Welcome to the club!

i gotta give linux mint a try, my main concern is compatibility with clip studio paint 😩

you can always install it alongside windows, it gave me that option when i started the installation. if you do that it partitions your drive and lets you pick between the two systems on startup. that way you could try out ways to make clip work in mint without losing your old system!

oh neat 👀 that's good to know!

Hell yes, welcome to having an OS that doesn't throttle itself to serve you ads and feed your info to MS.

ive been lookin into mint but im not super tech savvy! how does it compare to windows, was it hard to install, how is it working for your tablet and drivers and stuff so far? i hate windows security issues and their ai bullshit i hate this TToTT

installation wasn't difficult, it practically holds your hand throughout the whole process. it honestly took longer just to back up all my old files to an external drive than it did for the whole system to install itself. you can install it alongside your old system and pick which one to use on startup, which is good if you want to try it without getting rid of windows (tho i opted to let it wipe my old system)
the ui is very similar to windows, which is good since it's what i'm used to, but overall it's just way quicker to load stuff both in-browser and in my file system. it boots up super quick on startup, and my tablet function and pen sensitivity worked perfectly from the start without having to do a ton of troubleshooting (apparently the system detects any hardware that needs drivers and installs them automatically during the initial OS installation). the only hiccup was having to re-install and customize all my old brush/layout settings in krita, but other than that i've had no major issues. i have heard that multiplayer games don't like it, which isn't an issue for me (not a gamer), so keep that in mind if you play a lot of those.

i do quite a bit multiplayer but im sure theres a solution for it (or double booting for games only i suppose!)
THANK YOU THIS IS VERY INFORMATIVE TO ME!!!

im way more inclined to get it now knowing its pmuch not a problem to work with!!! thank you so much!