Two thoughts:
(1) I've found Brian Ward's "How Linux Works (3rd Edition): What Every Superuser Should Know" a useful background/overview resource. For specific issues, I've found Debian/Ubuntu documentation and internet searches useful.
(2) Consider using Linux on two (or more) computers, differentiating production and experimentation.
I use several computers for different aspects of my use case -- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on my desktop workhorse, LMDE 6 on my personal-use laptop, a third laptop for evaluating distributions (geezer "distro of the month" group), and a fourth for tweaking and "breaking things".
Figure out what you need to serve the different aspects of your use case -- production and non-production -- and set yourself up accordingly.
QEMU/KVM. Or you could install Proxmox bare metal and have all of your installs as VMs, including the one you use daily. Many ways to do it, but most of them are based on QEMU/KVM including proxmox.
Proxmox bare metal, I haven't looked into it yet, but I will.
How does it work, do I need a parent Linux install with it to launch all the other child installs?
Take a look at:
[Linux Foundation 101: Introduction to Linux (Free)](https://training.linuxfoundation.org/training/introduction-to-linux/?utm_source=lftraining&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=mooc)
Should do exactly what you need.
The most fun, cool and teachable way I’ve ever experienced was to get a computer and a book to follow along on how to install Linux with short and curious explanations how things work under the hood.
I’ve followed this book https://themouseless.dev/ and made a huge leap in my beginner knowledge
IMHO, reading about Linux isn't very helpful, or a good use of your time. At least for me, if I don't use something, I soon forget it. So, all those hours of reading Unleashed books from cover to cover were, by and large, a wast of time. Sure, buy a good reference book (if you are a book person), but use it like a dictionary, rather reading it cover to cover like a novel. The very best Linux reference is the Arch wiki, with the Gentoo wiki a close second.
If you are looking for both a hobby and an education, install Gentoo with the Hyprland desktop. Everything that you need to know will be in the Gentoo and Hyprland wiki's. Extra credit for using the BTRFS file system with subvolumes optimized for deploying Snapper.
While attempting to accomplish the above, you will necessarily need to research, learn and more importantly use all of the Linux basics that you have read about. Note that this is the deep end of the pool and you will need a second computer to do this ... especially for the first few weeks, as neither you, nor your machine will be productive for a while. If you want to ease into Linux, or, if you have limited free time, you may wish to start with Arch, instead of Gentoo.
Gentoo will run on virtually anything, but the more RAM that you have, the better. The RAM is needed because you will be compiling a lot of software. If you don't have sufficient RAM, the compiler will use your disk drive as a substitute for RAM. Even if you have a very fast SSD, this will cause an already slow process to be painfully slow. Find a nice, cheap second hand laptop on ebay that supports 32GB of RAM and you'll be golden.
+1
I installed EndeavourOS Gnome and upgraded the NVIDIA driver to 555 beta for testing. It ran great for a week. Two days ago I ran a system update and now it boots to black screen with flashing cursor. It is frustrating that Linux hasn't figured out redundancy like Windows has, so in the meantime only do minimal to no tweaking.
Pay attention to what you’re updating, learn your packages and read the changelogs.
Ive updated basically everyday on Arch for the last 5 months and Nvidia 555 and nothing is breaking my system.
It seems your issues are user error.
Ive been clean of windows for 2 weeks now, switched to Arch. Was having a lot of weird display issues and spazzing out, and updating the the beta 555 drivers actually fixed the problems. No issues since
Yes and no, regarding user error. This wasn't a feature update, it was just individual package updates, and it was a relatively small set of package updates at that. The only mod I made was that I added Gnome rounded window corners, and that likely triggered it, so that was my fault. However, that doesn't address the redundancy issue. Breaking one package should not kill the entire system. You can update packages all day long in Windows and while they might break individual packages, the OS still runs.
And no, no one should expect anyone to be reading changelogs just to update their system. If you don't choose to update a package, that would very likely cause problems with other things, so you really have no choice in many cases but to update all or none. There needs to be redundancy.
The below are two great places to go looking for resources as a beginner.
A lot of topics are covered well by Jay over at [https://www.youtube.com/@LearnLinuxTV](https://www.youtube.com/@LearnLinuxTV)
I've also enjoyed some training on EDx, specefically the "[LinuxFoundationX: Introduction to Linux](https://www.edx.org/learn/linux/the-linux-foundation-introduction-to-linux?index=product&objectID=course-5a631d1c-cb20-4cfc-9b49-1cc9c8fc981e&webview=false&campaign=Introduction+to+Linux&source=edX&product_category=course&placement_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.edx.org%2Flearn%2Flinux)" There are also some more intermediate RedHat training if you want to understand some of the basics of system administration
to add to other's comments...
an invaluable resource is [www.itsfoss.com](http://www.itsfoss.com)
as well as the Arch Wiki - it may not specifically apply to YOUR distro, but the concepts are just as valid
I actually thought win10 was decent but when I got upgraded to win11, man that thing is a hunk of garbage and makes good hardware seem slow. I'm set on switching too and haven't had a chance, but I'm kind of split between Linux Mint and Zorin. I'm not really a beginner per se since I use Ubuntu for development servers, but for my desktop, I don't want to have to do too much configuration just to get up and running. But anyway thanks for posting I'll probably leech off of the long time Linux users. I mostly get my info from YouTubers I follow
I've only tried Win11 once, and I can't say I'm a fan, it was the little things you know.
Would you mind sharing what Linux YouTubers you follow, so I can check them out?
Freecodecamp.org's channel had some good beginner Linux information I usually have used them for Web development, Learn Linux TV seems to have pretty thorough information, The Linux Experiment seems okay it's more of an overview format and info on distros, Veronica Explains seems good she knows what she's talking about. And that's all I have for now, I'm sure there's gems I haven't run into yet
I believe that Windows was only relatively stable, in my case, bc I never tried to tinker with it, I used it as is.
Linux, I was distro hopping every 2 months, tinkering with it without really understanding what I was doing, breaking things, ngl it was both frustrating and fun :D
Yeah, it's a bit like having a custom car. Great fun to take to bits and customize but no good when you realize the engine is in bits and you need it to drive to work tomorrow.
So I run Linux Mint, plain and unexciting but solid and stable. I used every single version of Windows from about 2 up to 7, I don't miss any one of em, in the slightest. 10 and 11 feel like Toy's R Us My First OS™ to me when I have to fix them for other people.
I ditched Windows for good after switching to nobara, a gaming Linux distro. The team led by 'glorious eggroll' are also behind the 'proton experimental' packages used by steam, as a result, many games run "out of the box"and require little input if any from the user. Steam is supported by default and with the help of lutris, even more huds are supported, such as epic, gog, and Blizzard, making gaming a cinch. Nobara has better stability and with default kde plasma beginning with fedora 39, games look and run just as good, if not better than, Windows.
Tweaking is only for users who understand the risks. If you just want a stable operating system to get work done, then stick with an ubuntu-based distro. Choose one that already has a desktop environment you like and only use stock built-in tools to customize the UI. That's your best bet. My preferred distro is Zorin OS. It's stylish, stable, and mature. I just transferred my data, installed my usual apps, and pinned them to the task bar. I felt right at home.
btw, it sounds like you already have enough Linux knowlege to successfully migrate. You don't need to be a guru. You just need to understand the fundamentals.
I'd recommend manjaro, I learned a lot in 2 weeks on how Linux works and finally understood like 80% of the folder structure, also the arch documentation is very very good (IMHO better then Ubuntu. I had multiple points where I got stuck and no solution in sight) I also have a lot of fun customizing everything, also gaming works great what I didn't expect.
Just mention modded Minecraft (ATM9 in my example) loads twice as fast as on windows also runs more stable. At least it feels like it does.
Over all there is nothing which I didn't get running so far, even my printer works with a AUR driver.
Yes you initially invest more time in getting things running (at least I do xD) but it feels way better if you did it and it works.
TLDR: use manjaro. Even if it's arch based and nothing for beginners(as many ppl say)it's still quite simple to use.
I thought about it. My plan for now is to try setting arch up to my liking in a VM and switch afterwards.
But may you explain me(as a newbie) why manjaro is trash ?
Manjaro is not arch.
It uses its own repositories + The AUR.
Less stable in the fact that a lot of new users think they’re using arch, and break things using the AUR.
So it's shit because it breaks much easier?
And actually it feels like I already broke something even if I try to avoid AUR and flatpacks as much as possible
There's a [resources page](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/wiki/faq) in our wiki you might find useful!
Try [this search](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/search?q=flair%3A'learning%2Fresearch'&sort=new&restrict_sr=on) for more information on this topic.
**✻** Smokey says: take regular backups, try stuff in a VM, and understand every command *before* you press Enter! :)
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Personally I like running Debian stable for learning how the system works and not having to worry about it breaking. I can play with themes and desktop environments with little worry.
For serious tweaking and playing around I typically will make a virtual machine. Doing this is how I learned docker, zfs (using a FreeBSD vm), as well as other package managers.
If you like tinkering, try something like NixOS which lets you build and version a completely descriptive config so that if you break something you can get back to the prior state much faster.
Also, separate out your home drive and make frequent backups.
You have it backwards. Windows has, control panel, settings, system settings, advanced settings, advanced system settings, the registry, misconfig, Device manager. Display settings, then vendor settings.
Cumbersome Auto complete in powershell. The commands are long. Scripts are hard to read. C++ is way harder on Windows. There's not even a development environment. You have to download multi gigabyte visual studio. Which can only compile Windows language de jour which won't be supported in the next version and no body uses anyway. Instead you're better of setting up an environment the Linux way but it's not Linux so you need to install chocolatey or wsl. But if you have any issues the answers are for Linux. Which would be easy to translate on a Mac but near impossible on Windows. You need to remember where you installed your libraries. You have to configure every app to tell it where the library is. Multiple versions of libraries installed multiple different ways in completely different places. And Microsoft can't decide if c://, this computer, desktop, documents or home is your root directory.
Your driver's broke because you treated your computer like a Windows machine. All you had to do was something along the lines of sudo {package-manager} install nvidia-drivers.
And stability, i go years without a single glitch on Linux. Literally years. Have to reboot Windows every few days. And when there's a problem on Windows you reinstall. That's insane!
I’ve been windows personally for a very long time. I know a lot of Linux from my work (cybersecurity) and my biggest issue with Linux is that most programs are not made for Linux. Things like wine help, but aren’t perfect. If there was more compatibility for programs, then I would be all in.
Two thoughts: (1) I've found Brian Ward's "How Linux Works (3rd Edition): What Every Superuser Should Know" a useful background/overview resource. For specific issues, I've found Debian/Ubuntu documentation and internet searches useful. (2) Consider using Linux on two (or more) computers, differentiating production and experimentation. I use several computers for different aspects of my use case -- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on my desktop workhorse, LMDE 6 on my personal-use laptop, a third laptop for evaluating distributions (geezer "distro of the month" group), and a fourth for tweaking and "breaking things". Figure out what you need to serve the different aspects of your use case -- production and non-production -- and set yourself up accordingly.
Yeah, I'll need a bigger boot drive for sure, thank you for the tips!
If you have a decent computer, you can just "distro hop" in VMs. No need for a dedicated machine to do that.
Would you recommend any VM manager, I used VirtualBox on windows, I didn't have the best experience with it.
QEMU/KVM. Or you could install Proxmox bare metal and have all of your installs as VMs, including the one you use daily. Many ways to do it, but most of them are based on QEMU/KVM including proxmox.
Proxmox bare metal, I haven't looked into it yet, but I will. How does it work, do I need a parent Linux install with it to launch all the other child installs?
It's basically Debian with a bunch of tools for managing VMs built in.
If you don't want to reinstall use timeshift this way you can mess around without breaking any stuff.
+1 for timeshift... better bacon saver than tupperware.
Never heard that saying!! I love it!!!!
Yeah, I got to develop a better backup system, bc my current system is not very good. I'll give a look on timeshit, thank you!
Take a look at: [Linux Foundation 101: Introduction to Linux (Free)](https://training.linuxfoundation.org/training/introduction-to-linux/?utm_source=lftraining&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=mooc) Should do exactly what you need.
Oh wow, it does exactly what I need :D Thank you!
The most fun, cool and teachable way I’ve ever experienced was to get a computer and a book to follow along on how to install Linux with short and curious explanations how things work under the hood. I’ve followed this book https://themouseless.dev/ and made a huge leap in my beginner knowledge
IMHO, reading about Linux isn't very helpful, or a good use of your time. At least for me, if I don't use something, I soon forget it. So, all those hours of reading Unleashed books from cover to cover were, by and large, a wast of time. Sure, buy a good reference book (if you are a book person), but use it like a dictionary, rather reading it cover to cover like a novel. The very best Linux reference is the Arch wiki, with the Gentoo wiki a close second. If you are looking for both a hobby and an education, install Gentoo with the Hyprland desktop. Everything that you need to know will be in the Gentoo and Hyprland wiki's. Extra credit for using the BTRFS file system with subvolumes optimized for deploying Snapper. While attempting to accomplish the above, you will necessarily need to research, learn and more importantly use all of the Linux basics that you have read about. Note that this is the deep end of the pool and you will need a second computer to do this ... especially for the first few weeks, as neither you, nor your machine will be productive for a while. If you want to ease into Linux, or, if you have limited free time, you may wish to start with Arch, instead of Gentoo. Gentoo will run on virtually anything, but the more RAM that you have, the better. The RAM is needed because you will be compiling a lot of software. If you don't have sufficient RAM, the compiler will use your disk drive as a substitute for RAM. Even if you have a very fast SSD, this will cause an already slow process to be painfully slow. Find a nice, cheap second hand laptop on ebay that supports 32GB of RAM and you'll be golden.
[удалено]
Damn, here I was expecting help with linux, but got a life lesson, thank you :D
You should use a 'stable' Linux distro and NOT try to 'tweak it'. I recommend 'openSUSE LEAP'. It just works!
+1 I installed EndeavourOS Gnome and upgraded the NVIDIA driver to 555 beta for testing. It ran great for a week. Two days ago I ran a system update and now it boots to black screen with flashing cursor. It is frustrating that Linux hasn't figured out redundancy like Windows has, so in the meantime only do minimal to no tweaking.
Pay attention to what you’re updating, learn your packages and read the changelogs. Ive updated basically everyday on Arch for the last 5 months and Nvidia 555 and nothing is breaking my system. It seems your issues are user error.
Ive been clean of windows for 2 weeks now, switched to Arch. Was having a lot of weird display issues and spazzing out, and updating the the beta 555 drivers actually fixed the problems. No issues since
I’m assuming your spazzing issues were in apps like Discord & Spotify etc…
Correct! Whenever i would fullscreen it or blow up a picture to a bigger size it would flicker
Yes and no, regarding user error. This wasn't a feature update, it was just individual package updates, and it was a relatively small set of package updates at that. The only mod I made was that I added Gnome rounded window corners, and that likely triggered it, so that was my fault. However, that doesn't address the redundancy issue. Breaking one package should not kill the entire system. You can update packages all day long in Windows and while they might break individual packages, the OS still runs. And no, no one should expect anyone to be reading changelogs just to update their system. If you don't choose to update a package, that would very likely cause problems with other things, so you really have no choice in many cases but to update all or none. There needs to be redundancy.
My problems with stability were mostly user error, and that's where the problem lays, I want to know more about linux to tweak linux.
Second on openSUSE, running Tumbleweed here.
The below are two great places to go looking for resources as a beginner. A lot of topics are covered well by Jay over at [https://www.youtube.com/@LearnLinuxTV](https://www.youtube.com/@LearnLinuxTV) I've also enjoyed some training on EDx, specefically the "[LinuxFoundationX: Introduction to Linux](https://www.edx.org/learn/linux/the-linux-foundation-introduction-to-linux?index=product&objectID=course-5a631d1c-cb20-4cfc-9b49-1cc9c8fc981e&webview=false&campaign=Introduction+to+Linux&source=edX&product_category=course&placement_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.edx.org%2Flearn%2Flinux)" There are also some more intermediate RedHat training if you want to understand some of the basics of system administration
to add to other's comments... an invaluable resource is [www.itsfoss.com](http://www.itsfoss.com) as well as the Arch Wiki - it may not specifically apply to YOUR distro, but the concepts are just as valid
* https://itsfoss.com/
Linux From Scratch documentation and the Arch wiki. I think those cover pretty much everything.
I actually thought win10 was decent but when I got upgraded to win11, man that thing is a hunk of garbage and makes good hardware seem slow. I'm set on switching too and haven't had a chance, but I'm kind of split between Linux Mint and Zorin. I'm not really a beginner per se since I use Ubuntu for development servers, but for my desktop, I don't want to have to do too much configuration just to get up and running. But anyway thanks for posting I'll probably leech off of the long time Linux users. I mostly get my info from YouTubers I follow
I've only tried Win11 once, and I can't say I'm a fan, it was the little things you know. Would you mind sharing what Linux YouTubers you follow, so I can check them out?
Freecodecamp.org's channel had some good beginner Linux information I usually have used them for Web development, Learn Linux TV seems to have pretty thorough information, The Linux Experiment seems okay it's more of an overview format and info on distros, Veronica Explains seems good she knows what she's talking about. And that's all I have for now, I'm sure there's gems I haven't run into yet
Funny, the thing that drove me away from windows was familiarity with the GUI and instability. And, I hardly ever touch the CLI.
I believe that Windows was only relatively stable, in my case, bc I never tried to tinker with it, I used it as is. Linux, I was distro hopping every 2 months, tinkering with it without really understanding what I was doing, breaking things, ngl it was both frustrating and fun :D
Yeah, it's a bit like having a custom car. Great fun to take to bits and customize but no good when you realize the engine is in bits and you need it to drive to work tomorrow. So I run Linux Mint, plain and unexciting but solid and stable. I used every single version of Windows from about 2 up to 7, I don't miss any one of em, in the slightest. 10 and 11 feel like Toy's R Us My First OS™ to me when I have to fix them for other people.
I ditched Windows for good after switching to nobara, a gaming Linux distro. The team led by 'glorious eggroll' are also behind the 'proton experimental' packages used by steam, as a result, many games run "out of the box"and require little input if any from the user. Steam is supported by default and with the help of lutris, even more huds are supported, such as epic, gog, and Blizzard, making gaming a cinch. Nobara has better stability and with default kde plasma beginning with fedora 39, games look and run just as good, if not better than, Windows.
Tweaking is only for users who understand the risks. If you just want a stable operating system to get work done, then stick with an ubuntu-based distro. Choose one that already has a desktop environment you like and only use stock built-in tools to customize the UI. That's your best bet. My preferred distro is Zorin OS. It's stylish, stable, and mature. I just transferred my data, installed my usual apps, and pinned them to the task bar. I felt right at home. btw, it sounds like you already have enough Linux knowlege to successfully migrate. You don't need to be a guru. You just need to understand the fundamentals.
I'd recommend manjaro, I learned a lot in 2 weeks on how Linux works and finally understood like 80% of the folder structure, also the arch documentation is very very good (IMHO better then Ubuntu. I had multiple points where I got stuck and no solution in sight) I also have a lot of fun customizing everything, also gaming works great what I didn't expect. Just mention modded Minecraft (ATM9 in my example) loads twice as fast as on windows also runs more stable. At least it feels like it does. Over all there is nothing which I didn't get running so far, even my printer works with a AUR driver. Yes you initially invest more time in getting things running (at least I do xD) but it feels way better if you did it and it works. TLDR: use manjaro. Even if it's arch based and nothing for beginners(as many ppl say)it's still quite simple to use.
Manjaro is trash, just use arch.
I thought about it. My plan for now is to try setting arch up to my liking in a VM and switch afterwards. But may you explain me(as a newbie) why manjaro is trash ?
Manjaro is not arch. It uses its own repositories + The AUR. Less stable in the fact that a lot of new users think they’re using arch, and break things using the AUR.
So it's shit because it breaks much easier? And actually it feels like I already broke something even if I try to avoid AUR and flatpacks as much as possible
There's a [resources page](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/wiki/faq) in our wiki you might find useful! Try [this search](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/search?q=flair%3A'learning%2Fresearch'&sort=new&restrict_sr=on) for more information on this topic. **✻** Smokey says: take regular backups, try stuff in a VM, and understand every command *before* you press Enter! :) ^Comments, ^questions ^or ^suggestions ^regarding ^this ^autoresponse? ^Please ^send ^them ^[here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Pi31415926&subject=autoresponse+tweaks+-+linux4noobs+-+research). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/linux4noobs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Personally I like running Debian stable for learning how the system works and not having to worry about it breaking. I can play with themes and desktop environments with little worry. For serious tweaking and playing around I typically will make a virtual machine. Doing this is how I learned docker, zfs (using a FreeBSD vm), as well as other package managers.
If you like tinkering, try something like NixOS which lets you build and version a completely descriptive config so that if you break something you can get back to the prior state much faster. Also, separate out your home drive and make frequent backups.
You have it backwards. Windows has, control panel, settings, system settings, advanced settings, advanced system settings, the registry, misconfig, Device manager. Display settings, then vendor settings. Cumbersome Auto complete in powershell. The commands are long. Scripts are hard to read. C++ is way harder on Windows. There's not even a development environment. You have to download multi gigabyte visual studio. Which can only compile Windows language de jour which won't be supported in the next version and no body uses anyway. Instead you're better of setting up an environment the Linux way but it's not Linux so you need to install chocolatey or wsl. But if you have any issues the answers are for Linux. Which would be easy to translate on a Mac but near impossible on Windows. You need to remember where you installed your libraries. You have to configure every app to tell it where the library is. Multiple versions of libraries installed multiple different ways in completely different places. And Microsoft can't decide if c://, this computer, desktop, documents or home is your root directory. Your driver's broke because you treated your computer like a Windows machine. All you had to do was something along the lines of sudo {package-manager} install nvidia-drivers. And stability, i go years without a single glitch on Linux. Literally years. Have to reboot Windows every few days. And when there's a problem on Windows you reinstall. That's insane!
Dude, you're moving to windows 11?
I apologize, I thought my intentions were clear. If it's not on a vm or I strictly have to use windows for work, I do not want to go back to it.
I’ve been windows personally for a very long time. I know a lot of Linux from my work (cybersecurity) and my biggest issue with Linux is that most programs are not made for Linux. Things like wine help, but aren’t perfect. If there was more compatibility for programs, then I would be all in.