OK my friend, let’s be fair here and agree on something from the start. In no way are you near being the normal average windows user. From what you have shared so far over the last year you have a fetish for very detailed personal customization and additional applications of which some are redundant and added extra personal flair like T clock.
I’m hoping you realize that 9,999 out of 10,000 normal average users have no clue what you are talking about nor will they ever need or want all of this personal custom tweaking you do let alone have the skills. They just want something out of the box that works well and not need the extremely detailed tweaking as you do.
But with that said, yes... Any linux can be customized any way you like it with the level of skills you have with windows, and mine allows me to make custom icons as a boxed feature. There is one user here who customizes Linux desktops to look just like Windows 7. I think you should load up mint cinnamon 19.2 in your old one. Many of the menu and tree file structure features you have added to tweak yours come as a standard feature and are customizable.
Go at it with an average user mind set and resist your personal habit of wanting to tweak and customize every detail and add a bunch of extra redundant stuff right off the bat. Let the auto installer just do it’s thing on it’s own without additional boot loader software to “help” it or anything, It doesn’t need anything extra like it may have a few years ago. Try it as is with no changes.
Now I can tell you that I have absolutely no hardware driver issues at all with this version and no tweaking done. I even loaded it on a 2004 HP pavilion (did need a bootloader for this ancient PC install to boot from USB, would have been fine from the CD drive but it was broke) but I use a USB wireless adapter with it fine. And the PC I am using right now with the same OS runs the same USB adapter just fine. The only thing that does not work on the old 04 HP is the wireless button on the keyboard to turn it on and off. I found that I would have to get a mother board specific proprietary driver to make that work again. And of course they no longer have it available.
As for your new Ryzen CPU, The linux kernel is being worked on to make it fully function now. From what I am reading this has also a challenge with Windows because it is so new. Currently the Mint 19.2 has a Kernel 4.15.0-54 which is fine but geared for slightly older PCs of course.
On that we can agree!
Any linux can be customized any way you like it with the level of skills you have with windows,
That, or finding that, is not what I have experienced.
I think you should load up mint cinnamon 19.2 in your old one.
Thanks. I also like https://www.pclinuxos.com/pclinuxos-kde-full-edition-2019-06-release/ Release is Kernel 5.1.10 May be the USB wireless with work with the latter.
Try it as is with no changes.
I have. Every major distro, and some minor, though of late there are more. But I am not giving up.