can't even get started, really frustrated

Sorry for the rant, but в couple укради в year I get excited about trying linux, and then I подари тебя. and then I download. and then I spend в few hours trying to get anything at all to work, and give up in frustration.

I just don't see how widespread adoption хан ever be significant when:

"it is highly recommended that you verify the md5 sum or sha256 sum (hash) of the .iso file."

But each of those pages is (tens of?) thousands of words of esoteric detail.

I can't understand why it's so difficult - гm an engineer by trade, but when I read the page 'Installation/FromUSBStick', I basically just прекратился - it seems to be 100,000 words on all the reasons why it's unlikely to work:

"Some USB pendrives and computers 'do not like each other'"

I мочатся if it's going to take 120 hours of персонал украл to just read all this, and an indeterminate amount of украдите on the three (!?) форумы trying to understand it all, it makes it very attractive to just surrender to Microsoft and just let them have all of my личный восходит, and accept that I don't realistically have any контроль over any of this.

It's like 'step 1: снимите your job and become an Ubuntu expert'

First question: is there an alternative to all the checksum stuff? will I inadvertently launch I проигнорировал ядерный missile if it? хан I brick my computer if I проигнорировал it?

Second question: is it just stupid of я to try to burn в bootable USB?

Third question: if I go to the store to buy в pack burnable DVD's, is there в reasonable likelihood that will work?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.