Time4Tea: I think you are exaggerating. There are almost certainly ways to do the things you want to do in Linux. I know for a fact that it is possible to get surround sound in Linux (but it may depend on how well your specific sound card is supported). You are switching to a new OS - it is going to take some time and patience to get things working perfectly the way you want. If you don't have that time/patience, Linux might not be for you.

hummer010: How about Nuvola Player. Admittedly, I haven't tried it, but it's FOSS, and claims to be able to play Amazon Music, as well as others.

vv221: The best thing you can do right now is go back to Windows. Or try Mac OS. Or an enterprise-supported Linux distribution with paid support.

You are not ready to use a community-driven Linux distribution.

thegreyshadow: what?!? I can listen to APE and FLAC music without problems. My card also supports digital audio and sends it to HDMI when appropriate.

Pirate such music? I can purchase DRM-free FLAC (or mp3, for that matter) music from Deutsche Grammophon; and there are other ways to get other music genres in the same manner. No need to pirate anything. And as others have said, there's spotify for Linux (or youtube in the browser...)

I do not have your problems, and I use Slackware64-current which is pretty barebones in the "automation" department.

Sometimes you don't get Linux until the moment is right, and maybe that moment is yet to come for you. Try something different than Mint and maybe you'll get more successful.

I will elaboate further:

Linux is not necessarily more difficult than anything. Trust me; I've been using it for 20 years as my main operating system. But it's basically a flavor of Unix, and it does things differently than Windows and macOS and thus, as others have pointed out, there's a learning curve involved.

Most hardware is supported now, but nVidia with its insistence on proprietary binary drivers is downright ugly and cumbersome. The surefire way to get things OK in the graphics department is to use Intel graphics, but this is not the best option for gaming. In that case, ATI graphics are usually well supported in Linux.

I would recommend to install it in a dual-boot capacity or in an alternate machine if available and get used to it, experiment with it, and even break things once or twice (with non-critical data of course).

If you know someone like that, ask people who use Linux everyday for work and fun on the best way to do things.

Remember, it's not more difficult nor complicated. It's just different.

makasouleater69: Its not a sound card, it is intel hd hdmi. Dolby atmos is only through hdmi. There is no other way to take a 7.2 surround sound home theather and make it work with windows, and im gonna adsume linux with out dolby. The only surround sound that works with pc are like logtiches or creative, with the 3 audio jacks. Those 2 brands of speakers are horrid compared to what you can buy for home theaters, but thats why computer speakers dont even cost as much as the reciver does.

I have time and patients, but not with something that is never going to work.

Time4Tea: I have to admit I am not really much of a sound 'connoisseur' (even though I am quite into music). I have 2 speakers that makes noises in response to electrical signals and I am happy enough with that. So, I don't have much experience with the sort of setup you are trying to achieve.

This Arch Linux page states that ALSA supports 7.1 surround sound, but you might have to unmute certain channels to use it. I have no idea what 7.2 surround is, or how it differs to 7.1. This article also says that surround sound in Linux can be done, but it might take some work to set up, such as tweaking things in ALSA, which is not trivial for a new user.

Again, I think you are being hasty in saying it is 'never going to work'. However, settings these things up might take some time/effort, so if you're not willing to spend that time, you will have to go back to Windows.

Orkhepaj: imho just remove from win10 what you dont like , linux is not better at all
all those data gatherings can be turned off

much easier than to start finetuning linux to your liking and many apps wont run on linux , while you can run nearly all linux apps on win10

Time4Tea: I have to admit I am not really much of a sound 'connoisseur' (even though I am quite into music). I have 2 speakers that makes noises in response to electrical signals and I am happy enough with that. So, I don't have much experience with the sort of setup you are trying to achieve.

This Arch Linux page states that ALSA supports 7.1 surround sound, but you might have to unmute certain channels to use it. I have no idea what 7.2 surround is, or how it differs to 7.1. This article also says that surround sound in Linux can be done, but it might take some work to set up, such as tweaking things in ALSA, which is not trivial for a new user.

Again, I think you are being hasty in saying it is 'never going to work'. However, settings these things up might take some time/effort, so if you're not willing to spend that time, you will have to go back to Windows.

makasouleater69: Hopefully this guide should help those users of Linux who are new or unsure on how to enable Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, Passthrough on Linux, this should hopefully work on Debian/Ubuntu and Arch based distributions, this guide will bypass PulseAudio Sound server and temporarily disable the sound server and use ALSA instead without having to make any permanent changes to your system and allow Kodi to Passthrough Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, to your AV Receiver to decode.

makasouleater69: I am not sure what deutche is, but i didnt say i couldnt buy lossless music and play it on linux. I said i cant play amazon hd music, buying a bucnh of stuff isnt what i wanted, i wanted a hd streaming thats cheap . Which for 15 a month, that is cheap. Yeah i could buy 1 cd a month i guess and in the end have it all, or just buy the albums which im sure ypu could find some where to buy them, but 15 a month is much better for unlimited access to everything.

Spotify and youtube dont have high quailty streams. I also dont watch netflix or anything like that because even 4k streams look worse than 1080 blu rays do, i gotta rent them and wait , since no one streams blu rays 1080 or 4k.

Time4Tea: -snip-

Darvond: You are indeed a saint of patience.