I assumed that the qcad was a “pro trial” until you enter a serial number or something? The link I used was from here:
I tested that script, everything seemed to install.
Edit: I see they have different downloads for the paid versions, so my assumption was wrong about activating the trial version. Assuming it is still a .deb file you can install it the same way as I did in the bash script.
I’m not sure if you are aware, but distributions like Zorin, Mint, Pop_Os and many others use Ubuntu’s packages as a base. So anything that works on Ubuntu will almost always work on distributions that are Ubuntu based. In situations where something fails to install, it is usually a dependency that base Ubuntu has but the paticular distribution does not have.
If you’re searching for solutions for applications, you’re ususally better off googling “how do I install xyz on Ubuntu” rather than “how do In install xyz on Mint”. The solutions are almost always the same and there are a ton more solutions for Ubuntu rather than the derivatives. The base Ubuntu version can be important too, things change between LTS versions. For example, Mint 22.3 is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
No, QCad works different. The trial and pro-trial are limited installations.
When you pay the license fee they send you a link to download the full Pro version that is only good for 24 hours.
No registration or license number to enter, it doesn’t even ask for user name or email - it just installs the Pro version on as many PC’s as you can, also when I got the link I downloaded for Windows, Mac & Linux - multiple versions of each too. J.I.C.
EDIT: None of their files are .deb, they have .run and .tar.gz
EDIT2: Zorin is also based on Ubuntu, the problem was Mint doesn’t come with Snap, your script adding Snap fixed that
Your script got PIA & Teamviewer installed.
Then I used my download of QCad I already had and installed it with the Terminal method and it installed.
For Irfanview Terminal ran through all the lines and said it is installed, but it doesn’t show up in the All Applications list, nor is it an option to select for Open With when right clicking on a photo.
I tried the IrfanView section again and it ran through the other commands until it said IrfanView was already installed and halted. Still can’t find it anywhere.
Plus I was thinking your “sudo apt install snapd” was going to install Snap in the software app, but it’s only in Terminal temporarily.
But, so far Mint does seem to be a lot more stable than Zorin. No long delays with multiple “Not Responding” popups, no freezing video when watching YouTube, no 20 to 30 second delay when right clicking on a video link for it to pop up the drop down menu. QCad doesn’t take 2 minutes to open.
Now to call the gas company back - caught them pumping compressed air in the gas line because every burner on my stove, 4 separate burn tubes in myfurnace, water heater and a ventless heater in the enclosed back porch were all blowing out huge yellow flames Wednesday and a complaint to the Michigan utility commission was forwarded to the gas company for them to investigate themselves to see if they were pumping air though all the gas meters and report their findings back to the state.
Never mind, brain fart.
Had to reboot first
Another fun thing I decided to do - that everyone can join in on to screw Microsloft (or Microslop as they’re now referred to)
They don’t like there has been so many downloads of Linux distro’s using Windows machines, so on my Windows PC I use for PLC’s I try to download a few different Linux’s every day to help with the algorithm - and make sure I am disconnected from my VPN or connected to a USA server. [Unlimited Comcast data, so I might as well use it]
I see you already got this sorted, but one thing you can try next time (assuming you know the name of the actual executable) you can try and run it from a terminal. So just run irfanview for example from the terminal. If that works and launches, then a common way to find the actual executable location would be to use the whereis command. So you could type whereis irfanview and it might give you a result such as /usr/bin/irfanview or something.
This of course doesn’t resolve the issue with it not showing up in the menu, but it provides confirmation that it is indeed installed and knows about it.
Once again, not being a Mint user I’ve never really tried Cinnamon or MATE, but I would assume they follow the FreeDesktop Spec, essentially a standard that many Linux Desktops Environments use on where to place files, and other such things to try and ensure compatibility. For example The FreeDesktop Spec has .desktop files, essentially a file a program can create with information like the name, categories, icons files, were the executable is etc, any Desktop Environment that follows the spec, like GNOME or KDE will see that .desktop file and add an entry in the menu or app launcher for that program. Typically you don’t need to create these yourself the program will create it when it’s installed, but you could manually create it if necessary. I know with some DEs it might take a bit after installing a program before they will do a refresh of the directory where the .desktopfiles are stored and add it to the menu. Worst case you probably only needed to log out and back in instead of doing a full reboot.
Guess I’m still programmed on the Microsloft “Did you reboot it?” “More than 2 times??”
I imagine after years it’s a pretty hard habit to break
The reboot after installing irfanview must be a snap thing. I should have mentioned that, I was going to add sudo reboot to the script but I spaced it by the time I posted the script.
Mint was always a great distribution. The only reason I went away from it is because they dropped their KDE edition.
sudo apt install snapd installs the snap service. For the snap store, you would install sudo snap install snap-store
I had that in my script originally, but I didn’t want to install more than you asked for.
I used to do that in the early days of Linux. SuSE and Redhat were two of my favorites, but Mandrake, Yggdrasil, and Slackware were in there too.
I still have a copy of Caldera (making me legal in the eyes of SCO), and somewhere a copy of Redhat 5.0 which includes the Redneck install language selection back when they didn’t take themselves nearly as seriously.
And if we go back far enough, Minix. 
I have mint on my laptop and xfce(?), which allows focus to follow the cursor. i prefer anything over gnome.
Every few months the /boot/ partition fills up with the old kernels and I have to clean some out.
I think I broke something in my HOME-local anaconda, I can’t always install things (“solving …” never completes), but that is not really tied to mint itself.
Minix? That triggers some old neurons. I put Debian on a 50MB(?) partition of a dual-boot 386SX laptop; the install started with six floppies. The modem stayed up overnight to load everything else.
Does anyone remember Gentoo? We ran the Deep Impact mission’s Science Data Center with it.
I think my first distribution was Mandrake. I recall trying out Mandrake, Gentoo and SUSE. How about Knoppix?
The second computer my family ever owned my dad set up to dual boot between DOS with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, and Slackware. Later Redhat, which I stuck with for a while. Years later I bought a cheap display model PowerBook, and after giving MacOS another try, wiped it to put Linux on it. At the time YellowDog Linux was one of the main PowerPC Supporting Distros (based on Redhat), but it was outdated and had a lot of things that didn’t work well. A few months later Canonical announced the first version of Ubuntu with full PowerPC Support. I tried it and was blown away, it worked well had up to date software (YellowDog was running a 2-3 year old version of Gnome still). Stuck with Ubuntu for many years, but really didn’t like the way things were going with Unity, I hated it as a Desktop Environment, and went looking for other distros. Went back to Fedora for a bit, but eventually looked around for something else and gave Arch a try and really liked it (this was about 12-13 years ago). Stuck with that for a few years and then went back to Ubuntu for a bit when I bought a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition. I still had some annoyances with Ubuntu at the time, although less so than when I first dropped it, so when the warranty on the XPS 13 was up I went back to Arch, and ever since I’ve been using either Arch or Arch based distros like EndeavourOS.
Honestly if you have the time and really want to learn Linux pretty well, sit down and do an Arch Install while going through the Arch Wiki (or hell even just sit down and start reading the Arch Wiki). Not everyone has the time to dedicate to it though. If you just need to get up and running with something, and plan to learn more and become more of a power user as time goes on, then yeah Arch may not be the ideal first distro, as other things could get you up and running a bit faster with a bit more hand holding.
I’m familiar with Gentoo but never used it myself. Honestly I’m a little surprised that Gentoo would have been the go to choice for a data center since everything is compiled locally and typically takes longer. Then again, I guess for security/auditability reasons source only distribution could be a big benefit. Not to mention since everything is compiled locally you can compile it to the specific CPU providing better performance.
Since you guys like so many different distro’s and I have a stack of empty hard drives (with a couple of drive-less towers) I’m going to start downloading a few of them and having a hard drive for each I can boot up and play around with them.
Maybe I’ll get to the point like one engineer’s house I went over (he was single) that had banquet tables in his house lined with computers of different OS’s - plus he still had a running Commodore64 and an Atari. Still wish I had the Radio Shack Color Computer I started on, but those things on eBay are going for a premium price
What about installing VirtualBox on your current machine and playing with them in a virtual machine?
Easier to have a separate computer to play on. Doesn’t tie up my main PC, just swap the HDD, and if I really want to I can have 3 test setups running with the towers, keyboards, mice/trackballs & monitors I have laying around.
Plus I have a portable desk with its own PC for taking to customer shops for projects that has an unused SATA plug. When I pick the one I like best I’ll add a Linux HDD in it and have Dual Boot off 2 different drives with the 3rd data drive intact & sharable.
I’ve never used Gentoo, I did try Zorin Linux but wasn’t impressed. And of course LinuxCNC. I’ll have to give Steam OS a try one of these days. You know, for research. ;>