Help

So I'm trying to launch LM in VMware for the first time. Either I'm a massive retard, or there's something wrong with it. Every so often the entire UI will go black and only clickable tiles will reappear after hovering over them.
I'm probably just too dumb to understand Linux in any capacity (first time booting up any kind of Linux distro and can't code for the life of me even after 5 years of trying.), but I just need to know if this is an issue with my brain or if this isn't normal.