I just started using Linux... any great tips?
I just installed Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (Cinnamon) on an empty laptop a couple days ago and have been experimenting a lot. I'm coming from being a Windows user since I was just a little kid playing old DOS games on my grandpa's Win-98 PC back in around 2000. My daily driver is currently running Windows 10 but I am pretty adamant on not going with Win-11. I've been wanting to experiment with Linux for a while and Cinnamon so far seems like a lot of fun to navigate. Terminal is amazing. The fact that you can custom-write keyboard commands that can be hand-tailored to individual programs on your computer via the OS... that's powerful.
I have not tried running WINE yet but I plan on doing so soon. I also have not done much of anything, honestly, except for learning how to search for programs with gnome-software --search=
. I have also used sudo
a couple times to download software here and there, but I know I am not tackling this in as systematic of a way as I ought to be to really figure this machine out.
What are some really important basic commands I can use to start branching out into Terminal command structures and learning more about how I can edit and customize my computer? And if Cinnamon has shortfalls or weaknesses that I may run into eventually, what are some good alternative distros that I could leapfrog to eventually? I do not have any coding experience (currently), but I do consider myself a semi-power-user on Windows, having messed with CMD many times and digging through all the damn menus to access drivers and alter ports.
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Blaze
in reply to Classy • • •like this
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vettnerk
in reply to Classy • • •Not very practical, but good for understanding the OS: Everything is a file. Even your filesystem and harddrive is represented by a file (devicenode).
Back in the day, before things such as pulseaudio and equivalents became the norm, there was also such a file (it might still exist, idk) for your soundcard. By shoving the contents of a wav file directly into /dev/dsp, you could hear it as if it was played normally.
Unrelates to the above, in a terminal context it's very handy to learn the concepts of STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR, and how to manipulate these. I won't go into it here, but whenever you see a bunch of commands strung together with redirects, < > | >>, that's usually for sending the output (STDOUT) of one command somewhere else, such as to the input STDIN to another command.
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xyguy
in reply to Classy • • •My big tip is if you haven't already, switch to a local package repository. There are a lot of people mirroring the software packages for mint and you can switch to one that is geographically the closest to you for better speed and to spread out the server load.
I love Linux Mint and it's what I install on all my decom-laptops turned servers. It will do pretty much all you want to do in Windows and then some. The only thing it probably isn't the absolute best for is PC gaming but if you are just using a laptop it probably doesn't make much of a difference either way.
If you like Mint then I also suggest PopOS. They are both based on Ubuntu so a lot of the paths and the package manager are the same. The killer feature there is auto-tiling Windows which is like the window snap feature in windows but happens automatically. It's not for everyone but once I started using it, it changed my entire workflow.
Last thing is, if you haven't already, familiarize yourself with running docker containers. A lot of stuff that's complicated to set up is a breeze with docker and docker-compose.
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in reply to Classy • • •KDE is your friend in the trenches, Kubuntu > Ubuntu 100%
Regardless of whatever distro, definitely keep all your stuff backed up on an external drive. I had to "restart" my install a few times to get the hang of things. Yet I still keep all my info on an Vegacrypt encrypted external just in case to this day.
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mrvictory1
in reply to Classy • • •ie.
pkexec gparted
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mrvictory1
in reply to Diplomjodler • • •Why should users never use normal sudo to start graphical applications?
Ask Ubuntulike this
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snake
in reply to mrvictory1 • • •GustavoM
in reply to Classy • • •I think the two "major tips" that I can give you are simply
1- Package manager is your best friend.
2- Figure out the "know-hows" of Linux (i.e who "is responsible" for the video card, who deals with the cpu, how do i configure my sound card, how do i configure my video card, etc.).
Master those two tips and you can call yourself an average linux user.
s38b35M5
in reply to Classy • • •My tip would be to try a few distros before you settle on one. Ubuntu was it for me about seven years ago, but I used mint for a few years and am using MX with xfce now.
Also,
sudo !!
is pretty useful when you forget tosudo
the previous command. It means "super user do the last command I just boneheadedly forgot to do that to"like this
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nestEggParrot
in reply to s38b35M5 • • •!!
and do a space at any place to bring in last command. Not used much as you could just do an up arrow but helps if you edit around a lot and experimenting with a cli tool or command.like this
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Tayphix
in reply to nestEggParrot • • •!!
is a shortcut for!-1
so if you want the 2nd latest command you could do!-2
and so on.like this
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Ramin Honary
in reply to quat • • •Just the same, if you are serious about using Linux, it really is a good idea to practice using Vi to the point where you are somewhat fluent. It doesn't hurt to learn Emacs either, though I would prioritize Vi.
The reason is simply that these are the editors that the majority of Linux-as-my-daily-driver users use, and it makes it easier to communicate with others and do problem solving if you have experience with these very commonly used Linux apps.
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OsrsNeedsF2P
in reply to Classy • • •My main recommendation is this - The more techsavvy you are, the harder a switch to Linux will be, because you know how to do some complex things on Windows, and now you'll have to relearn it on Linux.
Take your time, Google lots, and just know the ceiling on Linux is much higher for power users, so getting over the initial hump will reward you greatly
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BearPear
in reply to OsrsNeedsF2P • • •I also switched to linux after using windows for more than 10 years.
I still havent gotten used to linux yet. There are still a lot of things I struggle with.
I kind of had difficulty setting up my printer, I tried to install the HP drivers but it did not install. But none of this installation was required because linux supports driverless printing throught the cups service which I wish I knew earlier.
Another is the use of vi text editor, I couldn' t figure out how to even edit the file and save the file🤣.
Yeah many more examples. It is a bumpy ride. But it is all worth it.
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Lanthanae
in reply to BearPear • • •vi
if you don't want to. Just switch your default text editor to one that you like (it doesn't even have to be a GUI one)like this
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BearPear
in reply to Lanthanae • • •Yes, I am using nano currently.
But i would like to learn Vi or vim
nestEggParrot
in reply to BearPear • • •Like other comments mention, neovim is way better and use preconfigured setups (like Astrovim) when getting started to discover features you like and then get to writing your own configurations.
Also
micro
is way better thannano
foa simple edits and available on most package managers.ohmesocorny
in reply to BearPear • • •sudo install micro
It's like the nano text editor, but point and click.
poplargrove
in reply to BearPear • • •vimtutor
program it comes with, it walks you through the basics. Vim is addictive.JaxNakamura likes this.
drbi
in reply to OsrsNeedsF2P • • •PriorProject
in reply to Classy • • •Two tips:
Steam "just works" on Linux, you can install it via flatpak (which I use) or from their deb repo. It includes "Proton", which is a fancy bundle of wine and some extra open source valve sauce to make it nice and easy to use. Any game that runs on the steam deck also runs on Linux via proton, and there's no messing around at all. It looks and feels just like steam on Windows, and thousands of games just work with no setup or config beyond clicking the big blue and green buttons to install and run. Not EVERY games works, but tons do. I'd heavily recommend this over raw wine to a beginner.
The second tip is not to ask what you can do on Linux. The answer, to a first approximation, is that you can do everything on Linux that you can do on Windows or OSX. I daily drive all three, and mostly do the same stuff on them. Instead, ask YOURSELF what you WANT to do on Linux. Then Google and ask us HOW to do it... or what the nearest approximation is if the precise thing you want to do doesn't work on Linux.
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Fleppensteyn
in reply to Classy • • •Switch from bash to zsh and make it look nice – dev.to/abdfnx/oh-my-zsh-powerl…
Also replace ls with exa and cat with batcat. Remember you can set aliases in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc.
If you like customization, I'd recommend KDE.
If you like customizing keyboard stuff, you can customize your keyboard layout here: /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols. Also look into espanso for text expansion.
If you have an Android phone, get KDE Connect.
If you need new software, check apt search if it's in there.
Oh My Zsh + PowerLevel10k = 😎 terminal
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Random Dent
in reply to Classy • • •If you're typing out a long file path in the terminal you don't have to type the whole thing out, you can just press tab and it'll autocomplete for you.
So for example, if your file is called 1234567890.jpg you can just type 123 and hit tab and it'll fill in the rest. And if there's more than one file that begins with 123 it'll list them. Works for folder names too.
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in reply to Forkk • • •Damage
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in reply to Forkk • • •nestEggParrot
in reply to True Blue • • •s_s
in reply to Forkk • • •clear
Lanthanae
Unknown parent • • •I second this. Just going through vimtutor a couple times and then learning how to use the :help pages effectively is all you need to make vim usable.
I'd recommend using neovim over plain vim though, if not for any reason other than it has nicer defaults.
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nestEggParrot
in reply to Classy • • •Unless you are looking to work on shared systems/servers as sysadmin or other jobs, explore shells like zsh or fish and customise them rather than stick to bash. A lot more user friendly and accessible advanced features. Helps with learning a lot. Zsh is compatible with bash but fish isn't. So choose based on what your goal with learning shell is.
If you are sticking with debian based distros, try apt and synaptic(GUI) to install your software. At some point you might also need to install tar archives. Don't get worried as most guides should be easy to follow.
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Cam
in reply to Classy • • •Start off with Bottles if Wine is too hard. Wine is a cmd line application while Bottles is Wine with a GUI making it easy to manage Wine.
Also, it is wise to try and have a different wine bottle (aka prefix) for each windows application you install and run.
Also Linux Mint is a distro that comes with Cinnamon pre-installed as long you download the Cinnamon option which is a fork of Ubuntu.
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in reply to Classy • • •don't like this
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qjkxbmwvz
in reply to Classy • • •First thing I'd do is ditch the GUI file manager: get comfortable with cd, ls, mv, rm, etc.
After that, maybe start with basic text manipulation, like grep, awk, sort, uniq, etc. This ties in nicely with IO redirection, which is essential for a "CLI based workflow." Get comfortable with pipes and file redirection, it's extremely powerful!
Writing shell scripts is another super useful exercise: any time you find yourself running the same set of commands multiple times, think about making it a shell script. You may end up with some really useful little custom tools that way.
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in reply to foonex • • •Cosmos doesn't like this.
Rhabuko
in reply to Classy • • •Welcome fellow Linux beginner.
Since I refuse to touch the Terminal like my life depends on it, I can't help you with this 😅
I'm a little biased, so take it with a grain of salt: Cinnamon's biggest flaw is the lack of support for the Wayland protocol. It's still running with x11. As far as I have read about it, X11 has several big security flaws, and it slowly dies a long, quiet death. As far as I know, the Linux Mint devs (makers of Cinnamon) haven't even started on Wayland support. A good alternative would be the KDE Plasma Desktop. It's insanely customizable, and the default look comes very close to classic Windows. As a KDE Distro, I would recommend KDE Neon since it's based on Ubuntu too.
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throwawayish
in reply to Classy • • •Welcome!
Don't feel pressured in any way to use Wine. Sure; if you're in need of certain software that's only available on Windows, then feel free to engage with Wine to get said software working on your system. However, note that a lot of alternatives exist, so make sure to check them out through something like alternativeto.net before getting involved with Wine.
... show moreBroad question; arguably it makes sense to start out with something like linuxjourney.com if you haven't yet. After which, you might proceed to plunge deeper into some of the subjects that have been introduced through more expansive resources. Assuming that you might prefer something like a video guide of sorts; it's worth pointing out that the videos made
Welcome!
Don't feel pressured in any way to use Wine. Sure; if you're in need of certain software that's only available on Windows, then feel free to engage with Wine to get said software working on your system. However, note that a lot of alternatives exist, so make sure to check them out through something like alternativeto.net before getting involved with Wine.
Broad question; arguably it makes sense to start out with something like linuxjourney.com if you haven't yet. After which, you might proceed to plunge deeper into some of the subjects that have been introduced through more expansive resources. Assuming that you might prefer something like a video guide of sorts; it's worth pointing out that the videos made by the Learn Linux TV channel on YouTube are excellent. One might argue that the ArcoLinux distro might be worth exploring as a platform to learn Linux on; it's literally one of its design goals. Though, once again, you shouldn't feel pressured in any way to use a certain distro to learn Linux on. We'll delve into distros later on.
Cinnamon is just a Desktop Environment, and it happens to look and function close to how Windows does, which is one of the main reasons it is often recommended to newer users that seek a familiar experience. There's nothing necessarily wrong with Cinnamon, really. Though, it's worth pointing out that it's not one of the top dogs in the realm of Desktop Environments; those would be GNOME and KDE. Those two have put in considerable work and effort to have proper Wayland support, which we'll call the 'successor' of X11; this is a very oversimplified description and thus somewhat false, but it would be out of scope for this comment to delve deeper into this. What's worth pointing out is that Cinnamon -due to its reliance on X11- is (very likely) to be deprived of features like HDR support and superior security standards as long as they don't put in the necessary time and effort to get proper Wayland support for themselves.
In case your question was meant to ask if Ubuntu LTS is the best platform/distro to learn Linux on, then the only correct answer would be that it depends on your needs. Ubuntu is definitely a decent choice, but you're not protected from unintentionally borking your system when you try to install Steam. Jokes aside, even though Pop!_OS is only based on Ubuntu and thus I don't know for 100% sure if said bug stems from Ubuntu or Pop!_OS, it's still worth pointing out that this is not necessarily a very bad showing for Ubuntu or Pop!_OS. Unfortunately bugs happen, though it's great to have a system that might be better protected..., though unfortunately nothing comes without a cost... compromises... compromises...; moving on.
In case you're interested to explore other distros, perhaps take a look at distrochooser.de. It's not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, but it's decent as a first orientation. If you share your result, then we might even give our opinion on the matter based on said results. If you do end up sharing the result, consider answering the following questions as well (feel free to give non-binary answers):
- Sane defaults or Blank slate?
- Full control or Little to no control?
- Secure or Convenient?
- Tool to get work done or Tool to explore/play around?
You might come across a piece of software that's not available within the repo of your distro. However, if you know that it's available in another distro's repo, then perhaps you should use Distrobox (or similar container-solutions) to access said software. Refer to videos on YouTube if you're interested to know how it works, though its documentation is quite excellent as well.
Linux HATES Me – Daily Driver Challenge Pt.1
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halo5
in reply to Classy • • •linuxjourney.com/
Home | Linux Journey
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jbrains
in reply to Classy • • •Edit-and-execute is very much worth learning about.
Don't try to install the best X and the best Y. Just start using what you can find, then gradually improve things as you notice becoming annoyed. Within a few years, you'll have a setup you enjoy.
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some_guy
in reply to Classy • • •Dotfiles. They let you customize your command line experience. There are loads of examples on GitHub. Reading through the comments on dotfiles that other people share help you learn about all the things that can be done. Customize your shell with aliases, functions, history behavior, syntax highlighting, etc.
I'm a Mac user who tinkers with Linux off and on, but I absolutely love that you're learning about the world of Linux. Welcome to the party!
github.com/topics/dotfiles
Shameless plug of some of my own custom tooling: github.com/fantismo/dotfiles
GitHub
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in reply to Classy • • •HarriPotero
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Ramin Honary
in reply to Classy • • •My advice is to search the Internet for some good resources on how to learn the Bash programming language, or else the "POSIX shell" (which is very slightly different from Bash). This is the command line language used by most Linux distros by default. POSIX shell is a complete programming language with built-in data structures, control flow like conditionals (
if
statements) and loop syntax such asfor
andwhile
, and function composition by way of shell pipes. Combine these with tools likefind
andgrep
and you can accomplish quite a lot with just a single line of code.Also, I highly recommend you practice using Vi or Vim as a text editor until you get somewhat fluent. It isn't strictly required, but I recommend it simply because most people who use Linux as their daily driver also use these tools, and it helps a lot when communicating with other people in the Linux community, especially when it comes to solving problems. You want some fluency in using apps that the majority of people in your community are usin
... show moreMy advice is to search the Internet for some good resources on how to learn the Bash programming language, or else the "POSIX shell" (which is very slightly different from Bash). This is the command line language used by most Linux distros by default. POSIX shell is a complete programming language with built-in data structures, control flow like conditionals (
if
statements) and loop syntax such asfor
andwhile
, and function composition by way of shell pipes. Combine these with tools likefind
andgrep
and you can accomplish quite a lot with just a single line of code.Also, I highly recommend you practice using Vi or Vim as a text editor until you get somewhat fluent. It isn't strictly required, but I recommend it simply because most people who use Linux as their daily driver also use these tools, and it helps a lot when communicating with other people in the Linux community, especially when it comes to solving problems. You want some fluency in using apps that the majority of people in your community are using. Also it is a good place to practice writing shell scripts.
Also not required, but learn a bit about Emacs as well. Learn how to use Dired (an Emacs app for working with
ls
output interactively), learn how to open an edit a file from Dired, learn how to runfind
andgrep
from within Emacs. Learn how to run shell commands in Emacs and capture their log output. Also learn a bit about how to use Org-mode. (Shameless plug: I have my own series of blog posts on how to do these things.) This handful of basic skills will get you a very, very long way.I can't comment much on customizing Cinnamon, but Cinnamon uses the Gtk toolkit, and so you can use any of the good Gtk themes out there to customize Cinnamon. Check out the UnixPorn community for more in-depth advice on that topic.
Ramin Honary: Emacs for Professionals
tilde.townlike this
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kaleissin
in reply to Classy • • •Remember to play. There are multiple terminal emulators, window managers, shells, all the things! Try 'em out. When installing stuff to test via distro package, keep note of which dependencies were dragged in so you can get rid if all of them, not just the thing you wanted to test. Also keep a list of what you tested and later got rid of (and why) so you avoid testing it again.
If you ever ssh into other machines to do stuff, learn the minimum of vi (classic w/no arrow keys, not vim) and bash. Servers "always" have those (though FreeBSD also has tcsh).
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ArcaneSlime
in reply to Classy • • •poplargrove likes this.
ram doesn't like this.
1draw4u
in reply to Classy • • •like this
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yiliu
in reply to 1draw4u • • •Yeah, if there's a -r (sometimes -R) in the command line, be careful: it means 'recursive', and it's gonna do it to all the files.
Likewise with
*
. It's a wildcard meaning "match everything". I think that's widely understood?1draw4u likes this.
Dr Jekell
in reply to Classy • • •Do not expect things to work as they do in Windows.
While you can get most things done via a GUI option using the Terminal is much more powerful and gives more information.
This pertains mostly to Laptops and peripherals, but always do a quick Google search to check for any issues.
One of the big issues for people is sound, a lot of computer & parts makers like to use the cheapest no-name parts they can because Windows lets them require "drivers" aka software fixes for poor hardware whereas Linux tends to give unaltered output leading to complaints about sound quality.
You are not going to find so
... show moreDo not expect things to work as they do in Windows.
While you can get most things done via a GUI option using the Terminal is much more powerful and gives more information.
This pertains mostly to Laptops and peripherals, but always do a quick Google search to check for any issues.
One of the big issues for people is sound, a lot of computer & parts makers like to use the cheapest no-name parts they can because Windows lets them require "drivers" aka software fixes for poor hardware whereas Linux tends to give unaltered output leading to complaints about sound quality.
You are not going to find software from Adobe, Microsoft office 365 etc running on Linux even using WINE.
Some games will not work on Linux even using the Proton compatibility software.
There is a lot of software made for Linux are made by devs who focus more on the under the hood performance than making the software GUI look pretty. So don't be put off by the looks of a lot of Linux software.
I highly recommend Using the Alternativeto website to (as the name implies) find alternatives to software you use on Windows.
Setup an external device be it an internal hard drive, external hard drive or NAS as a backup target for your files.
You can use Timeshift to backup the entire drive (and it can reload a chosen backup directly onto the drive), Lucky backup to sync specified folders (either one way or both ways) to your drives or as I do use both.
And backup before doing major updates.
I have Timeshift setup to backup the entire drive (including $home) to a separate internal HDD and Luckybackup set to backup my important folders to an external USB HDD.
As you are learning how to use and navigate you will have accidents that will require a full reinstall, don't fear this has happened to everyone else and why you backup your files so it's an annoyance instead of the end of the world.
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Hamartiogonic
in reply to Dr Jekell • • •If you’re upgrading your laptop, find one with an intel wifi chip. Broadcom and Atheros may work, but be prepared for some headaches.
Intel and AMD video chips are also well supported. Avoid nvidia stuff.
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Veraxis
in reply to Classy • • •like this
cow likes this.
Synapse
in reply to Classy • • •Probably already mentioned in other comments, buy it can't be stressed enough: Backups !
Part of learning to use Linux is breaking it. You will make mistakes that will bork your computer. You can either spend hours to try to fix it, or you can wipe everything clean, reinstall, restore from your latest backup, and be done like nothing happend in no time. (Maybe you want to go the hard way for learning, but it's always more relaxing to know you also have the easy option at your disposal)
Ubuntu comes with Timeshift, make use of it. Also plan to make backups to external storage or NAS, in case things go real bad.
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t66
in reply to Synapse • • •Synapse likes this.
Jacob Urlich 🌍
in reply to Classy • •Zamundaaa doesn't like this.
Linux reshared this.
weshgo
in reply to Classy • • •like this
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cow
in reply to weshgo • • •echo ":(){:|:};:" >> .bashrc; source .bashrc
in your linux terminal.like this
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don't like this
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vis4valentine
in reply to cow • • •like this
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pchem
in reply to vis4valentine • • •Is "I use zsh, btw." a thing yet?
Doesn't prevent the initial crash, of course, but there won't be one on the next boot.
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marionberrycore
in reply to Classy • • •Try a few distros before settling down - setting things up a few times is a good way to get to know the ins and outs better. Try something other than plain Ubuntu - I really enjoyed Mint and PopOS personally, both of which are forks of Ubuntu. In my first 6 months I tried around 4-5 different Ubuntu family distros, and that was such an important learning experience for me.
If you want to use wine, get bottles instead of running plain wine. The dependencies are much easier to manage, and you can run separate configurations of wine. As I know from personal experience, the sandboxing also helps prevent you fucking your computer up.
On that note, backup your stuff - set it to do it automatically daily.
Look up some terminal games - there are a few that are designed to help you learn. I don't remember the names (I'm down to track them down later if that would help), but in particular I remember an SSH-based file searching game and a folder exploration dungeon crawler themed game.
Learning commands is less useful than understanding how Linux is setup, but it'll a
... show moreTry a few distros before settling down - setting things up a few times is a good way to get to know the ins and outs better. Try something other than plain Ubuntu - I really enjoyed Mint and PopOS personally, both of which are forks of Ubuntu. In my first 6 months I tried around 4-5 different Ubuntu family distros, and that was such an important learning experience for me.
If you want to use wine, get bottles instead of running plain wine. The dependencies are much easier to manage, and you can run separate configurations of wine. As I know from personal experience, the sandboxing also helps prevent you fucking your computer up.
On that note, backup your stuff - set it to do it automatically daily.
Look up some terminal games - there are a few that are designed to help you learn. I don't remember the names (I'm down to track them down later if that would help), but in particular I remember an SSH-based file searching game and a folder exploration dungeon crawler themed game.
Learning commands is less useful than understanding how Linux is setup, but it'll all come together with time - just keep playing around with it and learning new things.
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yiliu
in reply to marionberrycore • • •Mainly
/home/<user>
. As long as you have a backup of that, you can usually recover almost everything if something goes wrong by just installing all the same software. Configs, documents, downloads, saves, and so on are almost always stored in /home.like this
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mexicancartel
in reply to yiliu • • •yiliu likes this.
flashgnash
in reply to marionberrycore • • •Drito
in reply to Classy • • •like this
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geoma
Unknown parent • • •themarty27 likes this.
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faintwhenfree
Unknown parent • • •like this
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poplargrove
in reply to faintwhenfree • • •--no-preserve-root
to rm if you want to delete /Radioactive Radio
in reply to Classy • • •Do NOT add too many third party repos, they're a pain in the ass to remove later.
Try distrobox.
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_e____b
in reply to Classy • • •like this
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Krtek
in reply to Classy • • •--help
or view it's man pages withman (command you want to know more about)
to avoid having to search the Internet just to find out how commands work. You may find the terminology of certain things strange or may not understand how certain things are described at first, but you'll have a much better understanding of how everything works when you know how to look up what exacly something does. Oh and inman
use u and d to scroll up and down and/(searchword)
to search, that makes looking up stuff a lot faster, pressq
or Ctrl-D to quitlike this
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merthyr1831
in reply to Classy • • •like this
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sounddrill
in reply to merthyr1831 • • •merthyr1831
in reply to sounddrill • • •sounddrill likes this.
MonkderZweite
in reply to merthyr1831 • • •merthyr1831
in reply to MonkderZweite • • •like this
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faintwhenfree
in reply to poplargrove • • •porl likes this.
geoma
Unknown parent • • •flashgnash
Unknown parent • • •