Mint from an external hard drive on a Windows10 laptop?
Many Linux distributions have what is called a "Live Disc", meaning that you can run it directly from an optical disk or USB drive without touching your hard drive.
I've seen problems with Mint Cinnamon. If you want to try Mint, try Mint Mate or Mint LXDE instead.
Other alternatives are Lubuntu and LXLE. I'm really liking LXLE on older equipment now. All of these are derivatives of Ubuntu and relatively easy for new users.
[experience: 20 years administrating various Unix flavors]
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