Windows will take precedence on the boot list and so you need to change that.

You either need to configure the BIOS to boot the USB first, or you might just need to press the boot menu button (if it's activated). Mine is F12, so push the F numbers as soon as the power is on.

The computer might skip certain things if it just restarts to make it boot faster, so power off, and repeat.

EDIT: List your mamaboard so we can help you find out.

Correct, just make sure you've put in a new USB stick and choose correctly.

Well I just checked my BIOS and it's very fancy and impressive, but when I looked in the boot options I saw NOTHING that mentioned USB (or CD/DVD, for that matter). There were only a couple of options available at all, and I'm not sure I even know what they mean (it was hardware jargon, which isn't really my expertise). I'm not sure where to find what board type I have - would that correspond to which BIOS I have or wouldn't you need to know that too? I'm looking in the system properties of the computer and it lists the processors, RAM, Windows version and product key, but that's about all.

I assume you have a laptop?
Booting from a USB con get tricky on some models, where you need to disable stuff like secure boot etc. This is the typical Microsoft way to lock the system while claiming "it's for safety reasons". Probably is but that means a locked system that can only run Windows? How convenient...

BTW, Rufus has a lot of options and I prefer that but Etcher is very simple to use, just flash the drive and the program pretty much configure every thing for you.

Why don't you just tell us what the boot options were.

idk it might have been a weird configuration with my live cd.
I experienced in a live harddrive repair usb, and maybe a mint one.

I don't know any distros that require that much for a live distro... 2-4 gb should be average...
I have a Live CD of Opensuse Tumbleweed linux installed on a 4.7gb DVD with 1.8gb free.
Now I tried saving a file to it but it wasn't there after reboot, there is some way to make the Live CD in a way tho that it saves the files I think. But you would have to check google of how to do that.

if this statement "For Opensuse I think... it wants to do a 40gb partition by default but there is probably a way to make it smaller. " confused you, that is only when you try to install on your system, and that is the default recommended partitioning only because you then have plenty of space for files and programs, you can definitely choose to make it install on smaller space like 8 gb and it is my fault if I mislead you.

Dark_art_, why would you assume that? No, I'm using a desktop computer. I just read about secure boot, and, are you kidding me?! Windows grabs you by the balls! Anyway, I looked up how to boot from a USB device, and if that doesn't work, how to disable secure boot altogether, so I'll try that. I think I'm fine with Rufus, but if I have any problems with it I'll try Etcher.

clarry, because I don't remember the options and I can only see them when Windows isn't running, so it's a catch-22. I guess I could write them down, but I hadn't done so. I'll do it if I need to though.

aRealCyborg, I don't see how a CD could have files saved to it unless it's an RW, but in any case, I'm putting it on an 8 GB drive and it looks like that will probably be plenty for me.

My favorite distro is Debian with KDE, you should try it sometime.

Great news! I restarted to boot from the USB and it loaded a Linux options screen! I didn't turn off secure mode, only because I read that it can be hard to turn back on again, if for any reason I ever need to do so, but in any case, it seems to be able to boot fine from the drive!

However, I didn't go further than that, because I don't actually want to install it on the hard drive (I only have one partition, and it's getting late so I think I'll save installing it to another USB drive for another day). But the options said something like "Run Linux Mint 20 64-bit" (which to me implies that it runs the OS, not the installer for the OS, which is what I thought the ISO is, so I'm a little confused), the second option was the same thing but in compatibility mode, and then there was a third option for "Install OEM" (I think that's what it said, if I remember correctly, but it said it's only for manufacturers). So I wasn't quite sure what to do next. I guess I'll look at it more tomorrow though.

Noromodo, you mean the original Debian? Well maybe, but I think I'm going with Mint for now. Thanks though.

EDIT: Crap, I just read that the Mate version is more compatible with hardware than the Cinnamon version! So I guess I need the Mate version then, since I want maximum compatibility (even with Mac hardware, etc.).

Congratz on getting what you wanted, hope you enjoy your experience even with all the information in this thread and some of it conflicting or not making sense.

Also Mate isn't that bad, it is more of a older style GUI.
tho it is annoying to remake the flash drive.

Well burning the flash drive again is hardly a big deal in the long run. The only reason why I'm considering switching to mate is because it's supposedly compatible with more hardware, but I don't know specifically what (and as I said, I need maximum compatibility with all computers).

And I'm still a little confused about why it wants me to start running Linux before I install it, but the manual implies that I can do that, and then install at any time from within it. Is that right or am I misunderstanding?

Try Mint, and then if you feel at some point you don't like it, you can switch to another Linux distro. :) It is not like you lose any money trying as they are all free (with the exception of e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Linux, but CentOS is basically a free version of them).

As far as I can tell, the earlier "Fedora is better than Debian! No it is not!"-discussion was mainly about that some people prefer getting newest bleeding-edge stuff to their Linux (even if it may be buggy), while others prefer that updates come slower and less frequently as that tends to be a more stable experience.

Also if you want to try different Linuxes side by side, remember the earlier suggestions of test them either by running in VirtualBox, or using bootable USB live versions (which run from the USB stick, not needing an installation to the hard drive at first).

Well, yes, making a bootable stick out of the ISO allows you to run it off the stick, without installing it. Dark_art_ mentioned that earlier. (And it's about the extent of what I know, the one time I threw Mint on my old computer a few years ago while this one was getting a checkup for some odd issues. Made a Mint Xfce (thought that was the lowest resource / most compatible option, wasn't it?) bootable stick, tried running it like that at first, to check that it worked, then installed it and made do with it for a couple of weeks. Quite a few things to like, quite a few to be bothered by, but the dealbreaker with Linux in general for me remains the lack of a proper firewall like Comodo. The very little choice in terms of security software (as in the "antivirus" part) is troubling as well, but a firewall working just like this, and preferably also with the HIPS module this includes, is an absolute must, no ifs or buts or maybes.)

I stick with Ubuntu Mate and POP_OS distros and always with the LTS. They are easy to setup, you can tap out on telemetry and uninstall all the parts asking. Both DE get out of the way of gaming. Never had an issue. Linux user for 20 years. I started on Slackware back in the day. We've come a long way.

Where did you read that? Can you please share the source. Because as far as I know, Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE are just different desktops (GUI) for the same operating system. So it shouldn't have any effect on the hardware compatibility.

The only reason I can think of is that Mate is considered "lighter" than Cinnamon, using fewer resources (CPU and RAM) so it is supposed to run better on older hardware. I don't like it tho. I still use Cinnamon on all my devices and installed it to all my friends. My 15-year-old laptop at home works on Mint 19.3 cinnamon without any problems.