bit, then by all means use it, but it needs emulators to run old programs, and you'll need them if you run old programs.
If you're on Windows, you need a Linux distro. It can write to and format DVDs, which XP cannot do, it can copy files which XP and Win7 won't do (mass copying in Windows is a pain, but fast in Linux). Linux can do whatever Windows cannot do well, so just plug a Linux external drive or stick in your Windows machine and you have full access to your Windows stuff.
So what flavor distros? Alway pick at least two, so that using one you can repartition the other. But don't pick them in the same family. So Mint and Fedora, or Mint and PCLinuxOS are different enough. I'm no fan of Ubuntu, but if you are, then Ubuntu and Mint might be your buddies of choice.
Next big question is desktop aka GUI aka what you see as the screen and menuing system. If you like XP or Vista or Win7, pick a KDE desktop or Mate. The former offers more customization but uses more resources, too: have at least 4 GB of RAM if you want to use it. As its 'desktop theme', click on 'Install Themes' if you are online, then search for and install 'Aya', which makes the task bar aka panel, the same colors as you've customized in Application Appearance.
KDE does NOT play well with other desktops, so you can't have it and some other desktop at the same time. PCLinuxOS offers a desktop wardrobe, go to their forums to ask how to use the wardrobe, as I had a bad experience and I guess someone there didn't like me complaining about it, so now I can't post there. Good folk, good OS, compatible with Mint but different enough as a 'buddy'. So maybe whatever I did wrong, you won't do, and you'll have a happy experience.
I like Debian but it's always buggy, so I don't know how well LXDE will play.
Next issue, how to play your windows stuff in Linux. Answer, download Wine from Synaptics package manager. Every file that says 'wine', except those really covering the drink, are the Wine program, meaning Windows Is Not Emulated. It's a translator, not an emulator, for Windows programs.
How to install or use Windows programs in Linux, is best explained here (example is MS Office 2007, but the procedure is the same for using or installing anything on your Windows machine, maybe won't work all the time):
http://www.howtogeek.com/171565/how-to- ... -on-linux/
Oh, and
DOSbox if you run DOS programs like I do (or games). Read the username/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf file on how to tweak the DOS window, after you've downloaded it (make sure Caja View is set to display hidden folders, else you can't see the username/.dosbox folder). You can download DOSbox via Synaptic or other Software manager, just type 'dosbox' in Search and it should show up.
Finally, how to best backup your stuff? Don't merely backup, CLONE. A 'clone' is a BOOTABLE exact replica of your internal hard drive. Linux programs called Knoppix (
http://archive.cs.stedwards.edu/knoppix/) and Clonezilla (which you can also buy in Amazon, link here use Windows Method B:
http://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php) will CLONE your entire hard drive, a stick, an external drive, quickly. Example: I use Clonezilla to clone my XP and Win7 machines (19 of them). When Windows crashes, I just clone the clone back to the internal hard drive, and in 20 minutes or so I'm back up and running. Trick with cloning, is that you must clone TO a drive or stick which is larger than what you're cloning FROM. So if my internal hard drive is 120 GB, then the drive I clone to is bigger than that. It is bootable, but Windows maybe won't boot because Microsoft doesn't want you to do that. Even so, you can clone your internal drive and then when Windows crashes due to some Windows update (which is often), you just clone the clone back to that internal hard drive, and you're a happy camper again. Weirdly, when I plugged a Windows 7 clone by mistake into one of my XP machines at boot, it automatically created a dual boot of that machine in like 30 seconds, so now I can use EITHER Win7 or XP on that machine.
Later on, after you get used to the desktop grapical interface ('GUI'), it will start to annoy you just as Windows is annoying. At which point, you'll be interested to learn how much faster the Terminal can be, to get the same things done. But if you hate arcane gibberish commands and you hate typing, this won't be something you'll want to learn for a long time. Even so, you will want to learn some commands. For example, I downloaded Crossover in maybe 10 seconds from the Terminal (they tell you how at their website); had I instead been able to use Synaptic, it would have taken 15 minutes. Big difference.
If it's working why do you want to break it? Why? Seriously? And you said this is for newbies?
