So, I'm moving to Linux.

[limegorilla]

While I'm not a newbie to Linux, I am no-where near as familiar with Linux, or bash, as I am with Windows and CMD/PowerShell. So. Where do I start. I obviously know about what Linux is, distros, basic CLI commands, but (if you are rocking linux/have done) what is your experience like? What distro should I get? Places to get to grips with CLI?

 

And for me it is kinda important that it doesn't look like it comes out of 1990 so if anyone has some decent, modern desktop-enviroments that would be lovely  

[amusedschrodinger]

Ubuntu?

[Backtrack]

Just now, amusedschrodinger said:

Ubuntu?

Ubuntu has nice desktop enviroment indeed, it's friendly to beginners as well.

[paddy-stone]

IMO it'd be a good idea to just DL a bunch of distros with different UI environments like gnome/MATE/cinnamon or whatever and see what you fancy. I'm not a "competent" linux person either, but there are lots of online resources to help you if you need it.

[JBowmanVC]

Ubuntu and Mint would be my top choices if your looking to use Linux as your daily driver

[GlobalPentahedron Corp]

I have used all distros. Well not all obviously, but most. Just go with ubuntu for performance and stability. You can install all desktop environments on ubuntu. e.g. you can turn ubuntu into xubuntu or lubuntu.

In defense of all other distributions, ubuntu can be slower to update application packages, but that is not a problem because you can install software manually.

Ubuntu has "snap" software sandboxing which is not quite properly sandboxing web browsers yet, but when they do get it sorted it will be awesome.

I can break down my experience with other distros if you like.

21 minutes ago, limegorilla said:

Places to get to grips with CLI

just google bash programming. Its very straight forward. If you really want to learn linux you could install and use arch linux for a few months. I used Arch while at uni, coz it had a kernel version i needed for my wifi, and I learnt a lot from it. Arch broke on me twice, because the kernel + Xorg versions were not compatible with my proprietary nvidia driver. I think that was my only real problem with arch and its rolling release style.

[Ashleyyyy]

for look and feel, do you want something that feels like Windows? then go with Linux Mint. 

 

as for cli, ifconfig is the alternative to ipconfig etc. 

you can run powershell on Linux though: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/07/install-powershell-ubuntu-linux-snap

[Linus_torvalds]

My suggestion would be Manjaro linux. It's lightweight. Lighter then ubuntu or mint. comes with many software preinstalled

You can have yaourt on it and you have access to AUR

It's based on arch linux, thus it's rolling release

It's on first place on Distrowatch with 4031 hits per day and mint is second with 2412 hits per day. So Manjaro beats others by large margin.

[Aremis]

1 hour ago, limegorilla said:

While I'm not a newbie to Linux, I am no-where near as familiar with Linux, or bash, as I am with Windows and CMD/PowerShell. So. Where do I start. I obviously know about what Linux is, distros, basic CLI commands, but (if you are rocking linux/have done) what is your experience like? What distro should I get? Places to get to grips with CLI?

 

And for me it is kinda important that it doesn't look like it comes out of 1990 so if anyone has some decent, modern desktop-enviroments that would be lovely  

Starting with your DE comment, most DE's are far ahead of windows and MacOS in design, and looks.  You won't be unhappy with anything (except that Gnome 3 is single threaded and crashes if a plugin has a hiccup) that is out-of-the-box on most OS's and can install anything you'd want otherwise.

 

As for where to start, what are you doing?  Personally I like Arch and Void a lot, but I like to be under the hood of my machine a lot.  Init is important to me, but as someone starting out the intricacies of runit vs systemd vs SysV probably don't matter to you?

 

Do you wan to game?  Are there specific tasks you are doing now that you'd want to move over?  What's your daily criteria?  Do you think you'll actually need the terminal?

 

Personally I use the terminal a lot.  Anything that I can cut out of UI that is non-intuitive to me is done in the terminal as much as possible.  Such as updates.  I hate update managers.  They have a notification or a popup or make a dumbass bell sound that plays even with system alert sounds turned off...  No.  sudo pacman -Syyu or xbps-install -Syu is much faster and less of a pain in my ass.

 

Once you know what you want to do, I'd look next to what OS you think you'd like to try.  I generally try to push for people tho start with ubuntu.  Most things you'll read online will reference it, the appstore is noob friendly, and you can do almost anything with it.  But, if you want something a bit more user guided and bleeding edge, antergos is a popular choice and is just as good as any other OS.  Its arch based, and arch has the most detailed docs in linux.  If you want more developer focused stuff, use fedora.  I've never gotten it to work though, so I don't like it that much.  OpenSuse is also a good work based OS, though you can do whatever with it really.  Its just set up more as a workstation environment.

 

Lastly, what GPU do you have?  Generally AMD is liked in the linux world, and not for the hardware pre-se.  The drivers are built into the kernel.  NVidia makes life hard for linux users in general.  They don't fix bugs, ignore patches except major ones, hell even installing the drivers are a pain in the ass.  At least to me.  Not impossible, just a pain and non-intuitive.

 

Personally I have an RX580 that I have used since release and it plays all my games fine and has no driver hiccups.  Even in wine or emulators.

 

If you have any questions you can message me too, if you want.

[EPENEX]

Arch Linux and use XFCE or a tiling WM.

[KRDucky]

Fedora is a good choice too. If you really like something interesting, try Fedora 29 SilverBlue Beta. Or Fedora 28 Silverblue (for a released version).

Silverblue is a renamed Atomic Workstation. It uses OSTree for the OS and updates. All software is either Layered, Flatpaks or Docker containers.

You can also install and use Snap packages.

 

t is interesting to point out that Linus Torvalds does not use Ubuntu or Mint. IIRC, it is Fedora that he uses.

 

 

[Guest]

On 9/30/2018 at 5:37 PM, limegorilla said:

While I'm not a newbie to Linux, I am no-where near as familiar with Linux, or bash, as I am with Windows and CMD/PowerShell. So. Where do I start. I obviously know about what Linux is, distros, basic CLI commands, but (if you are rocking linux/have done) what is your experience like? What distro should I get? Places to get to grips with CLI?

 

And for me it is kinda important that it doesn't look like it comes out of 1990 so if anyone has some decent, modern desktop-enviroments that would be lovely  

It depends.
What kind of PC are you going to use? Ubuntu and related distros have a known shitty support for Optimus laptops as you have to mess with them to have decent battery life, and its harder to configure and less documented than Arch linux, even if it is meant to be an expert oriented distro.
You may want to go with Manjaro Linux then, which has builtin Optimus support.

If you have just a desktop, then go for Ubuntu, the app store is full of software, and if you don't like GNOME (I don't bc at his current state it stutters and have memory leaks issues) use KDE (Kubuntu) it's lighweight and takes less RAM. You may want to turn of his desktop composition effects with shift+alt+f10 for dxvk/wine steam proton games, since they can take input lag. 
Don't mind that if you are not going to play any games on it.
As for bash learning, if you REALLY want to learn, i suggest you to use the good' ol' man command, just type "man bash" in a terminal.

[Sauron]

If you already know the basics of the command line, the fastest way to learn is to install Arch Linux - the installation and basic configuration processes will show you everything you need to get going. The documentation is great, so you can always read it if you're stuck or don't know what you should be doing.

[tux_peng]

you do learn a lot from an arch installation.  I like fedora,pretty new packages, large community & copr.  I like the Cinnamon DE, KDE is nice too

[EthanTestsLife]

I prefer Arch based distros such as Antergos and Manjaro. Ubuntu for ease of use and stability. I much prefer the way being on the bleeding edge with arch and how packages are installed. But going to a website and looking for a download page to install a program, you will most likely find an installer for Ubuntu/Debian first before any other distro.

 

I mostly prefer Gnome but I am trying out KDE Plasma right now (I thought KDE connect with my android phone would be useful).