I had a look at that adapter on Amazon USA: a couple of users reported that Linux is not supported.
However StarTech support recommended another product which supports Ubunta 14.04 to 18.04.
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Monitor-External-Video-Adapter/dp/B008CXFMT6
However at $118 its an expensive solution.
USB to HDMI adapters on Amazon.co.uk go for as low as a tenner and I’ll bet are all ultimately based on similar hardware.
We’ve used Linux for probably 20 years and I love it, so can’t deal with the whole having to have a virus protector etc that you need with Windows. We used Ubuntu for a long, long time but changed to Mint maybe 6 years ago (no idea why hubby just does these things!). We’ve moved both MIL and my mum onto it and they both love it.
My only real peeve is how crap Open Office is!
What about LibreOffice though?
I haven’t really been following the OpenOffice vs LibreOffice split but the former is at least “adequate” for preparing documents. The biggest problem is that interworking with M$ Office is sketchy (but then even Microsoft office is not always compatible with itself).
There is, or was, Abiword, if you just want a word processor - don’t know how that is doing these days but it is still around.
Sorry yes that is what it is now! I find it really buggy and it always has been. When I was at uni I could never get powerpoints done and I find it generally a PITA! I put up with it though as I would hate to go to Windows ever again!
What version of LO are you using?
Mine is v6.4.4.2 and seems to work without issue.
Ummmmmm no idea 
will have to ask the other half!!!
Ahh… the joys of Virtual Machines . IBM invented them you know and, like so many other IBM inventions, others made a fortune out of them. For example Larry Elison with SQL and EMC with the disk drive. Just like AT&T’s unix, or Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre with windows, Ethernet and the laser printer. Gates would be a forgotten BASIC interpreter developer if IBM had succeeded in doing a deal with Digital Research for there CPM OS. I feel a bit the same way about Torvolds, he only rewrote the UNIX kernel and UNIX was and is is so much more than that. He’s standing on the shoulders of many pioneers.
Depends on the version of Mint you are using, and whether or not your husband has installed a PPA version (an additional repository of packages for more up-to-date versions of LibreOffice), a SNAP packaged version, or even, dare I say it, whether he has compiled the source code and installed it himself.
By default in LInux Mint 19 “Tara”, I seem to recall that the supplied version of LibreOffice is 6.0.7.3, so pretty old in the current scheme of LibreOffice development (which is in the 6.4.x branches now). The difference lies in the fact that the version of LibreOffice is supplied from the Ubuntu package repositories, on which the developers from Mint make their own window dressing, and is thus usually a couple of versions behind the current version available for download (which might also explain your frustration at its bugginess, as 6.0.x branches were pretty buggy). This is part of Ubuntu’s long term support initiative, so the software receives security updates (and some backported bug corrections) for at least 5 years, but not generally the new features that get developed and the code refactoring/redesign that appears in the current versions.
I can sympathise if your version is indeed a 6.0.x.x version, that line of releases was particularly bad IMO. There has been much improvement since then, especially with some of the MSOffice import/export filters. Being a community developed project, import/export is still not 100% identical, and likely never will be, as not even MS can manage that between Windows and Mac for example, or even between its own Windows versions. Software of that size is a huge endeavour, and when most things like the import/export filters have to be re-engineered from scratch because there is no “free” access to the code from Microsoft that enables all of the fudges and hidden tricks to deal with the complexity of MS’s legacy file versions, it is not really surprising that bugs will remain. Aside from that, most people who dislike(d) OpenOffice.org and now LibreOffice do so because the software requires you to do things in a different way from the way they are used to with MS. This can be immensely infuriating, especially when you spend hours trying to obtain a result that you just did in 30s with MSOffice. I have to say that there have been a number of efforts to attempt to improve that situation, especially through a redesign of the user interface, but again, comparing like for like is an impossible task - MS spends a considerable sum on user interface development, and the LibreOffice project clearly does not have that kind of budget, so it is reliant on the availability and goodwill of its volunteer contributors. For example, there are now various ribbon-style menu alternatives that you can choose in LibreOffice, and which people might feel are more familiar to them through their previous use of MSOffice. These user interface options are not activated by default, and the user has to know how to switch them on.
If I sound like I’m engaging in a little LibreOffice proselytism, I am, unashamedly. I have been using LibreOffice professionally on pretty much a daily basis since the project began, and before that OpenOffice.org, and before that its predecessor StarOffice (back when it was still proprietary, i.e. before it was bought up by Sun). In my spare time, I am also a member of the volunteer quality assurance group, testing bugs, reporting them, confirming new reports, and sometimes attempting to provide debugging information for those that cause crashes, and I have help produce documentation/manuals in the past as well (in French and in English). There are many bugs reported for this piece of software, and some take a very long time to be resolved. That is the nature of a volunteer-based community project, where you can’t force people to do things at any given time.
Here comes the canvassing bit: if you would like to help with the LibreOffice project, in your own way, volunteers are gratefully welcomed, it doesn’t have to be as a programmer (I’m not one). It can simply be through helping out with translations, preparing user documentation, bringing your design skills to marketing materials, or the user interface development (e.g. icon development), developing extensions to the software, etc. There is a whole range of opportunities for such volunteer contributions!
BTW, if there are any particular issues that people face with using LO, there are a number of internet forums where most of the questions have already been asked (LibreOffice Ask forum, OpenOffice.org forum) and there is also a bug reporting site (LibreOffice bugzilla) where you can check to see if the bug is already known, and if so, whether anything is happening with it, and even file as yet unreported bugs. That is where I tend to hang out, albeit mostly in relation to database issues, and issues specific to macOS (as that is currently my main workhorse).
Mint is not supported by Ubuntu - see this reference.
I have to say I like LO and have just used LO Draw to make a drawing of a gaz housing for chez Lees to contain two Propane Gaz bottles outside for our cooker. The niggling thing is, having used MS Visio to complete a full drawing for chez Lees’ bungalow (now built) there are no extensions I could find giving building items (like windows, doors, furniture etc) which Visio had in abundance. I also have LO CAD and that seems no better 
Unless of course, you can point me in a different direction…
Interesting… I’ve written a few manuals for accounting s/w I have developed in a 4GL over the years…
For basic Archtecural & MEP design I’ve heard Sketch up is not bad
I’ve never used it as I use an Autodesk suite
I didn’t say that Mint was supported by Ubuntu, but that it uses the basis of Ubuntu’s package repositories for the versions of software that it allows you to choose to install by default via the package manager or software installer. Mint has always been a separate derivative project, and it relies heavily on the software package development system provided by Ubuntu (which it sometimes repackages in its own customised style to integrate with the Cinnamon desktop) in order to have as broad a choice of software packages as possible 
I use LO Draw for my patent drawings, and have found it to be sufficiently satisfactory and easy to use for my purposes. As to the shapes libraries, yes, there is a big difference in the provision of predrawn shapes, for which, to my knowledge, only an extension would be able to fill. I don’t know off-hand whether such an extension exists however.
As an alternative, there is SweetHome3D, a Java based drawing program à la Google Sketch, that does come with a series of predefined object libraries, depending on whether one buys the commercial version, or the community version and subsequently installs one of the libraries separately. Again, not a Visio substitute per se, but tailored to a specific need.
For a more general vector drawing program, there is always Inkscape, but I personally find that it has a fairly steep learning curve (although it is incredibly feature packed).
One can use an iPad as a dual screen on MacBooks now Very clever these Apple bods.
I wouldn’t trust Google as far as I can throw them. Which is not far enough 
IMO, the whole “Ubuntu Snap” through Canonical’s Store is no better, nor worse, from a confidentiality POV than anything you can get from Apple Store or Google Play. Whether Flutter will take off as a UI for Linux apps remains to be seen…
It wasn’t exactly a recommendation John, more by way of information 