I know there is lots of guides and things because for clicks people like to write guides. However all the defaults on mint are sensible. You can pretty much install is stock and be done. You can use these guides if you want but they are optional. You can use flatpak, .deb, snap or whatever else you want to install things. I tend to use .debs when available and flatpaks as my backup. As a Linux user I haven’t had to do all that much tweaking in years to be honest.

LUGs were very important back then especially when you were new.