I'm going to try Linux Mint, looking for any help :)

[PCMan007]

Okay so a couple years back I tried out Linux Mint 19 (Sarah) in Oracle VirtualBox. I wanted to see how games would run. Only there was one small problem. I wasn't able to install any dedicated GPU drivers, so all the games ran poorly. About a year ago I posted here, as Windows 7 Pro support was ending, I need a reliable OS to use. Junkwin 10 is just something that I will never, ever use in my lifetime. It's spyware and I want nothing to do with it.

Now granted I am still on Windows 7 Pro, and here I am, seriously wanting to take, what I feel, is a huge plunge off of a cliff that is insanely high. There's so many unknowns to me with this. So I'm going to try to get as many questions as I can out there, and any help you can give me is all that I kindly ask for

So my main question would be this: I built my PC back in 2015, as I'm sure this is normal, I have my motherboard DVD still, so that I can install all of my drivers. Mainly, in order for me to have internet capability, I need to have installed the LAN driver from the motherboard DVD. If there's no Linux folder on that disk, or even if there is, how would I install that driver, along with all my other motherboard drivers? Would I still need that DVD?

I am planning to burn the .iso to a DVD, and try a live iso I think is the terminology. Just so that I can really try everything out with Linux. Would I be able to install dedicated GPU drivers and games to see how they work, or are things limited with the live iso? My main goal here is to see just how well this would really work for me. I'm sick of microscrap and their anti-customer politics they've been playing for roughly the last 20 years or so.

If I did want to install Linux, could I install to an external hard drive? All of my drives currently are internal. I have one external that serves as a backup for my games drive, but I would want to install to a blank hard drive. My question here is, if I can go with an external drive, then it means booting from removable media option, and that would need set up in the bios, correct?

My other question is, if I can use an external hard drive, how would I know what drive to install to? Now, I read several years ago that if you wanted to start installing to hard drives, but you aren't sure what hard drive is what (because Linux reads hard drives differently than windows does) that it's recommended to unplug all your hard drives except the one you want to install linux onto, and that Linux can completely clear drives during an installation if you aren't careful.

Is any of that true? With my 4 hard drives being internal, it's a lot for me to have to go through and unplug every single drive.

I'm planning to run the Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop 19.3. My games question is this: I heard that with running Linux, as a windows user, you lose like 50% game compatibility. As in 50% of the games I own, I won't be able to run. Is there some list out there somewhere that has a list of working games? I heard that Dosbox works in Linux, so that means all of my dos games would still run then, yes?

Thank you for any help you can provide.

[RIH]

A few questions there..

As far as Dosbox goes...try it..
https://www.ostechnix.com/how-to-run-ms ... -in-linux/

Linux is better for gaming now than before - thanks to the likes of Steam - but still lags pretty far behind Windows..

If I were you, then I would probably keep an off-line copy of Windows 7 (just to play games) & dual boot with Mint for everyday interaction with the outside world.

I run Windows 7 (& 10) as virtualbox guests & you say that you have VB experience...however gaming is probably 1 of the areas where the more of your computer resources you can utilise, the better. For that reason I wouldn't recommend that you use virtualbox as a solution.

For absolute safety leaving only the drive that you want to put Linux on physically connected is probably a wise choice..

Trying Linux out via the live media is just about the best way to cancel (or confirm ) any fears you have without any heartache!!!

[I2k4]

Sounds like you have a plan. I always suggest several weeks of testing any version (and different desktop environments) using a persistent live USB on 16GB thumb drive rather than an optical drive. "Persistence" lets the user install software and change system and software settings without having them disappear on every reboot - it will last weeks for thoroughly trying out hardware and peripheral device compatibility, the minor "workarounds" that most system need, and how you like different OS versions and software, or don't.

From Windows, you can easily build the live USB drive with Pendrive installer - requires a quick BIOS reset to give the USB drive boot priority ahead of the C: Drive. I reformat the thumb drive as NTFS using the Pendrive installer, and set 6GB or so as "persistence".

https://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal ... -as-1-2-3/

From the Mint boot you'll be able to mount the Windows C:// drive as external and access documents and media files from it to evaluate Linux software. Settling on a Mint install with a temporary boot should give you plenty of time to consider the alternatives for a regular install, without any changes to the current Windows set up.

[PCMan007]

A few questions there..

As far as Dosbox goes...try it..
https://www.ostechnix.com/how-to-run-ms ... -in-linux/

Linux is better for gaming now than before - thanks to the likes of Steam - but still lags pretty far behind Windows..

If I were you, then I would probably keep an off-line copy of Windows 7 (just to play games) & dual boot with Mint for everyday interaction with the outside world.

I run Windows 7 (& 10) as virtualbox guests & you say that you have VB experience...however gaming is probably 1 of the areas where the more of your computer resources you can utilise, the better. For that reason I wouldn't recommend that you use virtualbox as a solution.

For absolute safety leaving only the drive that you want to put Linux on physically connected is probably a wise choice..

Trying Linux out via the live media is just about the best way to cancel (or confirm ) any fears you have without any heartache!!!

Cool. Thanks for the info

So what about, can I install any drivers while using the live iso, or do I have to install Linux to really be able to do that?

[kc1di]

Most drivers in linux are now part of the kernel and should not need to be installed at all. There are exceptions such as wireless driver for some cards and some printer drivers etc. You should be able to tell from the live session what works out of the box and what will not.
If you find some things do not work post back here asking for help in the appropriate forum section and someone can usually help sort it out.
Also unless your using a persistent live disc/usb drive anything you change in the live session will be lost when your reboot. And will have to be reinstalled again. In the live desktop session go to a terminal and type this code

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

and post the output in any post requesting help. It gives an overview of the system and helps us to help you.

Good luck in your search.

[ralplpcr]

Most drivers in linux are now part of the kernel and should not need to be installed at all. There are exceptions such as wireless driver for some cards and some printer drivers etc. ......

The biggest thing you'll likely NOT be able to check in a live session will be your graphics card drivers. While the linux kernel has support for many common devices built-in, you'll likely need to install graphics card drivers after actually installing to at least a persistent USB or onto HDD. Note that these probably *won't* be the drivers you have on DVD - - Linux Mint has an excellent "Driver Manager" application that will help install proprietary drivers for most graphics cards & wifi cards that have been fine-tuned to work with Mint. It's not perfect, and there will be some hardware that requires extra steps to get working.... but this should probably be your first step before trying to install any external drivers.

And as mentioned, if you have difficulty with getting any particular hardware working, just post here and ask for help.

FYI - You can also install Windows 95 in DOSBOX. If the games you enjoy can work under Windows 95, this may also be a way to have them working.
For full-speed gaming with hardware support, you will either need a Linux version of the game (such as those supported in STEAM) or a dual-boot system. A virtual Windows system is good for some things... but gaming that requires a powerful video card isn't really one of them.

[PCMan007]

Most drivers in linux are now part of the kernel and should not need to be installed at all. There are exceptions such as wireless driver for some cards and some printer drivers etc. ......

The biggest thing you'll likely NOT be able to check in a live session will be your graphics card drivers. While the linux kernel has support for many common devices built-in, you'll likely need to install graphics card drivers after actually installing to at least a persistent USB or onto HDD. Note that these probably *won't* be the drivers you have on DVD - - Linux Mint has an excellent "Driver Manager" application that will help install proprietary drivers for most graphics cards & wifi cards that have been fine-tuned to work with Mint. It's not perfect, and there will be some hardware that requires extra steps to get working.... but this should probably be your first step before trying to install any external drivers.

And as mentioned, if you have difficulty with getting any particular hardware working, just post here and ask for help.

FYI - You can also install Windows 95 in DOSBOX. If the games you enjoy can work under Windows 95, this may also be a way to have them working.
For full-speed gaming with hardware support, you will either need a Linux version of the game (such as those supported in STEAM) or a dual-boot system. A virtual Windows system is good for some things... but gaming that requires a powerful video card isn't really one of them.

I actually followed a Youtube video to install Windows 98SE in Virtualbox, with a driver because Windows 98 in a VM is extremely laggy and bad. Well, I was supposed to do something with editing a file for Windows 98SE, but I forgot to close out the VM, the whole thing got screwed up and I said forget it, forget it, I wasn't going to redo everything all over again. So I've all but given up on VM work. And this happened like 3+ months ago, and I'm still extremely frustrated just thinking about it.

I've got some anxiety issue/OCD that really came on me like 5-10 years ago, and so even things like building a PC now just stresses me out to the point to where I can't even do it. So with regard to the Linux live iso, I really wish I had someone here to walk me through and explain each process. But I've thought about doing the Linux iso thing for a while now, and that is becoming less and less worry for me, which is good. I know, it probably sounds ridiculous but it is what it is :-/

[AndyMH]

I tried out Linux Mint 19 (Sarah) in Oracle VirtualBox. I wanted to see how games would run. Only there was one small problem. I wasn't able to install any dedicated GPU drivers, so all the games ran poorly.

The answer as you have figured out is to dual boot. While linux gaming performance has improved, mainly through steam, dual boot gives you the greatest choice with no loss of performance. My desktop is dual boot with win10, solely for my oculus rift, win10 is used for no other purpose. Dual booting is also the easy way of easing yourself into linux.

If I did want to install Linux, could I install to an external hard drive?

Yes you can, but it would probably run faster on one of your internal drives, particularly if they are SSDs.

If you do go with an external drive, then you may need to change BIOS settings (to change the boot order) or simply rely on pressing whatever Fn key is required to select the boot device on start (F12 on my thinkpads, F11 on my desktop). You have choices.

how would I know what drive to install to? Now, I read several years ago that if you wanted to start installing to hard drives, but you aren't sure what hard drive is what (because Linux reads hard drives differently than windows does) that it's recommended to unplug all your hard drives except the one you want to install linux onto

You don't need to unplug your drives, but you do need to understand how linux 'labels' drives. Assuming that all your drives are sata, then the drive in the first sata slot is sda, the next sdb and so on. Within that the first partition on a drive would be sda1, the next sda2 and so on. Windows confuses things because it calls partitions drives, e.g. C: or D: when they are just partitions on a drive (which windows calls a disk). Blame windows for this. Think of drives as the physical object (=sda) and partitions on the physical object as sdaX (= C: or D: in win speak, or sda1, sda2 in linux).

There is a program on the mint iso, gparted (not installed by default but you can install from the software manager), which is the partition editor for linux. It is GUI and will show you the drives and partitions in your system. It also allows to to delete/create/resize/move partitions. You can generally tell which drive is which by the size, name and content. The screenshot below shows my main system drive on my 'test' laptop. This drive is dual boot with win10.

You can see a dropdown top right showing which drive is selected (and its size), and then the partitions on that drive. You can see sda4 is win C: and my linux partitions are sda5 (the / partition) and sda6 (my /home partition). Note - it shows a linux swap partition, you don't need one with LM19.x, I've only got one because I needed it in previous versions of mint.

My recommendation would be to create space on one of your internal drives (preferably an SSD) and install mint into that. Use win's disk management tools to shrink existing partitions (drives in win speak) and create unallocated space to install mint into - as a minimum 30GB, a lot more recommended. When you install mint you should get an 'install alongside' option or if you want more control there is a 'something else' option which allows you to create ext4 partitions in unallocated space and tell mint what to use them for (create a single ext4 partition and tell mint to use it for /).

Do you know if win is installed in legacy or UEFI mode?

And finally, before you start take a backup of the drive you want to install mint into - I'd recommend macrium reflect for this. Just in case, messing around with your system can be nerve-wracking.

[ralplpcr]

The best way to determine if Linux Mint is right for you is to dive in & give it a go with a live session. While I know you stated games as one of your priorities, the operating system is much more than just games - - there's the matter of how to navigate, how to change settings, how to open documents, etc. The "look & feel" of the OS is just as important. If you can't stand these differences from Windows, then you won't have a happy experience.

Fortunately, Linux Mint is widely used and is well-documented & supported. Its most similar to the experience in Windows XP, but with a much more modern & supported back-end. There are plenty of online tutorials & "how to" videos online that will help guide you from just learning the desktop all the way up to more complex operations. This forum is also a very good resource - - you'll find that if you have a problem, *someone* on here has probably encountered it before, and most users are very willing to help if they can.

Here is a 7 part series that bills itself as a complete tutorial for Linux Mint. It's designed for beginners, so some of the stuff may seem pretty basic.... but it'd be a good start to get yourself familiar with how Mint operates if you're unsure about making the switch.

Since you already indicated you have a DVD drive, burning the ISO onto DVD is probably the easiest method of giving Mint a try. You can boot up into a live session directly from your DVD, and as long as you don't intentionally install or alter any of your Windows files, your existing Windows installation will be untouched. Anything you do in your live session will simply "go away" upon rebooting. Just don't do the "Install Mint" wizard or change any of your Windows files while you're booted into the live session, and you'll be fine. (If you're truly worried about messing anything up, it's always advisable to have a recent backup beforehand)

Once you're comfortable with how Mint operates, we'll be glad to help install (either to HDD or USB with persistence) and get you set up with all the necessary drivers, etc. We were all new to this experience ourselves at one point - - it's a learning experience, but most here would agree that it's worth the effort.

[PCMan007]

I tried out Linux Mint 19 (Sarah) in Oracle VirtualBox. I wanted to see how games would run. Only there was one small problem. I wasn't able to install any dedicated GPU drivers, so all the games ran poorly.

The answer as you have figured out is to dual boot. While linux gaming performance has improved, mainly through steam, dual boot gives you the greatest choice with no loss of performance. My desktop is dual boot with win10, solely for my oculus rift, win10 is used for no other purpose. Dual booting is also the easy way of easing yourself into linux.

If I did want to install Linux, could I install to an external hard drive?

Yes you can, but it would probably run faster on one of your internal drives, particularly if they are SSDs.

If you do go with an external drive, then you may need to change BIOS settings (to change the boot order) or simply rely on pressing whatever Fn key is required to select the boot device on start (F12 on my thinkpads, F11 on my desktop). You have choices.

how would I know what drive to install to? Now, I read several years ago that if you wanted to start installing to hard drives, but you aren't sure what hard drive is what (because Linux reads hard drives differently than windows does) that it's recommended to unplug all your hard drives except the one you want to install linux onto

You don't need to unplug your drives, but you do need to understand how linux 'labels' drives. Assuming that all your drives are sata, then the drive in the first sata slot is sda, the next sdb and so on. Within that the first partition on a drive would be sda1, the next sda2 and so on. Windows confuses things because it calls partitions drives, e.g. C: or D: when they are just partitions on a drive (which windows calls a disk). Blame windows for this. Think of drives as the physical object (=sda) and partitions on the physical object as sdaX (= C: or D: in win speak, or sda1, sda2 in linux).

There is a program on the mint iso, gparted (not installed by default but you can install from the software manager), which is the partition editor for linux. It is GUI and will show you the drives and partitions in your system. It also allows to to delete/create/resize/move partitions. You can generally tell which drive is which by the size, name and content. The screenshot below shows my main system drive on my 'test' laptop. This drive is dual boot with win10.
Screenshot from 2020-06-13 16-43-59.png
You can see a dropdown top right showing which drive is selected (and its size), and then the partitions on that drive. You can see sda4 is win C: and my linux partitions are sda5 (the / partition) and sda6 (my /home partition). Note - it shows a linux swap partition, you don't need one with LM19.x, I've only got one because I needed it in previous versions of mint.

My recommendation would be to create space on one of your internal drives (preferably an SSD) and install mint into that. Use win's disk management tools to shrink existing partitions (drives in win speak) and create unallocated space to install mint into - as a minimum 30GB, a lot more recommended. When you install mint you should get an 'install alongside' option or if you want more control there is a 'something else' option which allows you to create ext4 partitions in unallocated space and tell mint what to use them for (create a single ext4 partition and tell mint to use it for /).

Do you know if win is installed in legacy or UEFI mode?

And finally, before you start take a backup of the drive you want to install mint into - I'd recommend macrium reflect for this. Just in case, messing around with your system can be nerve-wracking.

Oh wow, thank you so much for the information and answering my questions I'm unsure if Win is legacy or UEFI though, and all my drives are the standard sata 7500rpm drives. And with you showing me and explaining how drives are recognized in Linux, with sda1 and such, omg, I FINALLY have information!!

All I've ever gotten prior to this is something like "well, you'll see it when it comes on the screen" or I was getting answers like, "yea so you just open this and that but then you can't do X, and you HAVE to do it this one specific way for Y to happen or you have to reinstall everything" Your answers were extremely informative and helpful for exactly what I need, so thank you again

[PCMan007]

The best way to determine if Linux Mint is right for you is to dive in & give it a go with a live session. While I know you stated games as one of your priorities, the operating system is much more than just games - - there's the matter of how to navigate, how to change settings, how to open documents, etc. The "look & feel" of the OS is just as important. If you can't stand these differences from Windows, then you won't have a happy experience.

Fortunately, Linux Mint is widely used and is well-documented & supported. Its most similar to the experience in Windows XP, but with a much more modern & supported back-end. There are plenty of online tutorials & "how to" videos online that will help guide you from just learning the desktop all the way up to more complex operations. This forum is also a very good resource - - you'll find that if you have a problem, *someone* on here has probably encountered it before, and most users are very willing to help if they can.

Here is a 7 part series that bills itself as a complete tutorial for Linux Mint. It's designed for beginners, so some of the stuff may seem pretty basic.... but it'd be a good start to get yourself familiar with how Mint operates if you're unsure about making the switch.

Since you already indicated you have a DVD drive, burning the ISO onto DVD is probably the easiest method of giving Mint a try. You can boot up into a live session directly from your DVD, and as long as you don't intentionally install or alter any of your Windows files, your existing Windows installation will be untouched. Anything you do in your live session will simply "go away" upon rebooting. Just don't do the "Install Mint" wizard or change any of your Windows files while you're booted into the live session, and you'll be fine. (If you're truly worried about messing anything up, it's always advisable to have a recent backup beforehand)

Once you're comfortable with how Mint operates, we'll be glad to help install (either to HDD or USB with persistence) and get you set up with all the necessary drivers, etc. We were all new to this experience ourselves at one point - - it's a learning experience, but most here would agree that it's worth the effort.

Awesome! Thank you so much for your help I'm definitely going to watch those videos now. I know mentions of dual booting have been mentioned here, but I'm just for moving away from ms. If I have to lose some game compatibility, then so be it. I'm just tired of ms and their poor service, and then how they screwed us older users over, I think I just want to make a switch eventually, and hopefully never look back. Thanks again

[PCMan007]

The best way to determine if Linux Mint is right for you is to dive in & give it a go with a live session. While I know you stated games as one of your priorities, the operating system is much more than just games - - there's the matter of how to navigate, how to change settings, how to open documents, etc. The "look & feel" of the OS is just as important. If you can't stand these differences from Windows, then you won't have a happy experience.

Fortunately, Linux Mint is widely used and is well-documented & supported. Its most similar to the experience in Windows XP, but with a much more modern & supported back-end. There are plenty of online tutorials & "how to" videos online that will help guide you from just learning the desktop all the way up to more complex operations. This forum is also a very good resource - - you'll find that if you have a problem, *someone* on here has probably encountered it before, and most users are very willing to help if they can.

Here is a 7 part series that bills itself as a complete tutorial for Linux Mint. It's designed for beginners, so some of the stuff may seem pretty basic.... but it'd be a good start to get yourself familiar with how Mint operates if you're unsure about making the switch.

Since you already indicated you have a DVD drive, burning the ISO onto DVD is probably the easiest method of giving Mint a try. You can boot up into a live session directly from your DVD, and as long as you don't intentionally install or alter any of your Windows files, your existing Windows installation will be untouched. Anything you do in your live session will simply "go away" upon rebooting. Just don't do the "Install Mint" wizard or change any of your Windows files while you're booted into the live session, and you'll be fine. (If you're truly worried about messing anything up, it's always advisable to have a recent backup beforehand)

Once you're comfortable with how Mint operates, we'll be glad to help install (either to HDD or USB with persistence) and get you set up with all the necessary drivers, etc. We were all new to this experience ourselves at one point - - it's a learning experience, but most here would agree that it's worth the effort.

So I've got just one more thing for now, and that's getting the .iso on to the DVD. In a previous topic I made in 2019, someone mentioned using Etcher to burn the .iso. Well, I downloaded Etcher and have it installed. However, when I go to select Target, it says, No removable media found! In the Computer icon in Windows, my DVD drive shows up in the list of available drives. So is Etcher looking for a USB drive only then? And this same thing happened with Windows 7 Pro, I was making a disk image, and it wanted to see an external hard drive. I had a USB stick plugged in, and it wouldn't even find that.

How can I burn the Mint .iso file to my DVD disk if Etcher isn't finding any removable media? Also in that 2019 post, someone mentioned Rufus, but I'm just looking for the easiest and best way to burn the .iso to a DVD disk.

[ralplpcr]

You said you had Windows 7, yes?

If so, then it's a piece of cake: To burn an ISO image in Windows 7, all someone needs to do is simply right-click on an ISO image and choose “Burn disc image”. The Windows Disc Image Burner will launch. Simply select (confirm) the DVD drive with your disk in it, and press "Burn". Once it finishes, you should have a perfectly usable Linux Mint DVD!

[PCMan007]

You said you had Windows 7, yes?

If so, then it's a piece of cake: To burn an ISO image in Windows 7, all someone needs to do is simply right-click on an ISO image and choose “Burn disc image”. The Windows Disc Image Burner will launch. Simply select (confirm) the DVD drive with your disk in it, and press "Burn". Once it finishes, you should have a perfectly usable Linux Mint DVD!

Oh, ok. It's been so long since I've even done that, since everything went digital, I haven't had to burn any disks. I'll give that a shot.

In my 2019 post, someone mentioned that the windows burn process doesn't always work on the file, but I do have Nero software that came with the DVD drive as well. Thanks again

[PCMan007]

You said you had Windows 7, yes?

If so, then it's a piece of cake: To burn an ISO image in Windows 7, all someone needs to do is simply right-click on an ISO image and choose “Burn disc image”. The Windows Disc Image Burner will launch. Simply select (confirm) the DVD drive with your disk in it, and press "Burn". Once it finishes, you should have a perfectly usable Linux Mint DVD!

Oh wait, so I just burn the .iso then? I don't need to extract anything? So it's just burn the 1 file, .iso file to the disk and that's it? Just want to be sure because it's a DVD-R, don't have anymore RW's.

[ralplpcr]

Yes, that should be all you need - - just the downloaded .ISO file, burned to DVD.

[PCMan007]

Yes, that should be all you need - - just the downloaded .ISO file, burned to DVD.

So I burned 1 file to the DVD, which was the packaged .iso file. I then rebooted, went into BIOS 1st boot device is DVD-ROM, 2nd is hard drive, 3rd is removable media. The DVD is in the tray, and, Windows booted, not Linux. Is there something I'm missing?

Also, my Windows 7 Pro DVD boots up perfectly fine in this DVD-ROM drive that I have installed. My BIOS has the setting to boot from DVD as well, so not sure why nothing happened. It just acted as if there was a disk in the drive, and that it wasn't even bootable. Got no message or anything, just booted right into Windows.

[rossdv8]

Try changing boot priority in BIOS to

1st bootable drive: Removable Media
2nd bootable drive: Hard Disk Drive
3rd bootable drive: CD-ROM

Don't forget 'Save Changes and Exit' or whatever your BIOS needs. And a Reboot. One of the function keys used to do that. It will tell you somewhere on the BIOS menu.

Also ( and this might sound silly, but it is worth checking),
make sure that if your computer has any USB 3 ports - write your 'bootable .iso' to a USB 3 Flash Drive, NOT a Usb 2 drive.
And make sure to plug it into one of the 'USB 3' ports to boot.

If you built your computer in 2015, chances are you have a mix of USB 2 and 3.

The right media and the right port will have a significant impact on your enjoyment of testing Mint live on removable media.

And if you have trouble doing the BIOS change, you might find that either continually TAPPING the ESC key
or HOLDING Down the Esc key as the system is booting 'might' bring up a menu asking what device you wish to boot from. Just use the arrow keys to find your bootable flash drive and press Enter.

Different BIOS use different keys. If Esc doesn;t work, you can find which Function Key to tap or hold down on boot.
I have some boards with BIOS that use Esc, some that need F10 and some that want F11. Mr GooGle or your manual will tell you, sometimes it is even in a BIOS Menu OR
It might show on the screen that appears briefly as the sustem is booting, where it tells you to 'Press F1 to enter BIOS' or Press F2 to Enter BIOS'.

** This post has been long and tedious and brought to you by RossDv8.
please accept my apologies for the 'waffling and diskointed' nature of my suggestions.

[PCMan007]

Try changing boot priority in BIOS to

1st bootable drive: Removable Media
2nd bootable drive: Hard Disk Drive
3rd bootable drive: CD-ROM

Don't forget 'Save Changes and Exit' or whatever your BIOS needs. And a Reboot. One of the function keys used to do that. It will tell you somewhere on the BIOS menu.

Also ( and this might sound silly, but it is worth checking),
make sure that if your computer has any USB 3 ports - write your 'bootable .iso' to a USB 3 Flash Drive, NOT a Usb 2 drive.
And make sure to plug it into one of the 'USB 3' ports to boot.

If you built your computer in 2015, chances are you have a mix of USB 2 and 3.

The right media and the right port will have a significant impact on your enjoyment of testing Mint live on removable media.

And if you have trouble doing the BIOS change, you might find that either continually TAPPING the ESC key
or HOLDING Down the Esc key as the system is booting 'might' bring up a menu asking what device you wish to boot from. Just use the arrow keys to find your bootable flash drive and press Enter.

Different BIOS use different keys. If Esc doesn;t work, you can find which Function Key to tap or hold down on boot.
I have some boards with BIOS that use Esc, some that need F10 and some that want F11. Mr GooGle or your manual will tell you, sometimes it is even in a BIOS Menu OR
It might show on the screen that appears briefly as the sustem is booting, where it tells you to 'Press F1 to enter BIOS' or Press F2 to Enter BIOS'.

** This post has been long and tedious and brought to you by RossDv8.
please accept my apologies for the 'waffling and diskointed' nature of my suggestions.

Thanks for the help I'm well versed in the BIOS actually, but no, I want to try and do this using a DVD. Turns out, I didn't burn an ISO disc, I only burned the file to the disc, so in other words it wasn't a bootable disc. And yep, I have 2 USB 3 in the front and all USB 2 in the back of the case. I was able to get some help in another post I made concerning how to properly burn a DVD that is bootable and this time, following the directions I was given, it worked!

So I'm going to try and boot with this newly burned disc image from the .iso file. Thank you again

[rossdv8]

Congratulations.

Running Mint live from DVD works, but is a bit painful compared with running it from a USB 3 flash drive plugged into a USB 3 port however, you must have your reasons for using DVD .

Have Fun and perhaps do the exercise a few times to try different flavours of Mint. Each has its own 'feel'.