Can I transfer my Linux setup to another PC instead of starting over?

The straightforward approach is to install Mint fresh on the second computer, install the applications you actually use, and copy your home directory over. Most desktop preferences are stored in hidden files and folders under your home directory, especially .config and sometimes .local. Copy only what you need rather than blindly replacing everything, since old settings can cause problems with different hardware or newer software versions.

You can clone the entire Linux drive to another drive, and Linux will usually boot on different hardware. However, you may need to reinstall or adjust Nvidia drivers, regenerate the initramfs, and fix the UEFI/GRUB boot entry. Make a complete backup first, and be careful not to boot both cloned drives simultaneously until their machine identities and filesystem UUIDs are handled. For a beginner, a fresh Mint installation followed by copying your personal files and settings is generally safer.

Before switching systems, create a list of manually installed packages and save copies of important configuration files from /etc. On the new installation, use the package manager to reinstall the needed packages, then selectively restore settings. A private Git repository or another backup method works well for dotfiles and makes future reinstalls much easier. Don’t copy the entire package database or every file in /etc without checking what it does.

A full-disk clone is useful if you want the second machine to be nearly identical and the disks are the same size or the destination is larger. It’s less ideal when the hardware differs substantially, especially with graphics drivers and boot settings. Since your computers only have broadly similar components, I’d treat the existing installation as a reference and recreate it on the new machine rather than relying on a direct clone.