(superseeded) Linuxcnc on Linux Mint 19.3 quick and easy installation

tommylight, you're so right about Window$. So many times - during boot, using the computer in any way, needing the computer to be something beyond an inefficient space heater, etc., it seems that they decided that, for every step, that whatever would be the least logical machine response was to be immediately preferred to the logical. They shouldn't have called it Windows, but rather, I'm Busy!

On my HP: HP Support Assistant Installing Support Solutions Framework

Holy crap! Makes you wonder when and where they installed the riddle machine.

Just tried on a clean install of 19.3 and I'm getting a kernel panic at boot after picking the kona kernel.
Not sure if it's related to enabling the source code repositories, but I doubt that's the boot problem. I did try installing with Mint 18, upgrading to 18.3, and then upgrading to 19. In the step from 18.3 to 19, the installer said that the X window system must be switched to lightdm. I'm not sure if that's part of the problem.

I think this might be my problem. UEFI. Yeah - you just UEFI'd up your computer! I'll try re-installing with this stuff disabled.

My hardware includes 2 drives, one of which was formatted with a copy of CentOS 7 from an old server farm machine. Pretty sure is was pre-UEFI. That seems to cause all sorts of havoc, so I just removed all of those partitions & reinstalled Linux Mint. My HP 6300 SFF doesn't allow disabling of UEFI and, insanely, I already had this system functioning completely using your guide. Had to reinstall due to a fried motherboard & main drive. I used a new SSD and a WD caviar from that rack server. I'll let you know if this fixes it.

Why do I always seem to be the guinee pig?

You are right, but., like an idiot, I broke off the sata plug on my drive when I was swapping the motherboard....

I did manage to find a cheap Chinese replacement for the drive part with that plug, but it has to get here from China, and I probably need to fumigate all that COVID-19 off of it when it gets here.

Also - because of the weirdness, I kept ending up at the grub prompt on reboot and needed to use the bios selector to get Linux to come up. That drove me to just vaporize everything off of all drives and let the default install do the right thing.

I do use this same box for Fusion 360 as a secondary machine when needed at my mill & lathe, so, for that, I plan to install Win 10 on the other drive and use the bios boot order to pick the system I need. I don't plan on using any boot loader because it really doesn't save any time over the bios interface & likely will cause confusion & consternation.

Is there any advantage to using the proceedure at gnispel.com/linuxcnc/ where you are actually compiling the kernel?

I can't seem to get this system back to life. I even followed the gnispel.com instructions and went through the lengthy build and make process. After finished, and the correct kernel is loaded, I no longer have a system that finds the nVidia graphics card. No nvidia drivers are loaded, the system is running slowly & there's seems to be no version that functions.

Some forums suggest disabling secure boot in the Bios, which I did before starting anything else, I've rebooted a bunch and the nVidia drivers that work fine without patching the kernel no longer work after following the gnispel instructions.