How to get into Linux as a complete idiot

[TheCliff]

Hello LTT forum,

I want to get into Linux, I will have to reinstall windows soon and wanted to try 2 operating systems which my pc should handle. 

I would like to still have a GUI and a few luxuries that are standard for windows before diving in the deep end. 

Could anyone recommend a guide that I could follow or an article that gets me started?

 

Kind regards,

An ocean side tourist attraction.

[SCHISCHKA]

i just read the headline and interpreted it as you want to go on a linux machine and do something stupid like fork bomb it or do a denial of service across a network.

 

Just get into it. Installing Arch linux or Gentoo and setting up everything manually will force you to learn what you need to know. Their respective websites will have a beginners guide.

[TheCliff]

7 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

i just read the headline and interpreted it as you want to go on a linux machine and do something stupid like fork bomb it or do a denial of service across a network.

 

Just get into it. Installing Arch linux or Gentoo and setting up everything manually will force you to learn what you need to know. Their respective websites will have a beginners guide.

Hahahaha, yeah, now that I see it my wording could have been better...

Thanks for the advice. Ill so some googling regarding Gentoo.

 

[noahdvs]

Just FYI, you don't need Arch or Gentoo to learn everything and not every method works best for everyone. It's perfectly fine to start simple and work your way up to the more complex stuff. In fact, I'd bet most people do it that way. Why do you want to use Linux?

[TheCliff]

17 hours ago, noahdvs said:

Just FYI, you don't need Arch or Gentoo to learn everything and not every method works best for everyone. It's perfectly fine to start simple and work your way up to the more complex stuff. In fact, I'd bet most people do it that way. Why do you want to use Linux?

I don't know. I am a student with time to kill and I want to learn something new. I like computers and someone suggested that I could learn to use Linux. 

I know that one version of Linux can be vastly different than another but I don't know. I just want to give it a try. 

[noahdvs]

13 hours ago, TheCliff said:

I don't know. I am a student with time to kill and I want to learn something new. I like computers and someone suggested that I could learn to use Linux. 

I know that one version of Linux can be vastly different than another but I don't know. I just want to give it a try. 

Whatever you decide to do, this should help at some point, no matter the distro you use: https://linuxjourney.com/

You don't need to use the command-line to use Linux, but Linux comes with powerful tools that are worth learning and they can be faster than using a GUI for some tasks, even with just a little bit of experience.

[Sigala Sunda]

On 9/20/2017 at 3:25 AM, TheCliff said:

Could anyone recommend a guide that I could follow or an article that gets me started?

Linux is great bro! Presently I am dual booting it and windows. As far as guides are concerned my personal method is to download youtube videos onto my phone and go alone with whatever the guide does ( https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=linux+guides ). Some really great advice IMHO is to just pick a problem you want to fix ( like syncing folders ) and follow a guide. Most of the day to day operations are easy learning the software is the big deal. Once you have to reinstall windows Start using the open source software on windows, almost everything is available. 

[TheCliff]

On 21/09/2017 at 10:54 PM, noahdvs said:

Whatever you decide to do, this should help at some point, no matter the distro you use: https://linuxjourney.com/

You don't need to use the command-line to use Linux, but Linux comes with powerful tools that are worth learning and they can be faster than using a GUI for some tasks, even with just a little bit of experience.

 

3 hours ago, Sigala Sunda said:

Linux is great bro! Presently I am dual booting it and windows. As far as guides are concerned my personal method is to download youtube videos onto my phone and go alone with whatever the guide does ( https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=linux+guides ). Some really great advice IMHO is to just pick a problem you want to fix ( like syncing folders ) and follow a guide. Most of the day to day operations are easy learning the software is the big deal. Once you have to reinstall windows Start using the open source software on windows, almost everything is available. 

I saved both links and noted your advice. I'll give it a try this weekend or so.

Thanks a ton!

[JusticeBeaver]

On 10/3/2017 at 4:10 PM, JayKay3000 said:

1. Install windows
2. Install hyper V or virtualbox
3. Create virtual machine
4. Download Mint
5. Install Mint
6. Create snapshot
7. Play with Linux till you break it or whatever
8. Revert back to working snapshot.

Don't bother with all this dual booting mlarky. It doesn't achieve much from a learning perspective.

 this is your solution.  I taught myself linux from this and playing with Pi's

[Guest]

I would say to use Ubuntu, though someone recommended Mint. 

 

Mint is just a modified version of Ubuntu. (Basically)