Stan (
@atanere ) and I are back and forward between this thread and another that is keeping us on the hop, so hope this is not disjointed, each person's questions are very important to him/herself, and we try to cater to that.
But the US will go beddy-byes before long and there'll be a chance to catch the breath.
On a 2TB HDD you could actually run over 100 Linux, but who would want to be doing the maintenance? And before some bright spark pipes up and says "128 is the limit" ... it is not, but that is a story for another time and place.
Tony I/we can throw you heaps of reading material if you are willing, to help you identify a Linux that suits your needs.
But if you start with a Linux Mint Cinnamon or MATE (pron. "mar-tay") you are unlikely to go wrong.
Mint has LTS (Long Term Support) editions (support for up to 5 years and its point releases adhere to attaching themselves to the "mother" version.
The current Linux Mint 18 series is based on Ubuntu's 16 'Xenial Xerus' series, which has support to near end of April 2021.
So Linux Mint has v18.0 'Sarah', 18.1 'Serena', 18.2 'Sonya' and last few days 18.3 'Sylvia' available. all with those 4 DEs I mentioned.
The point releases are much like Windows Service Packs eg SP1, SP2 &c, but unlike having to fix a lot of buggy software they often feature new enhancements, new software released, greater security through the avenue of newer kernels, and of course some bug fixes.
Best spot to get your Minties from is from the horse's mouth, and that is
here .
Read anything it says about verification and authentication. With your Windows 7, once the .iso is downloaded (a little under 2GB, time taken will depend on whether you are with ADSL 2+, NBN or whatever), you should be able to right-click the file and choose burn to disc? Is that so?
If speed is an option, slow and steady wins the race.
Back later
Wiz.