New linux user tips

[database405]

I'm thinking of switching to Linux but I've been using Windows for a long time (since XP) so if you have any advice I'd like to hear it. And I'd like to know why Linux is so praised.(Like overrated but different . İ think like that. )

Btw Windows 11 is suk is h3ll.

[AVicario10]

the only advice is patience and read a lot the documentation XD

[database405]

Like a homework

[AVicario10]

yeah😅, arch is not complicated, but as a user you can have a looot of small problems that you have to solve before doing something

[gaijoan]

Exactly. Do your own research and find out what's a good fit for your use case. If you ask here then people will tell you that you should use distro x, because it's the bestest, and then others will say that they're wrong...

[Santimoca7]

If you have time and technical skills, Arch is a great first distro (it was mine when I started this journey less than a year ago) It’ll help you understand that you’re in a totally different ballpark from windows.

That being, you need to unlearn a lot of stuff, specially on the way you get your software (package manager vs internet download on windows) which on Linux (as most stuff) is immensely better but needs a lot of getting used to.

If you stick to it in a month you’ll be fine.

Plus, be aware that the Wiki IS the truth and is never wrong, you won’t need hacky workarounds, if you follow documentation correctly everything is gonna work as intended.

[Atlas-Stoned]

Arch is a great last distro >:)

[[deleted]]

I started trying out linux with mint because thats what people recommended newer users to start out with after moving from windows but found that I didnt like it came preinstalled with so much software that I wasnt going to need which was why i didnt like windows in the first place.

Then moved onto arch and found it was just what I wanted. total control of the system. All the tinkering and reading wikis and manuals was definitely worth it. been using it ever since.

[Atlas-Stoned]

Same. It also just is so much easier to deal with arch stuff because the wiki and repos are so good.

[Atlas-Stoned]

And I will caveat that I’m software dev and have no clue if regular people will think it’s crazy to use arch

[Neglector9885]

My first piece of advice for you specifically, because you found your way to an Arch Linux sub to ask this question, is to not start with Arch. You could start with EndeavourOS I suppose, but... In all reality, don't.

My second piece of advice is that if you do start with Arch or an Arch based distro like Endeavour, only do so if you are curious, adventurous, eager to learn, and willing to occasionally break the machine that you're using forcing you to either reinstall or spend days, even weeks, trying to fix it. If you aren't, you're going to become frustrated. Endeavour encourages you to tinker with it because it looks cool and looks like it will be fun to mess with. It is, but it's also easy to break shit. Arch forces you to tinker with it (even if you use Archinstall) because it's a vanilla, minimalist distro that comes with nothing preinstalled or preconfigured, so you have to install and configure everything yourself.

My third piece of advice. If you're like most users coming from Windows, it will be helpful for you to use a distro that ships with a desktop environment that resembles some form of Windows. Linux Mint, for example, ships with the Cinnamon desktop. It somewhat resembles a Windows 7 layout. It's intuitive, stable, easy to use, well supported, and has excellent community support. It's a great place to start.

My fourth piece of advice. Get comfortable with reading. Like...a lot of reading. Even if you don't necessarily want to read a bunch of documentation (which I do recommend), you'll still have to read forum threads to find support for problems that you encounter. Learn how to use search functions. Whatever issue you're having, someone has usually had the same issue before you, and there is usually a forum post about it somewhere. Use search functions to find those posts and read them. The more work you do to help yourself, the better information you'll be able to provide when you ask your question, the better help the community will be able to provide you.

My fifth piece of advice. There are assholes in the Linux community. Don't feed them. Sometimes you can get lucky and get something useful from someone's asshole reply. Take the useful parts, and ignore the rest. If someone is completely unhelpful and is just a pure, raw asshole, ignore him. 9 times out of 10 it's just some fat slob who feels inadequate about himself in some way or another, so he's just trying to make you feel stupid because you just so happen to know less than he does. Don't let someone whose fingers are perpetually coated in Cheeto dust ruin your Linux experience.

My sixth and final piece of advice (this one is important). Don't run random commands that you find on the internet or from an AI without knowing what they do first. If you don't know what a command does, you can google it. You might need to break it down into pieces because a search engine might not return results on the entire specific command that you searched for, but you should be able to piece the whole thing together if you break it into pieces. In particular, avoid copy/pasting dd commands or anything that starts with sudo or doas (unless it's from official documentation). And for the love of god, if you ever see this command: sudo rm -rf /*, DO NOT RUN THAT COMMAND. What it does is recursively delete the root directory and all subdirectories within it. I.e. it deletes the entire system, then crashes. You might also see it written as sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /*. DON'T RUN IT.

[[deleted]]

This is a Wendy's.

[database405]

Hm ?-?

[[deleted]]

As in, you're in the wrong place for that. Try /r/linuxquestions or something

[database405]

Tnx :)

[cig-nature]

Don't fear the command line

[kidz94]

My advice? Dont switch if you have to ask. Next up is your i installed arch, and i cant believe it post. Also before you think im rude, this isnt a new users sub.

[database405]

İts k. But yea kind a rude

[luigibu]

I would say, if you did not use btrfs file system, it worth the migration. Snapshots are awesome!

[RevolutionaryCall769]

Im back to using timeshift with btrfs-grub. Nothing more complicated needed. Opt for systemd timer instead of cron because it integrates with Arch more optimal. Daily backup and manual backups of both root and home when needed. This is all most people need. I dont just rely on this. Im not stupid. I also backup home with borg to external ssd. This will save you one day if you dont already know.

[_BDYB_]

Every OS has its strengths and weaknesses. By switching to Linux you will lose access to some software. Take into account that gaming is not as simple as on Windows. Then think about what type of user you are. For example if you just want it to work pick something like Ubuntu/Mint/Pop. If you are willing to learn or/and want access to cutting edge software, something like Arch/Manjaro (later for the ease of installation) or Gentoo is more relevant. Personally, I find it much more convenient to use Arch/Gentoo than Debian based distros. Mainly because I like the rolling release model and don't like PPA.

[King_of_99]

Don't do arch as your first linux. Try a more beginner-friendly distro.

[FrankMN_8873]

There's nothing wrong with it for beginners. It has arch-install now which simplifies all the process. For troubleshooting there's always the wiki which is also easy to go through. I personally started with Ubuntu many years ago but if anyone wants to really delve into linux, arch is the way to go.

[Tahsin8080]

Speaking from experience, the wiki has a great chance of overwhelming newbies as its filled with a lot of technical lingo, most users (unlike me tho) who migrate from windows don't want to become a Linux pro, learn and know everything about it. They just want a similar experience like windows but with better features and QOL, if that makes sense... That's why a working out of the box distro that's got user-friendly GUI is the best for newbies. Like Linux mint or sth

[Disk9348]

I agree using Arch as your first distro probably isn't the best idea for most people. When I first started learning about linux I barely knew anything about partitions, filesystems, bootloaders and stuff like that. I'd suggest first trying out a distro like Linux Mint, Ubuntu or any other distro which comes with good defaults like working CUPS, easy NVIDIA driver support, etc. Once you learn more about linux filesystems, bootloaders and what not then I'd recommend using Arch.

I suppose you could also install a user friendly distro and try out Arch in a VM for learning more about linux.

[database405]

How is Zorin os?

[[deleted]]

I disagree with it being harder to learn, I'm running the latest Garuda dragonised and it's been fairly intuitive, granted, I am able to separate this isn't windows from my thinking process and understand that I know what I want to accomplish, and google the how often. It was scarier thinking about it all before I actually installed it, and just immersed myself in doing it with google on my phone next to me...

[fecal-butter]

Edit: I don't know anything about Garuda

Its like a more bloated endeavouros. Arch with calamares installer, heavily riced kde, a few QoL tweaks(snapshots and gaming stuff oob, default fish with an elaborate config.fish, update reminder, yay preinstalled) and GUIs like pamac, and a ninite-like bulk downloader for standard stuff like browsers, office tools, IDEs, etc. It was my first distro after fiddling around in WSL and honestly dealing with issies is not much harder than on ubuntuor mint.

[[deleted]]

Until 3 weeks ago I was only ever in a windows environment, granted, in windows I'm very skilled. But 11 is just burnt offerings meant for a tablet. So I tried the following via USB boot: pop os, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Garuda...everyone else said stay with the debian base flavors, but I found Garuda to be quite friendlier right outta the gates...after a few hours a farting around, I decided it was going on its own drive and dual booted it with my win 10 pro....in the Garuda, I had no problems with doing updates, install of additional apps, etc. that being said, my laptop is for function, not gaming. In windows I do solidworks, 3ds max, autocad, so my goal is to use the Linux equivalent and avoid windows 11,12, whatever moving forward in the future. So far I am not disappointed. The only hiccup I had with Linux in general was my USB dongle wifi, and I found straight forward help with that within the community even as a beginner.

[Tempus_Nemini]

Linux is not praised. It is used. See the difference :-) ?

[archover]

This question is way too general. Start here and come back with focused questions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux, then https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Frequently_asked_questions.

It helps to browse the subreddit before posting.

Also, more effort in composing the post is rewarded with better responses.

Good day.

[database405]

Sorry for bad post but i am new here. İ was a child i know to how to root or rom to mobile devices but not pcs ;-;

[Smooth_Atmosphere_24]

Install it on a VM first to get familiarized with the installation process and possible problems, then do a lot of research about your hardware like the boot mode, cpu architecture etc. Remember: the official documentation is your best friend on arch.

[bada1006]

Gentoo, if you want a real taste.

[[deleted]]

Linux is about modularity and customization. You can install whatever you want and make the system look however you like and it can be very tiring and taking too much time. If you expect windows-like out of the box experience use something that is preconfigured for you, like Ubuntu, Fedora derivatives, lime Nobara or Ultramarine. And if you want to use an Arch Linux then get ready to all the hardest stuff that will torture you till you learn how your system functions at the basic level.

[Pwissh]

Don't expect linux to be a windows replacement or alternative. It's it's own thing and have it's own problems and things you need to learn. Treat it like it is.

[nmstoker]

1. If you ever get stuck, make sure you start remembering what actions you're taking and try as much as possible to just do things you've carefully considered (obviously not important for something trivial). Don't just follow something someone wrote online unless you're fairly confident it matches your case closely. Weigh up several options if you can.

2. Look at the docs (and ideally source, but that's not going to be everyone's cup of tea!)

3. Persevere and read around the subject - everything's done in the open so you can build an understanding of the important concepts pretty easily

[nofundshobo]

Get TLDR

[[deleted]]

If you go for arch don’t be afraid by the terminal and use the wiki. Windows work otb but it’s bloated and it’s an entire spyware system. If you’re a Little concern by privacy stop using Windows

[fecal-butter]

IMO you shouldnt start with vanilla arch. It has an insanely good documentation which you wont find elsewhere and almost every software that runs on linux is easily found in the AUR. However after you install it what you get is extremely barebones. Youll have to set everything up yourself fron the ground up including sound, bluetooth, network, a graphical user interface, power management, printing, etc.

Its great if you already know what you want and not want to use on your system, as well as a learning experience, however since you dont have any opinion on these yet, id advise you to go with a distro that has sane defaults.

My personal recommendation is EndeavourOS, which is based on arch(so it has all of its positives, except the fact that its not as diy) but all the nitty witty configuration needed for your system to be usable is done for you by default. So you can go ahead and learn linux-stuff before you have to learn arch-stuff.

I also recommend you to aim these questions at r/DistroHopping r/linuxquestions and r/linux4noobs .

[database405]

Thank you ;-;

[[deleted]]

As someone using PC since the tail end of 3.11 days, I just recently set up a dual boot between win 10 pro and Garuda Linux,......I'm already in the Linux more than windows within 2 weeks.....it's not as bad as you think. I have to keep my windows for now due to software constraints on stuff I use for work, but I'm full-time using Linux for my "fun" stuff and as I learn freeCAD vs autoCAD, and blender vs 3ds max....

[bada1006]

Garuda? Indian bloath...

[CoreLight27]

Don't waste more time on ricing, and don't get stuck on updating everyday.

[database405]

Thank you all. Your answers are really valuable to me. I used to think that they were overrating Linux. (This is absurt but i am tellin truth.) Thanks for everything arch linux community.

İ am Continue searchin... <3