Umatrix was awesome but is unfortunately not maintained anymore since July 21, 2021. Ublock origin is a perfect replacement though and can be deeply configured behind its simpler appearance. Coupled with the LibRedirect add-on in the Librewolf browser and I can navigate ad and tracking free.

Drivers is a vocabulary you should almost forgot in Linux ;) Contrary to other OS, Linux will rarely require you to install a driver.

To answer your question, doing a simple online “mint wireless 8275” returned a forum with your exact issue. The reported solution is to “try powering it off, remove the power cord and hold the power button for 30 seconds. Reconnect cord and power up”. As weird as it sounds this may work. It worked for me 10 years ago with a keyboard. It’s easy and quick to try it. Let us know if that helps or not. Too bad you didn’t like Arch because your laptop was fully supported.

Enjoy this little guy and Linux! You won’t regret your choice.
As I mentioned in the other thread, I’d advise to keep your firmware up to date with fwupd. Litterally one command line and your system will automatically update all firmware for you (including the bios). This is too often overlooked while very important and this tool makes the process so simple (no search, no manual download, no complex commands).

Personally I use reflector like so:

reflector --verbose --country "United States" -l 200 -p http --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

The modularity, repairability, and price for specs are what attracts me compared to the other companies mentioned in this post.

This is a vast question. Security is an extremely deep topic.
Did you take a look at the wiki? It may be a good starting point.

Always nice to read so great posts. Welcome to a brand new world of possibilities. I promise your journey will be long but full of self accomplishments, learnings, satisfaction. You will probably run into one or two times when you’ll have to search for a solution but in these situations the Linux community will always be there for you and you’ll feel so proud to have learn something along the way.

You realize how much Linux is different to other OS only when you live with it. There’s a real philosophy, it’s not just some branding wording. If you feel adventurous enough you’ll certainly see your mindset and way of thinking evolving as time goes. You have so much possibilities to discover, I’m jealous of this sentiment of new user you’ll experience. I’ve personaly used to tweak Windows back in the days and its limitations (amongst other things) is one of the main reasons why I switched to Linux. Twenty years later I’m wondering how I didn’t know earlier that another world existed.

Beyond the fact that Linux has improved my workflow drastically compared to my Windows/MacOS colleagues, it also helped me grow intellectually. The best part is that it never ends because there’s always a new tool, app, distro to experiment, play with, and learn from.

Working with a system and not adapting to it or fighting against it is a huge difference. Linux has so many options that you can litterally build the system that fits your specific needs and liking to perfection (and even better than you can think now). It’s just a matter of few efforts. We’re not used to make efforts nowadays and prefer opting for the laziness of being the slaves of a system/brand but I can guarantee you will be rewarded for these efforts beyond your expectations.

Enjoy your new life!

Terminal is faster when you’re used to it and sometimes offer more customization options to some apps that has both a GUI and TUI/CLI version.

I use the terminal (st with zsh and tmux) for:

• file management (advcpmv, fd, trash-cli, fzf …)
• emails (neomutt)
• text editing/coding (neovim)
• project management (taskjuggler)
• image viewing/organization (ucolla,ge)
• online video browsing (ytfzf)
• calendar (khal)
• ssh
• vpn
• news aggregator (newsboat)
• web, bookmarks manager (buku)
• passwords manager (pass)
• dotfiles manager (stow)
• not in the terminal but I also have a lot of scripts used in rofi to control my audio input/outputs, launch a web search, access my bookmarks, autocomplete username and password fields

I’m sure I’m missing some obvious tools I use daily. It’s hard remember everything when it becomes so natural.

I have shared my experience with some of these tools here.

I use the open source KISS launcher for years now. Your data never leaves your device, and you can expect to save battery life and speed up your device compared to complex and bloated launchers. KISS is just 250 KB and never connects to the Internet.

The best thing is that - behind a simplistic configuration menu - you can configure it from an ultra minimalist black screen with one text box to call when you need to launch an app, search for a contact, search on internet… to a full app drawer organized however you want (alphabetical order, your own defined categories…). It’s just insane and unfortunately so much overlooked.

"Traditionally, the /opt directory is used for installing/storing the files of third-party applications that are not available from the distribution’s repository.

The normal practice is to keep the software code in opt and then link the binary file in the /bin directory so that all the users can run it."

https://linuxhandbook.com/linux-directory-structure/