I’ve been using Windows since the days of 3.1, practically my entire life. So I’m really comfortable with how windows operates and how to do the things that I want to do.
I’ve dabbled around with Linux over the years, but am now considering trying to make a full switch to it.
What are some resources to “learn” Linux properly? Such as understanding the filesystem, basic security practices, essential tools or commands, etc?
Start using it. Look up anything that bothers you.
Don’t make it your work or main computer yet. That might create too much frustration.
“Out of the box” security is decent at this point.
Maybe don’t look up ANYTHING that bothers you. Thats a rabbit hole.
This. Install a VM or throw it on some old box you have lying around. Don’t sweat “learning it”. Just do it. If you know your way around a computer, you’ll figure it out. Having said that, there are lots of resources out there. Just watch some “how do I install X” videos, where X is your distro of choice. That choice should be Mint, BTW.
I know there’s a meme and I have been downvoted to shit for arch…
I think any popular Debian/redhat derived distro (mint counts) is a great introduction to Linux.
However, I didn’t really learn Linux until I installed arch. It wasn’t as… stable… as it was now. And learning how to deal with the instability helped a LOT.
Without that dive, things that could really get you down the path is trying to make Linux work for you: change the gui to your liking, and learn to use terminal.
That gets you into X/sway/DM/WM/etc. there’s plenty to learn there
It depends on what you want from your OS. I just want it to work. I don’t have to know every detail of what’s under the hood. And I never do a lot of customising. So for me, Mint is perfect. If you want to have control over everything and know how everything works, Arch is great.
My personal journey:
Install random Linux distro as virtual machine or dual boot, use it until you run into something you can’t fix. Look for an alternative.
Do this a couple of times, my path was: Ubuntu, Manjaro, PopOS, Zorin, Debian, Mint. I ended up replacing windows completely with Mint. It’s nice, easy, customizable, and I can play my games on it when I need to 👍
Learning the terminal is easily done on linuxjourney.com!
I don’t know if it still exists, but following along with the Gentoo Linux install guide where you build everything from the ground up. I definitely wouldn’t daily drive something like that now (I had a lotore free time (and no money) back then), but learning what the commands did was great for learning not just about commands but a number of Linux concepts.
I had a tiny bit of very basic previous experience, mostly with common command line tools like CD, ls, etc.
Just start using it. Set up a dual boot if you really need access to Windows still, but try not to use it as much as possible. You learn by running into problems or holes in your knowledge, and solving those issues will fill in other gaps.
There are plenty of video series if you want to listen to advice before diving in, but there’s no teacher like experience.
This, I learned out of necessity when I was a teen, parents were divorcing and my dad only had an extremely old laptop, it was literally unusable on XP, was lookin around online on how to possibly speed it up and found Linux.
It’s worth emphasizing that keeping it dual boot until you’re comfortable will let you take a break if you get frustrated rather than wiping Linux and going back to Win full time.
Get a book on Linux, if you’re the type who likes learning from books (I do). There’s so many to choose from. Check reviews before you order or go to a book store and flip through some until you find one you like.
For learning about the filesystem layout, you can type
man hierinto a Linux terminal.Or read the same online: https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/hier.7.html
This is a key point.
I didn’t realize this until years later, but man is not just for programs, it’s also for concepts like hier, and probably other stuff too.
Step 1: install linux
Step 2: google everything you don’t know how to do
Sorry this does not answer your question but zorin os it a great out of the box distro that tries to look and feel like windows and has almost everything you need as part of the installation including wine and play on linux and an rdp client. it has the ubuntu software gui interface but if you use it I would prioritize learning to use apt at the command line as I feel the gui software thing as a bit pants. I used unix extensively in my tech career but did not use it as a daily driver (for a variety of “reasons”) till under a year ago where windows 11 just made it necessary to do. I have future plans to go to an immutable but man zorin is great for a quick and dirty up and running thing. Also if you have an old laptop throw it on that. You will be amazed at how it may outperform your newer machine with windows.
I like the Linux upskill challenge for rounding out your education. https://linuxupskillchallenge.org/ it’s designed as a 1 month course of an hour or so a day that the author made free to access as his legacy. Don’t start out with this – mess around and learn on your own first, and when you’re comfortable with the system, then you can learn more in depth.
I recommend spending time in a Linux chat room related to learning Linux specifically your distro. When you’re messing around in Linux, you can ask questions, and humans are great teachers in helping you with things you don’t know you should be learning. Discord is the most accessible, but you can find a specific place for the Linux distribution you go with – for example Ubuntu has rooms set up on Matrix and IRC that are both active and welcoming to new folks.
Also just dive into guides on how to do things as you need to do them. How to change wallpaper, how to install programs, whatever. Try finding official documentation, but often guides may be more helpful. But sometimes less. Over time you will learn how to search for answers just like on Windows. If the guides or forum threads don’t seem right, you can ask in the chatroom (hey does this make sense?)
Compared to cmd.exe and Powershell, the Linux terminal is very user friendly, with a user experience they’ve been refining since the 1970s or earlier, and there is a reason power users tend to gravitate towards using the CLI for some tasks. Sometimes it may be the preferred or only way to accomplish something (Windows has this too, but it’s more rare.) Take your time, and read/understand the man pages and the output of
nano --help(using nano as an example command: it is a text editor. But you can use the --help option with nearly any Linux command and it will most likely work, by convention.Sorry if any of this is too obvious or too much information, but hopefully it helps someone.
The Arch Wiki is very in-depth and helpful even though it doesn’t always apply 100% to other distros. Stack Exchange is also helpful, as well as forums such as linuxquestions.org.
I moved from Windows to Linux Mint Cinnamon. Im not an expert on commands but get by just by googling questions.
It super intuitive that I rarely have to dig too much.
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Linux Mint or vanilla Ubuntu. They’re nice, we’ll developed and stable with lots of software available. Never need to use a command line unless you want to
The file system takes some getting used to, but it’s similar to Mac. The only folders you need to worry about most of the time are /Home and /Media. Home is where all your stuff is. Media is where you find all your drives and partitions
And they are both easily findable in the file manager in any modern Linux operating system
