Looking to get into Linux

[Malaclypse]

I've been wanting to start learning linux for a year or two now, but have never gotten past watching outdated youtube videos. where would be a good place to start for an intermediate windows user? i wouldn't say i'm a complete computer noob, but i'm also not an expert. i'm still going to school and reading books to learn more programming languages, but i've been looking around on the web for a simple laptop with linux preloaded. i found some neat sites that offer laptops supported by FSF, however i also feel like having open source drivers and whatnot is something that goes over my head.

how would i go about booting a linux distribution from a USB thumbdrive on a normally windows 8.1 PC? which distribution would you recommend? i've tried the virtualbox route, but that only brought me headaches since the videos i was using are over a year old, and both the linux distribution AND the virtualbox software have been updated enough to make even just simply setting it up frustrating. i might not have the longest attention span, but this is also more than just a passing interest to me... so before i blow a bunch of money on a laptop with an OS that i don't even know how to use, i would like to learn the basics of linux. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

EDIT: i've also got a little bit of anxiety over this since i have nearly 2TB of data on my HDD. this data won't be corrupted or destroyed by simply booting from a USB, will it? i feel like this is a dumb question lol.

[spartaman64]

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

use this select your flash drive and the iso and it will create the bootable flash drive 

if you dont install it wont save any files

 

ubuntu

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/thank-you?country=US&version=16.04&architecture=amd64

linux mint 

https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=204

[Mark77]

IMHO, get an old PC or a Raspberry Pi or something, and have a dedicated machine.  Set out to "do something" with it, whether it be to build yourself a SMB server, iSCSI server,wireless access point, firewall, etc.   (yes, I know you can obtain pre-build "canned" solutions to those things these days, but you should really learn how to build you own!)  Then set out to learn how to do that. 

 

The people I've known over the years trying to dual-boot Linux or just aimlessly trying to learn it have had a success rate of almost 0%.  Without an application, there is no motivation. 

 

Don't expect overnight success.  Oh, and avoid GUI's at least for the first few years.  You'll want to do everything by way of command line. 

[spartaman64]

4 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

IMHO, get an old PC or a Raspberry Pi or something, and have a dedicated machine.  Set out to "do something" with it, whether it be to build yourself a SMB server, iSCSI server,wireless access point, firewall, etc.   (yes, I know you can obtain pre-build "canned" solutions to those things these days, but you should really learn how to build you own!)  Then set out to learn how to do that. 

 

The people I've known over the years trying to dual-boot Linux or just aimlessly trying to learn it have had a success rate of almost 0%.  Without an application, there is no motivation. 

 

Don't expect overnight success.  Oh, and avoid GUI's at least for the first few years.  You'll want to do everything by way of command line. 

one really ghetto way that has been working for me for a while is i get another hard drive either internal or usb and i install linux on that and on boot i mash f10 and select that drive and it will boot into linux or i select the windows drive and it boots into windows

and i like to use a mixture of gui and cli

[Mark77]

4 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

one really ghetto way that has been working for me for a while is i get another hard drive either internal or usb and i install linux on that and on boot i mash f10 and select that drive and it will boot into linux or i select the windows drive and it boots into windows

Yeah I suggest against dual-booting.  The problem is, the minute you run into a problem, the machine will get rebooted back into Windows.  Its thus a big production to get it booted back into Linux.  You really need 2 machines, IMHO.  I guess you could use virtualization these days, but even that's a hassle.  Too many people look at it as an "either-or" proposition (ie: "I'm switching to Linux"), rather than using Linux to complement their Windows PC.  Particularly in server-like roles.

 

A Raspberry Pi is literally what, $20?  Or cobble together a real PC.  I built an Ivy Bridge system recently for $80 and started on Linux with literally a 386 that I found being thrown out with 8mb of RAM and a 320mb ESDI hard drive. 

[spartaman64]

3 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

Yeah I suggest against dual-booting.  The problem is, the minute you run into a problem, the machine will get rebooted back into Windows.  Its thus a big production to get it booted back into Linux.  You really need 2 machines, IMHO.  I guess you could use virtualization these days, but even that's a hassle.

 

A Raspberry Pi is literally what, $20?  Or cobble together a real PC.  I built an Ivy Bridge system recently for $80. 

the problem with using a raspberry pi or a cheap pc is that it probably doesnt have the functionality of his current pc. and to really learn linux you should use it as your daily driver for a while and if its just a weak side computer it probably wont get used much and he wont learn

[Mark77]

1 minute ago, spartaman64 said:

the problem with using a raspberry pi or a cheap pc is that it just doesnt have the functionality of his current pc. and to really learn linux you should use it as your daily driver for a while while if its just a weak side computer it probably wont get used much and he wont learn

A Raspberry Pi is a very powerful machine.  Anything made in the past 5-10 years is, in terms of command-line Linux. 

 

If he gets into doing kernel recompiles often, or building big things, then you might have a point.  But that's not beginner/intermediate stuff at all.  Linux's requirements are very low relative to MS Windows.

[EunSoo]

11 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

IMHO, get an old PC or a Raspberry Pi or something, and have a dedicated machine.  Set out to "do something" with it, whether it be to build yourself a SMB server, iSCSI server,wireless access point, firewall, etc.   (yes, I know you can obtain pre-build "canned" solutions to those things these days, but you should really learn how to build you own!)  Then set out to learn how to do that. 

 

The people I've known over the years trying to dual-boot Linux or just aimlessly trying to learn it have had a success rate of almost 0%.  Without an application, there is no motivation. 

 

Don't expect overnight success.  Oh, and avoid GUI's at least for the first few years.  You'll want to do everything by way of command line. 

 

thats what I did, and I use it for F@H on the side, so it gives more justification to the project.

[spartaman64]

7 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

A Raspberry Pi is a very powerful machine.  Anything made in the past 5-10 years is, in terms of command-line Linux. 

 

If he gets into doing kernel recompiles often, or building big things, then you might have a point.  But that's not beginner/intermediate stuff at all.  Linux's requirements are very low relative to MS Windows.

maybe that will work for the OP but i just know it wont work for me. because i want to be able to run 3 monitors, watch youtube in 4k and occasionally play a game like csgo with my friends. having linux on this inferior system encourages him to go back to his faster and more capable windows system. 

[Malaclypse]

this is all helpful. i might try out a USB boot first (simply because it's the cheapest option) to learn the basics and get familiar, and then move on to a cheap Lenovo Touchpad or something to use linux (still not completely certain on the distribution - i just need to do more research) as the main OS on it.

i do enjoy gaming, but i might leave that to my windows machine for now so i don't get distracted too easily (maybe some simple puzzle or card games, but CSGO would be way too distracting for me lol). though, i am interested in viewing/editing pictures, watching movies, and listening to music. if it can do these three things, then i'd be a happy camper.

[Mark77]

On ‎6‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 10:41 PM, spartaman64 said:

maybe that will work for the OP but i just know it wont work for me. because i want to be able to run 3 monitors, watch youtube in 4k and occasionally play a game like csgo with my friends. having linux on this inferior system encourages him to go back to his faster and more capable windows system. 

That's why you need your Windows machine intact.  Because if you're dual booting, you'll never accomplish much of anything especially if you need those luxuries (as most of us do these days). 

 

But that's not to say you need some major powerful rig for Linux.  The shell account as suggested up-thread works just fine.  Its actually how I got my start in the early 1990s because anything Unix would set you back at least $10,000 if not more, with compilers being an extra few thousand bucks.  As they would say these days, "you kids don't know how easy you got it".  Lol.