Cool you're trying linux. I'm not sure about the Mint thing...seems like kind of a bloated mess to me; I should scan a fresh install sometime to see how bad it is out of the box. I'm more into a cleaned up install of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Gnome for daily tasks, and Kali for the fun stuff. Also booting into a live version of Ubuntu or Kali is a good way to play with it without doing an install, and run forensics if you are so inclined. Good luck, and keep it cleaned up; make sure you at least run sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade frequently to keep it up to date.