timppu, ideally, I'd really like to get it figured out and have the best choice for my needs picked out so that I don't have to change it later, because given my circumstances that would be inconvenient. I'm not really concerned with updates because all I intend to do with this is to use the internet (at least on my computer, but the portable version will actually be disconnected from the internet). I may still try the virtual boxes, but there's a lot of stuff for me to do in general, so I'm just still examining stuff (it always seems to take me about 10 times as long as anyone else to do anything, what with research, testing, analysis of my particular methodology to achieve my goals, etc.).
Cavalary, to clarify, I want it completely installed onto the USB, not just have the installer with the ability to also run it. Why do you miss GoodOldGOG - what was different about that?
Yucaju, to what telemetry are you referring?
Engerek01, I read it directly from the Mint manual, near the bottom of page 6: "If you don't know which edition to use, choose the MATE Edition. It's not as popular as the Cinnamon Edition but it is compatible with a wider variety of hardware
specifications." Then I searched for a comparison of them and found that in terms of speed, compatibility, and reliability, Mate is better than Cinnamon, and that's why all serious users tend to prefer it (their words, not mine). Also, there were images from both and in most cases, they looked almost the same to me (I had expected them to look vastly different), so frankly, I couldn't think of any reason why anyone would prefer Cinnamon.
huppumies, perhaps, but I don't want to drag it out a long time trying to install and use and configure a bunch of different stuff until I find the one that's best for me, and I also don't want to stick with something that isn't. I'd rather at least have some idea of what's probably best and start with that, then if for some reason it isn't, I'll go down the list of what I think are the best options until I find the one that actually is. But ideally I'd like to get it right the first time.
timppu, yeah I get the impression that people don't realize that I actually want to install it onto the USB. I know I can buy bigger USB sticks, but like I said, I want to be able to make as many copies of this as I want, and I don't feel like using an unnecessarily expensive one each time. For the portable usage of Linux, I don't really have a choice but to use a USB stick, because that's the only way I'll be able to accomplish what I'm trying to do, and as for writing to the stick a bunch, tat shouldn't be a problems, because nothing will be written to it once it's set up properly - other sticks will hold saved data. The only reason why I can't just use an installation stick and have it run in "live" mode is because I need to also initially install some custom software onto it, but after that, nothing should ever be written to it (in fact, I'd make the whole stick read-only, if there's a way to do that). And yes, it must be able to adapt to any hardware (really just keyboards, mice and monitors though). And I'm not really worried about the speed of file operations in this case. I haven't really considered XFCE because everything I saw seemed to imply the other two were better, but they didn't really describe that one. I'll look into it, thanks. I sort of feel the same way about GUIs though, which is why my favorite version of Windows is 2000, but I don't mind flash, unless it hogs resources or messes up anything.
sanscript, I don't actually even need it for most of those purposes, but that's good to know I guess. From what I've looked into, I'd still choose Mate over Cinnamon, but I guess that's a personal preference. As for the stuff about running it live to test, if you're implying that I could test it on different hardware to make sure it works, that's of limited use to me, because like I said, I intend to make copies and give them to different people, without having any idea what hardware they're using, and expect it to work (these people have varying degrees of computer literacy and probably have never used Linux before, so I can't expect them to fix driver issues themselves).
huppumies, I'll check out that link - thanks!
sanscript, I don't think it'll be too slow, because the way it'll be used, a person will just boot into the OS, open a specific program, and then use it to open files on other devices (possibly USB sticks or even the HD), and when doing so, there's so much data encoding that the speed of loading the file becomes insignificant by comparison, anyway. As I've said, they won't be written to once I have everything set up. As for it not installing drivers on the fly, that's why I need drivers which are generic enough just to be able to use any keyboard and standard mouse (I wouldn't think that would be a problem), and monitor (that's the potential issue, really, but I don't need OpenGL or anything - just to display the OS and normal programs with windows and stuff). It doesn't even need sound, printers/scanners, game input devices, or any other hardware. It's good to know what I shouldn't turn off secure boot mode, but then it seems to mean that whenever I want to boot Linux, I have to go into the control panel in windows, then restart into the advanced startup routine, and load it form there, which means if the computer's off, I can't just stick in the Linux drive and start it to boot into it - I have to go into Windows first, so that's a bit inconvenient.
EDIT: By the way, does anyone know, if I'm running Linux and I want to save or overwrite a file on a hard drive partition on which Windows is installed, will that mess it up? It wouldn't be a system file, but just a regular one. It's Windows 10, and it's using NTFS. Also, it may need to do the same thing on a MacOS drive or other versions of Windows.
Post edited September 26, 2020 by HeresMyAccount
