Yes, I am familiar with needing to set the Bios to boot from a stick. Or the boot option menu HP has.
“Otherwise, I’m ready to go with a Linux distro as my primary OS in 2020.”
I didn’t wait, I got on it as my primary right away. Love the security for normal everyday use. :)
“I didn’t wait, I got on it as my primary right away. Love the security for normal everyday use.”
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Indeed. I might buy a year’s worth of added virus/malware protection via Not Eset32. You can use the fully-functional trial version for a month.
https://www.eset.com/us/home/products/antivirus-linux
Linux is pretty secure to start with, most user don’t bother with additional av-malware protection - it’s just more a peace-of-mind thing to me.
Their are other, free AV programs for Linux, but Eset is a quality brand anti-malware I’ve used on Windows and found it does a pretty good job with real-time protection.
I meant to ask you; what software/kernel update level(s) do you use for Mint? I believe it has 4 levels? Is there a super-safe setting that gives you only security fixes/updates important updates, but doesn’t break your installation?