Have you checked for stuck keys?
zeropointone
Sssh! Quiet! You're waking him up!
Hey, those slaps were really hard!
That's true.
It wasn't a good one though because back then they all were just based on very narrow bell filters which barely changed the sound. It took a while until subtractive crossovers in graphic EQs became a thing.
It was a black Technics tower in my family home. I loved to play around with the huge graphic EQ without having a clue. I've also experienced the jack slap a few times (much later though with my own gear) but thankfully never right into an eye but always close to the eyes.
Kind of. Mint is based on Ubuntu but both are also based on Debian. They're familiar but not the same. I had much more issues with hardware not working at all under Ubuntu, it also needs more resources as well.
Germany is the worst when it comes to this.
EU citizen here. It's much worse than that. The average EU citizen can be proud of the EU's imperalism/capitalism and simultaneously believe that the EU is a socialist utopia.
Well, that got me more than I like to admit.
I would recommend Mint over Ubuntu because of compatibility reasons.
I had similar issues in the past because of stuck keys. And those keys weren't even part of a shortcut or any other software function to control the particular element that went bonkers. It can be random keys you would never expect.