Not that I can think of. Gparted is fairly self explanatory, and playing with it in a virtual machine is a safe way to practice and learn.
I recommend installing VirtualBox, then booting a Linux Mint iso in it. (If you only have 32 bit OS options, check if you bios supports hardware virtualisation, and turn it on). The live disk has gparted installed by default. You can play with it a bit, and anything you do can only affect the virtual hard drive.
If you install Linux Mint in the virtual machine (remember to remove the iso from the virtual machine after installing or it will keep booting from the iso), you’ll have to install gparted from the package manager. You can then see what an installed OS looks like in gparted. If you make a major mistake, the worst that can happen is you destroy the virtual hard drive. In that case, just delete the virtual machine and make a new one.
If you need real-time help, you can’t can contact me on discord (same user name).
If you’re installing 2 operating systems, always install windows first. It doesn’t play well with other OSs, and will usually overwrite the bootloader.
If you’re installing windows on a separate drive, unplug all the other drivers for the install. I’ve had windows overwrite the bootloader on all 3 drives at the same time.
Yes. You can use gparted to delete the windows partition (remember to back-up files first), then resize the Linux partition to take up the entire drive.
Grub should automatically detect that windows has been removed. If it doesn’t, you can edit the Grub config fairly easily to tell it to not show options on boot, just boot straight into Linux.
There is also an option to remember the last OS booted, and if no button is pressed for 10 seconds during boot, it will continue to that OS.
While Linux Mint may not be designed specifically for game compatibility, it is quite user friendly. The default desktop environment (cinnamon) feels a lot like windows.
It behaves in much the same way as other distros for steam games (check protondb for compatibility). I can’t say how well it works for other games as I haven’t tried.
The Linux Mint installer is fairly intuitive and easy to use. There is an option to install alongside your existing OS, and the included GRUB bootloader will let you select which OS you want to boot each time you turn on your computer.
I’ve tried many different distros, but I keep coming back to Mint for it’s user friendly feel, and simple customisation options.
It’s likely been hacked by someone who guessed the default login details (when was the last time you changed the password on your washing machine), and is being used for malicious purposes such as DDoS attacks.