Awesome thanks!

Okay, first post from Mint install! It was funny, last night I downloaded Firefox for Linux to "get ready" and it was already preloaded LOL.

Time to go boot up Windows and make sure I didn't ruin anything there!

Welcome to Linux ;)

With Linux and them boxer dogs, you the man now!

And if by any chance you did, no harm done ;)

It's generally best to install software from synaptic or apt-get as it's easier to keep updated. You can even export a list of all the software you installed if you need to reinstall at a later date.

Okay a couple random questions. I still haven't played around too much yet, as I'm still working on my disc management before I do a clean Win 7 install tomorrow.

When I'm in Mint, I feel like my fan is spinning up way too much - I'm guessing on my GPU, though I do also have a front of case fan. Any way to correct this? I haven't installed the latest drivers for it yet, but assuming that doesn't fix the issue I'd love pointers. The GPU is an nVidia if that helps.

Second - it feels just a tad bit sluggish. Again, I'm pretty "vanilla" so far and haven't started messing about. But it just seems like my clicks aren't quite as responsive and maybe it's taking a bit to long to pop up a box. Is this just me getting used to the "flow" of a new OS and its corresponding response times? Or is there something I can do to get it "jumping" a bit quicker?

Thanks!

Also, I went KDE. Just as I was asking what flavor I should go with, adamhm was creating an amazing giveaway so in the honor of that I road with that particular distro LOL. I DO have a Cinnamon ISO ready to burn however. Assuming I want to swap, is it easy to convert one Mint to another?

*edit Also holy hell it doesn't make me shell out $100 bucks for a spreadsheet and full featured word processor! Can I save documents made in the word processor in such a way that they are easy for Word users to open?

Installing the proprietary drivers should fix it - I use an Nvidia GPU (GTX 970) & don't have this issue. Also the open source Nvidia drivers are pretty terrible atm anyway.

System Settings --> Driver Manager, pick latest available drivers then click apply. The ones in the system repositories are a little out of date, so you might want to consider adding one of the PPAs like xorg-edgers or the new "official" PPA that offers more recent drivers.

Open System Settings, and:

Under Desktop Effects --> All Effects, disable "Fade", "Slide" and "Sliding Popups"
Under Desktop Effects --> Advanced, set compositing type to OpenGL, QT graphics system to Raster and enable "Suspend desktop effects for fullscreen windows"
Under Workspace Behavior --> Screen Edges, set all edges to "No action"

If you decide to try out another desktop environment you shouldn't even need to reinstall, it's just a case of installing the new DE from the repositories AFAIK (I've never tried it myself).

Should be able to, although I haven't touched Microsoft Office in over a decade

Great! Many thanks for this, and more!

I hope I finish up the tedious chores I have planned for this computer tomorrow evening so I can get in some solid time just playing around and getting familiar.

MS Office started supporting ODT format in their recent versions. It's a default interoperable format that should be supported by any decent office suite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

You can create documents in it using LibreOffice and Calligra for instance. Both should be in Mint repositories. If you really need it, LibreOffice can also save in DOCX format.

Welcome Ixamyakxim to a new world of Freedom ;)
I hope you’ll soon feel at home with Linux Mint, and rest assured that there is a lot of people here ready to help you if anything doesn’t go as expected.

Okay a couple of questions.

1) Is there anyway in Linux / Firefox to get my middle mouse button to active a "scroll cursor." I can roll up and down with it, but I want to click it and just move the mouse up or down.

2) I feel like my video card is spinning up just a tad too much still. I could be imagining this or perhaps not. I DID load up my device manager and install what looked like the newest Nvdia Drivers. Anyone have suggestions for other drivers I could try or where I might find them?

3) Where are my GPU settings? I'd like to at least be able to peruse things like scaling, aspect ratio etc etc etc.

Also, I had to put TestDisk to use due to a huge bungle with my Windows reinstall. Holy shit is this little program alone worth it! ;) May you never have to use it, but may you rest a bit easier knowing it's there!

Firefox (press Alt to open menu) > Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General > Enable autoscrolling.

If you use Nvidia proprietary drivers, run nvidia-settings. It's their official UI for their GPU configuration tool. It should also show what's going on with your thermal and fan condition in the GPU.

If you use KDE, you can use krunner to launch stuff quickly with context search. I.e. Alt + F2 and start typing "nvidia-settings". It should also already be in the Settings menu.

To add to shmerl's comment regarding the Nvidia panel and the fan speeds, by default the nvidia settings don't activate the manual fan speed setting.

To enable it open terminal and type: sudo nvidia-xconfig --cool-bits=4

Reboot your system and you're done, now you can leave it on automatic as well as setting it yourself. Turning on manual fan speeds isn't a big issue for older generation cards but for the 900 series I deem it necessary unless you enjoy your card running at 68+ degrees on full load.

You can add the new official proprietary GPU drivers PPA by typing in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

After that update the cache and upgrade packages from your Update Manager or again by terminal:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Currently, the latest Nvidia driver version there is 355, while Mint hosts 346, so you might just gain something.