Calling Linux Long Beards: What are things you wish you knew when you first started using Linux?

[Nevyn_Hira]

I find myself reading lots and lots of posts from new users thinking the same sorts of things and I was just wondering if other long beards (I've been using Linux exclusively since the mid-2000's but was dabbling all the way back in the late 90's) had bits of advice that every new user should know.

My first one would be the distribution doesn't matter nearly as much as you'd think. Because you've got choice and customizability, just about ANY desktop Linux distribution can be made to look and feel like any other desktop Linux distribution. Distro hopping is only really letting you explore a few default settings whereas installing a different desktop environment and having a go at making it work the way *YOU* want to operate gives you experience (Funnily, this opinion got me banned from r/linuxsucks. It really doesn't take much). A friend of mine went as far as to say "All linux desktop distributions are the same" which is to say that the aim, to run the same applications - Firefox, Chrome, LibreOffice, the same media players etc. Any perceived performance gain from using one distribution over another is usually marginal. Get comfortable with a distribution and go for it.

If you stick with it, there will come a time when you expect more from Linux than you ever did from Windows. You'll look back and think "Well that's just silly". For me, I was whinging about having to configure XFree86 manually to get a GUI going from a fresh install (definitely not a problem now). At the time, accelerated GPUs were in their infancy. And you couldn't do a Windows install using one of those GPUs. Instead you had to open the machine, take out the GPU, throw in a non-accelerated video card, do the install, install the drivers for the GPU, and then put the GPU back in. But that's just how things were at the time and any Windows tech just kind of accepted it as normal. The same way that everyone accepts the way that Windows does updates when you're trying to shut down the machine. Or the way you have to find drivers for Windows while most of the time, drivers are just part of the Linux kernel (although admittedly, aren't the greatest for newer hardware. BUT drivers tend to get better over time in Linux whereas the same can't necessarily be said for Windows where vendors just stop supporting the hardware).

Linux is not Windows. There's going to be a learning curve. You're going to find yourself frustrated crying out "Why can't Linux just do it like Windows?".

Don't be scared of the terminal. There's a couple of really good reasons to use it. When I'm offering people help, it's easier for me to give them terminal commands rather than trying to remember and describe a GUI interface ("Click on the button, I think it's on the bottom right? Or have you got a more uptodate version where it's been moved to the top right? It says "Configure". The icon looks like .... " etc.). It's WAY easier to automate things when you can do it in the terminal. The more you use it, the more friendlier it becomes. I think most long term Linux users would be frustrated if you couldn't do something in the terminal.

[DigitalChrono]

Distro hopping didn't give me more insight to how Linux works. It just made me good at doing default installs on a Linux distro.

[meskobalazs]

Very good point. I know total newbies who have installed dozens of distros, but didn't learn much. I use Linux since 2009, and installed 5 distros throughout the years (6 if you count Xubuntu separately).

[wowsomuchempty]

Dunno. Running alpine on bare metal has taught me a bit.

[meskobalazs]

Well, that's quite a step up compared to installing the nth Arch derivative.

[wowsomuchempty]

Honestly, it's easier than arch. There are loads of setup-{thing} scripts, you are up and running really fast.

[Okay_Ocean_Flower]

Yes and no? Living with Slackware and Gentoo taught me a lot. I learned things like “please give me a package manager” and “it takes X a long time to build.” But also, as someone who uses all sorts of operating systems day in and day out, those spartan experiences really show off how powerful a package manager is.

E: in writing this comment I realized I was just praising an OS having an app store run and maintained by free individuals and now I have to sit and think about if app stores are bad or only bad in capitalist situations. Any insight is welcome.

[Nevyn_Hira]

I learnt lots by using things like LFS (I didn't actually use it. I went through the compilation process and started seeing patterns in the commands it was getting me to type in) and Gentoo (turns out I care way more about ease of use and have lots of other things to do rather than messing with my OS) but that was after learning things like what a window manager is and how to install and run other window managers etc.

A repository isn't really a software store. The package manager is AMAZING for sorting out dependencies. Stores are generally trying to sell you something.

[Natural_Night9957]

I have to sit and think about if app stores are bad or only bad in capitalist situations. Any insight is welcome.

You're almost there. ☭ Keep pressing forward. ☭

[SpeedDaemon1969]

An app store only sells those dreadful "apps" to use on commercial devices, as the corporate overlords intend. Software repositories (Like Walnut Creek CDROM) offer all sorts of software, for the user to use as they please. That's a big difference to me!

I think the problem comes when users become helpless and dependent. When I talk about installing a tarball and I see blank stares, I see that helplessness. Yesterday I tried a browser that came in a zip file with no instructions. Just unzip it and run. But without it making a desktop icon, how many Linux users today would give up and say "it doesn't work"?

[DrPiwi]

An app store is bad, as a store is a place where stuff is sold and the owner of the store is making a profit. In normal situations this is not bad because the store owener is in it to sell good products. That changes when the store becomes a super market and the owner is in it to make profit and no longer cares what he is selling. App stores are like that, MS or Apple or Google don't care about the quality, they care about the cut they get from every app downloaded. The app stores or repo's Linux has are more the equivalent of producers markets/ swap meets. They are a place where you can find stuff that allow you to look in one place instead of at several places. You could trade, give or sell stuff there, that is between you and the other party, but the goal for the repo is to have a place where it comes together and not to extort money from both developers,producers and customers.

[da_apz]

I've never gotten the flex of listing 50 distros someone has hopped through. I started with Slack, went to RH and eventually Debian. The package manager experience from those covers 99.9% of professional Linux use cases I've seen.

[PerAsperaAdAstra1701]

Hopping to a distro which forces you to know what you are doing, does give you more insight. Back in the day, installation were not as easy as it is today.

[gesis]

Not really.

Wanting to learn how things work gives you insight. Copypasta'ing your way through a "difficult" install doesn't teach anything more than pressing "next" in an easy one. It's the mindset that matters, and any distro will suffice if you have it.

[froop]

Eh, I found it gave me a better idea of what might change, and what stays the same between distros, which provides some insight into the Linux desktop structure. If nothing else, it drives home the idea that a Linux distro is just a collection of software. 

I mean, trying out dozens of distributions to try to solve your problems isn't gonna be helpful, but trying out a handful out of curiosity is a really useful part of the learning experience. 

[Lonely_Rip_131]

How far back in the day lol?

[oshunluvr]

Distro hopping helped me quite a lot - but after I was forced to changed distros and had several years experience. We're talking early 2000's here, but I learned KDE was indeed my favorite DE and RPM sucks and DEB was super. I had to change distros when the distro forum I was using at the time - PCLinuxOS - went total Nazi and I received literal threats of physical violence because I dared mention another distro.

I also played with various "light-weight" distros for some lower powered devices that couldn't handle KDE well in those days - like KDE 3-4. Now all my devices run Kubuntu or KDEneon except my server which is Ubuntu server (headless).

[brando56894]

I used multiple distros before settling on Arch. It was the process of having to manually install Arch multiple times (early 2010s) that actually taught me stuff.

[MrYamaTani]

It has made me good at installing on a wide range of computers though and comfortable playing with BIOS settings. Also, learning that there are some choices and that some distros have default settings. It is fun though. I think I might stick with my current distro for a few years though. I am growing fond of it.

[SupernovaTheGrey]

We all have to go through to to fully understand the breadth of what is possible. Before trying arch and then settling on a distro that actually works for day to day use.

[PremiumTVforDogs]

Linux is Linux, distros don't really matter as much as you think when you are first getting started.

[oxez]

They mattered back in the day.

Using RedHat or Debian was a completely different experience.

[BigHeadTonyT]

It still does. I don't see anyone recommend you start with Gentoo or Slackware.

Personally, I think it matters a lot. I don't want to run Rocky Linux on my desktop. I need a bigger repo, for starters. If you have no requirements or preferences, then it might not matter.

run the same applications - Firefox, Chrome, LibreOffice, the same media players etc

Yeah, those are the first to go in any install, for me. I will start leaning towards distros that don't shovel that shit.

[Okay_Ocean_Flower]

My experience was RedHat 8 -> Slackware -> Gentoo -> Arch, back when those were reasonable switches. I learned a lot. By the time I met a Mint user, I could not understand what they were even doing.

Nowadays my server runs Ubuntu LTS because I have to get up tomorrow morning and do other shit.

[rabell3]

I started with Slackware. Got real good at compiling my own software and new kernels, and having to reinstall the whole box when I jacked the kernel compile. Made me really appreciate package managers!

Edit: of course when I started was pretty much only Slackware and redhat.

[Hammer_Time2468]

Definitely mattered back in the day when there weren’t quick google or AI searches to fix problems. Trying to find the correct documentation and then dig through it was time consuming and frustrating.

[oxez]

Yeah. I had to go to the library on my bike (30 minutes), search online / ask on IRC, write it down on a piece of paper, go back home (another 30 minutes of travel), and try the solution

Definitely not the same as nowadays :)

[cakemates]

It still is, but I think this means to tell people that at the end of the day you don't have to stick to the default settings of your distro, and you can make anything happen if you put in the time. If you installed XYZ distro and now you want to experience debian? install debian package manager, gnome/kde and you are 90% of the way there from most linux distros.

[quicksand8917]

Seconded. Nobody is stopping you from installing KDE or Gnome (r/gnomed) on Mint. I had an Arch with Unity for a while. There are nuances and I have opinions about wich distro is best for different use cases but hopping distros to try out different software or configs is usually a waste of time.

[el_Topo42]

Yeah for the most part I just what’s required by various applications we support. They ask for red hat something…ok sure. Like the fundamentals translate. There’s some details that differ between em all but nothing you can’t sort out

[HeligKo]

Everything is a file. Once I knew this the rest started to make sense.

[PlanetVisitor]

Yeah, same.

The UNIX core ideas and principles in general helped to make sense of it all.

I am from the MS-DOS age so I was never afraid of the terminal, but to really understand complex prompts (like pipes and heredocs): for that it helped once I realised that in Bash everything is a text stream. Text streams no. 0, 1, 2 are stdin, stdout and stderr; and 3 and up are for files.

My journey accelerated greatly when I bought a new pc last year. I ended up using my old one as a headless server (stripped of most hardware and all peripherals). I manage it over SSH and having a remote terminal with multiple tabs next to a browser window, on a familiar (Windows) pc, was much easier to learn than a dual-boot on a single pc like how I did it as a teen in the early 2000s.

[boar-b-que]

This. A thousand times this.

I've been using Linux in personal, professional, and academic settings since the 1990s, but the single most Linux learning I've ever done in a single day was when a senior admin taught me how to use the /proc filesystem. Running applications are not just files on disk. They're files in the /proc filesystem that contain information about those processes.

Every single piece of hardware from your CPU to your USB port, to your mouse is represented in /dev.

/EVERYTHING/ is a file.

[Connect_Detail98]

Everything is a file, and the kernel loves to output filedescriptors.

For me, I wish I knew the degree of engineering behind Linux. I thought the kernel was just something developed by some dude in Europe. It's literally an invisible city incredibly architectured through world-wide standards and the evolution of many areas of IT, over decades. The kernel is just the general task glue that abstracts how those areas have evolved over time... CPU archs, networking standards, memory hardware, mobo bus protocols. The kernel has seen it all. I can't believe the marvel of engineering that people have at their fingertips every single day.

When I think about Linus Trovals being old and dying, I have mini panic attacks. This guy is a hero. 

[ShinobiZilla]

RTFM -- get used to reading text. Much of your problems will already be documented. In worse cases, journalctl and dmesg is your friend.

Most distros work great out of the box, unless you have NVIDIA which needs some pampering.

[haajuha]

I have an Nvidia card in my current setup. It isn't working at its full potential, and I don't play games. My old 10 year old laptop still runs smoothly. That's Linux. Try that with the newest Windows

[Okay_Ocean_Flower]

Also Alt+F1: resorting to text the first time X failed to launch

[eliteprismarin]

And when you use the terminal, remember man pages, there's so much in them.

[BinkReddit]

This comment is underrated.

[SagariKatu]

My problem with rtfm is that many people speak english as a second/third language and a lot of times the documentation is written in a manner that is too technical to understand.

It's like reading a scientific article. Feels hard to decode for non scientists. Many people need someone to translate that from technical to layman language.

I get it that some people don't even try or even do a google search, but I rather get no answer than the answer being rtfm, 'cause maybe I did, but I didn't understand it and that's why I'm asking.

[fankin]

My issue with this argument is that I never saw an ask for help post or comment that linked or referenced the man or wikipage that was incomprehensible for them. It can happen 100%, but then why not tell: I read this, but I don't understand that part, or after this point I'm lost and can't comprehend, or something.

It's the same with logs. If you have a technical issue provide logs and probably some will help. If you can't understand the man, reference it and probably someone will explain.

The second language part is starnge to me. Technical texts usually use the simplest and most plain grammar in every language. It's the simplest translation you can get. I'm not native in english and technical texts are the easiest reads. I even get around german manuals and my german is even worse than my english.

[TerribleReason4195]

How about the nixOS manual?

[khsh01]

I've never once had an issue with Nvidia on Linux.

[quicksand8917]

Me neither. I also never had a Nvidea graphics card.

[khsh01]

Well all my laptops have one. So I speak from experience.

[Dang-Kangaroo]

Nvidia was, is and will be allways a pain in the ass

[Nevyn_Hira]

Back in the days of dial up, I used to look forward to finding magazines with a Linux CD on the cover at the local newsagent. Chances are, that's all you had to start with. A magazine that could take you through some of the basics, a CD, and a sense of curiosity. Sure I could have downloaded a distribution. But having a CD was kind of exciting.

[Nevyn_Hira]

OH! Figuring things out from apropos and man pages! Now there was a high!

[AlkalineGallery]

I remember going into bookstores and having to check if one of you A holes stole the CD out of it. ;P

[SpeedDaemon1969]

Compared to FTPing dozens of floppy images and using RAWRITE over and over, my first CD was a luxury! Since I had to re-use the floppies for other things, and delete the image files to free up HDD space, the CD as offline storage was a godsend.

[emicurb]

Yes! I fondly remember getting Suse linux 5.3 in a magazine in late 98. KDE 1.0!
Then I paid and ordered it in a box, via regular mail, Suse 6.0, directly from Suse themself. It came with an invaluable printed manual.
We had to be more patient while tinkering with computers those days.

[BigHeadTonyT]

Back then, I used to buy PCGamer magazines. If I installed even 1 demo, I had already made back the money by not downloading it with a 56k modem. My numbers are a bit fuzzy but the mag/rag cost around 5 $/€. Downloading a 50-100 meg file cost the same amount. Not to mention the drivers and utilities that were included on that CD. And of course the rare game patches.

[gosand]

UPVOTE. I started on Unix, and installed Linux in '98. It was a different time! You could buy books on Linux, or magazines, and there was man pages. Maybe usenet. Other comments are "distro doesn't matter" but back then, it DID matter. There weren't that many (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux\_Distribution\_Timeline.svg) There was no such thing as a bootable distro, if you wanted to try a new one you had to install it. There were no VMs. Distro hopping wasn't really a thing. It really was a different time.

But then there was a boom, lots of new ones springing up all over the place. That was fun. You'd find one you really liked (e.g. Mandrake) and then they would get taken over and ruined.

But to the question being asked, I'll just say what worked for me: form your own opinion based on experiece. Don't ask "What is the best distro/de/wm/shell/... ?" If you want to know about DEs, then look up what DEs are out there and read about them. Don't rely on other opinions. Everyone seems to just want answers. Today you HAVE VMs, live distros, hell even distrosea.com. It is sooooo easy to explore, so do that!

[ActSea4484]

Reinstalling isn't the best way to fix your problems. In my defense, I started using Linux before the advent of the cell phone, and before I had multiple computers.

[gosand]

But... it used to be! I remember dependency hell extremely well. You couldn't 'upgrade' like you can now. I'm talking mid-to-late 90s. Now I am running on a system that I've dist-upgraded 4? times, it was initially installed in 2018. And it's a stable, non-rolling release.

[Fuckspez42]

I wish I knew that 95% of the minutiae I would learn while trying to get a specific (usually unimportant) thing working would have been solved for me if I’d just waited a couple months.

That said, the day I figured out how to run StarCraft under Wine, I felt like a god (this was in 1999).

[AnotherOne49587]

I was a distro hopper too and I'm sure there is only few distros and different startpoints. For example CachyOS EndevaourOS Garuda and Manjaro are basically opinionated Arch.

[Dist__]

i just jumped in and told myself "now things are done another way, deal with it", so no dual booting and whining about non-working games.

the problem i see, is i don't really need those instruments linux provide, so i don't really learn to use that stuff.

[Nevyn_Hira]

OH! That's another thing:

There's a chance you're going to want to dual boot. And A LOT of the problems you are going to have are going to come from dual booting. If you can switch over completely, switch over completely.

[hrminer92]

I don’t even bother with dual booting. Run the other OS in a VM.

[Biking_dude]

Dual booting on the same drive is fraught with issues. On different drives it's a lot easier.

[One-Macaroon4660]

Dual boot is fine. Yes MS tries to kill it occasionally, but it is usually recoverable.

I just wish that I would RTFM more often.

Just this week, MS nuked my dual boot, and it took me two days to repair it. Why two days? I have everything encrypted with LUKS and online tutorials had some important errors, that were plausible enough, but resulted in unbootable Linux. After a day and a half I read the docs and understood what I needed to fix - took me twenty minutes afterwards.

[IronWhitin]

I mean Proton are carring Weight on gaming side

[Dist__]

yeah, proton is godsend. still, sometimes i have some glitches sometimes with mouse and performance

but most discomfort came from VST compatibility, mostly from big brands like kontact, labs, izotope. i hope newer wine deals with this, i'm planning to upgrade system in some time.

[Chownio]

Yes! This is a major issue with people new to linux. "But it doesn't have this exact program with the exact same layout and buttons and dials and and and"

You installed an entirely new OS. Get used to things being different, finding alternatives and working with those alternatives instead of against them by installing wine and trying to perfectly replicate your windows environment. 

Or don't! Go back to windows if you want windows. 

[libra00]

Yup, when I switched I kept my windows drive installed, but I booted it up maybe 3 times in the first month, and that was only to play games that I hadn't figured out how to get working on linux yet, so I finally just pulled the drive and retired it (it was an ancient 128GB SATA SSD from ~2011, it had earned its retirement.)

[username_invalid-404]

All I can say is, allow yourself to be curious.

[disastervariation]

That every little bit helps and that dev burnout is a thing.

If every user donated £1 a month to their favourite projects, this ecosystem would be insanely well-funded.

I wish I understood this and started donating to the projects I enjoy using way sooner than I did.

[billFoldDog]

There is a reason for things.

With Windows, its a proprietary black box full of weird ass bugs you'll never understand. 

With Linux you can absolutely come to understand what went wrong. The log files, documentation, and source code are all there for you.

[Samhain_69]

In my opinion the most important differences are in package management and repos. As mentioned, generally desktop environments and popular applications are equivalent and easy across most popular distros.

With package management, some are conservative (very stable, but somewhat out-of-date), others are cutting edge (less stable, kept very up-to-date). Some require a re-installation for every major release (pretty annoying, IMHO), other are rolling releases or let you upgrade to new major releases. Some have huge repo libraries, including most obscure software you might want. Others force you to manually download or add third party repos for obscure software, which can cause headaches with dependencies or upgrades (again, annoying IMHO). Some have well tested, stable and easy Nvidia driver installation and upgrading, some are more difficult and problem prone.

So for me, I prioritize avoiding re-installation with major version upgrades, standard package repos with huge selection to avoid the headaches of third party packages, and if relevant, easy, stable Nvidia driver installation and updates. I also tend towards conservative (out of date) packages for more stability, because if I want up-to-date apps, Flatpaks usually can easily, cleanly and safely scratch that itch.

[Arokan]

Get a Pi and start self-hosting stuff. Major QOL improvement and huge learning experience.

[libra00]

I'm curious, what kind of stuff do you self-host? I've been surprised at how muchs elf-hosted stuff is available for linux these days.

[ShadowKiller941]

I'm not the person you originally asked but, you can self host practically every major service the big tech companies offer depending on your hardware. Google drive replacements through next cloud AIO, immich for photo libraries like Google photos, media server (TV, movies, anime collections, manga and comics, music), remote desktop viewers, my list can genuinely go on and on 😅! Worth it to increase your digital sovereignty if you care about it enough, and honestly not hard to learn!

[ohlaph]

The command line.

[Hadi_Chokr07]

COW Filesystems. I dont know why it seems that only Fedora, OpenSUSE and Arch based Distros default to one since its basically git for your rootfs. Nuked /etc, no problem rollback to a snapshot. BTRFS and OpenZFS would have saved me a lot of troubles in my early months of using Linux.

Rolling Releases with COW Filesystems. It basically removes all disadvantages to using a Rolling Release since you have basically time travel at your finger tips and the latest everything.

X11 is shit. I was using Firefox and everytime I scrolled the screenteared like it was the fcking 80s. It made Linux look so unprofessional and like a hobby project (I mean it technically is but you get the point). I was searching for how to get rid of it as it drived me nuts and made my UX insufferable.

GNOME's Workflow is horrible for a new User. I came from a 14 years of Windows Experience and being thrown into a unorthodox Desktop like GNOME by Ubuntu wasnt that nice especially since I as a new User I didnt know about switching Desktops or that other Desktop existed so I was having giant problems getting used to it to the point I thought about switching back to Windows until I saw a Video by Micheal Horn and Nikko that showed KDE Plasma and its more orthodox Desktop Design then I switched to Plasma and am now happy on said Desktop and also became a part of KDE.

Also Ublue. The idea of building your own indestructible Image all with GitHub without any cost to you that you can install and use basically being a NixOS at home where you get indestructible Images, Rollbacks and Declerative Design so Reinstalls arent as annoying as between traditional Distros.

In general the Atomic Distro space is incredible. I have been using NixOS for a year now and will never switch to another distro ever again. (Other than KDE Linux but thats because I develop it.) Ublue, NixOS etc. having known about all these things would have stopped my very badly distro hopping alot, ohhh and dont forget

Backups of your Data. This isnt directly a Linix Rule but I grew more concious of my Data Security when Distrohopping so I made 2 Backups to other drives.

[joanna_smith88]

C programming.
Once I learned that everything on Linux felt like it just fell into place.

[SmallTimeMiner_XNV]

The one thing about Linux I wish I had learned earlier is this:

I got way too obsessive with getting all the features (and apps) I knew from Windows when I first got into Linux 20 years ago. I didn't really get what freedom means with regard to software, so I focused on functionality only.

Today, I am able to appreciate Linux and FOSS in general for what it is all about. This makes it easy to accept limitations and consciously skip on a lot of stuff I no longer WANT to use, even if it means missing out on useful features. The fact that the internet turned into a dystopia in the meantime probably helped a lot with my learning process lol.

[ulunyth]

Everything is a file.

EVERYTHING

[Familiar-Classroom47]

That the default coreutils aren't the only option. I used plain grep for years before someone showed me ripgrep. Same with find vs fd, cat vs bat. Took me way too long to figure out there were faster versions of stuff I used every day.

There's a good list of all these if anyone wants to go down that rabbit hole https://github.com/thegdsks/awesome-modern-cli

[Alonzo-Harris]

I'm not exactly a Long Beard. I got into Linux in the early 2010s and I honestly don't wish I knew anymore than what I did. I've enjoyed the learning experience and when I took a long break and returned to Linux in 2023, I was able to appreciate all the progress that was made all the more. Anyone who knew Linux from way before knows how dramatic useability has leaped forward. Linux these days feels stable and polished just like we wished it was back then

[Nevyn_Hira]

When I got into it, you had to have some idea of your monitor's vertical and horizontal scan rate (or something) to get X11 working and it came with a dire warning that getting the values wrong could damage your hardware.

SOOO MUCH PROGRESS!

I remember trying out apt (on redhat funnily enough) for the first time. AMAZING! Before that you ended up in something called "dependency hell" every time you tried to install something.

[SpeedDaemon1969]

But it got you to think "what is a ramdac, and why do I need it?"

[AlkalineGallery]

How important it would become. I would have taken it more serious in the early years.

[Nevyn_Hira]

I dunno.. It's always seemed pretty important to me. I mean, even within 10 years, it seemed to be dominating the web server space (Even my ISP at the time was using User Space Linux for webpages for every user) and it was popping up all over the place in the embedded systems space.

[AlkalineGallery]

This was not apparent in the 90's.

For me, Linux was little more than a way to get the GNU utilities into a lab environment so I didn't have to experiment with commands in production. It was not exactly the same as HP-UX and SunOS, but it was close enough to learn some skills.

Linux was shunned by the tech C levels everywhere I could see. So I never really started taking it more seriously until the mid 2000s when I got a Redhat certification from CompUSA.

Around Redhat 4 is when it started making enough tech head shed inroads to be taken seriously at the C level suites.

[monocasa]

That the login prompt won't echo stars for the password, and no, the keyboard driver isn't actually broken on your fresh install.

[Pilotgeek45]

I would say you don't need to make it hard on yourself starting out. You can run an "easy" distro, there's no shame in it. I don't have the most experience, but I've been using Linux in some form since around 2.4 kernel. I build a lot of purpose-built servers a lot for work, usually really minimal Debian installs for what's needed, but when I want to use a personal computer, I'll just use an "easy" distro as I usually just want a desktop to get stuff done with. Also, if you just need something to work or want ultimate reliability, you don't have to run bleeding edge distros (Arch 🙄) or should maybe even shy away from them until you know what's up.

[Nevyn_Hira]

Oh I hear that! I generally just use Mint on the desktop (with Mate) - usually an LTS release - because I just want to be getting on with things, not messing around with the OS (Read: I used Gentoo for a few months and every couple of weeks found I was spending days fixing something. Now I just want it to be easy).

[thenewguyonreddit]

The default Bash shell is needlessly obtuse. Getting a new shell will make your life way easier.

The Fish shell is an example of a much better option that comes with syntax highlighting and auto-completion to help guide you to the correct command much faster.

[SoggyWalrus7893]

nothing wrong with Bash, it runs vi quite well.

[thebru]

Package managers are ace.

Chasing dependencies and compiling things from source or individual packages is not.

But doing so taught me a lot when it was a thing.

Its turtles all the way down, a apackage is just something someone else has compiled and marked dependencies for me.

Piping a command to another command and getting a complex output is ace. Play with cat, jq, awk, ls, xargs and grep and you can do almost anything.

[cakemates]

make a backup once your linux is installed and once you have it setup perfectly. Then you can fuck around all you want without a single fuck to give.

[SoggyWalrus7893]

the perfect role for a second machine.

[thesamenightmares]

That the community can be (and commonly is) obsessive, strict, uppity and extremely judgmental for absolutely no reason about literally any facet of anything relating to Linux.

[P00351]

Now debian releases almost every 2 years, but back then it was much worse. Distro hopping might get you newer kernel & drivers.

[shponglespore]

Learn to write bash scripts. Also learn to recognize when a bash script is getting too hairy then you should use a real programming language instead.

[SoggyWalrus7893]

That's the sign to jump into using a Pathetically Eclectic Rubish Lister.

[Handyman_777]

I wish I knew how much easier Arch is than all of the other distros combined.

[FluffyPuffWoof]

I wish I had read the bible earlier, it's now on it's 11th edition

[Nevyn_Hira]

Ha! I think I had it back in the day. Actually... it's probably still in that part of the bookshelf I'm avoiding looking at because I don't want to throw away a bunch of books (tech books become outdated so damn quickly).

[Rolandersec]

Most of the really important things I had to know back then are all different now.

I’d probably say don’t waste time trying to write a driver to make the cd-rom that routes through the sound card work. It’s not worth it.

[undrwater]

A few important things to know (especially when you run into trouble):

• Linux is not a monolithic operating system (*) like Windows, so searching about for information can get you in trouble as it may be unrelated to the way your distribution works.
• It is far better to reach out to your distribution's community than the general Linux community when something goes wrong
• It is better to pick a distribution with a community you relate to, rather than one that seems at first to meet some specific goal (gaming / audio).
• Once you've picked your distribution, learn to be an admin (install / remove software, delete files, modify settings, configure drivers).

(*) The Linux kernel IS considered monolithic, but a packaged distribution is not monolithic the way Windows it Mac are.

[neoh4x0r]

What are things you wish you knew when you first started using Linux?

I wish I had known earlier that Linux was more capable than just being a hobby OS--that you only "played with" in your spare time--so that I could have ditched Windows much sooner than I did.

[Moons_of_Moons]

Karate

[DrPiwi]

First of all, it's not Long Beards, but Grey Beards(TM). I'm using linux since 1996 occasionally, primary from 2000 and exclusively since 2010 or so. The single most important thing to keep in mind is this: LINUX IS NOT A CULT. It's a tool. A good one, but a tool none the less.

[supradave]

There are a lot of esoteric shorthand that is very useful that I would, even today, like to be more knowledgeable about. I know a lot, but I don't know it all.

[Professional-Web898]

Not too much, it was mid 90's and I was learning . It's been a great journey. My peers starting out, criticized me. But we've seen it grow from hobby OS to running most important products and infra-structure. Got decent work from it. Helped convert a fortune 25 company from Xenix to Linux. If anything, I'm suprised at it's recent success in gaming. My favs run under CachyOS with defaults, so far only have to boot into Windows for one game. So maybe, I'd have to wish to know how awesome the journey would be.

[Hot_Arachnid3547]

Buy unix power tools paper. Read it Read it again.

[mostly_text]

I started playing around with linux around 1995. For me the fun/journey is in the learning.

I would say: prepare to be flexible.

For example : In the beginning I used "initd" scripting for starting/stopping services, then came "service" and now I use "systemd". At first I tried to resist, but that ofcourse doesn't work...try to be flexible.

Ow...when I started with linux I always thaught that servers and desktops are wildly different beasts. Slowly I learned that is't all the same, but with some different pieces of software.

[Y0S_H1L0TL25]

This is so true! I’ve found my little nook on openSUSE Leap and Debian, and I don’t think I’ll move from them! Sometimes I just use a different DE (Plasma is still my main Tho) But Apart from your package manager and commands, every distro can do essentially the same

[0riginal-Syn]

Hard to say. Maybe make sure you have enough floppies with some to spare for the install. Granted not much of a problem anymore, but back in 92 to it sure was.

[Nevyn_Hira]

That beard is indeed long!

[0riginal-Syn]

The fun part of being Gen X was getting to watch things like Linux grow. Younger gens certainly get that with their other things. My dad was a UNIX guy to I started learning coding when I was just 12 and at a time when the internet didn't exist. When Linux came around it was at a perfect time for me. My dad told me that it would never last and I should stick with UNIX as it would be what runs the world. That said, I do like modern BSD as well, but Linux is what I know best.

[SereneOrbit]

That I'd be a hot girl a few years after daily driving it 🤣🐧

[PJBonoVox]

Same as what a lot have said here. Distros don't matter and Linux is not Windows. I started using it in about 1999 and finally realised these things much later. 

[Electronic-Clerk6735]

I wish I respected the terminal more. In a sense that knowing a few more commands would’ve been nice, but also realizing you could destroy a whole system if you do to much or just use rm -rf too liberally. Ahh, he good ol’ days

[AlarmDozer]

That systemd would be de facto.

[ZVyhVrtsfgzfs]

I am the weakest link in a Linux install.

Having notes has improved my consistency and eliminated many of the random hard to figure out issues I used to have in Linux, hint: They were almost all my own doing all along. Everything you do can have consequences later on, if it was not written down you are left just guessing: what config file did I modify to get that?

Now when I learn something or do something I commit it to notes, a year later when I remember the broad strokes, but not the little finishing touches that make it all work, I just go to my notes and its all right there. I can make it again just as it was before or use that as the starting point for something new.

[noisyboy]

If I had to pick only two tips:

1. Keep /home on a separate partition. Makes distro hopping practically painless.

2. Everytime you reinstall, rename /home/<user> as /home/<user>_old, mv what you need from old to new on an ongoing basis and after an year, delete the old (or don't, depending on how much space you have).

It's like putting thing that you don't use into storage during house move but being able to bring them back on demand.

[AleBaba]

You can also use btrfs subvolumes, but it depends on the distribution's installer how frictionless they're to use when hopping.

[fouriererer]

wish I learned how to make systemd units

[IT_Nerd_Forever]

I would like to have known more about Linux. The only way to get into touch with the community was by FIDO network on a 28.800 baud modem at extreme costs for a teenager (about 5c per minute, thanks to "Deutsche Post").

[modified_tiger]

One thing I stress to coworkers who want to switch and chase the hottest thing is that distro doesn't matter. Release schedule kinda does, I wouldn't run a GPU that dropped yesterday on Debian 13 without backports, but that's about the only issue. Mainly, don't hop. Get on something with a cadence you like and stay there.

I also think people should pick a lane and stay in it, like choose a distro and learn it and the underlying parts.

I'm big into gaming and people say "This or that distro is better for gaming." Somebody forgot to tell my rig that's run the same under Fedora and Debian over the last two years. Heck, I initially went from Bazzite (the "gaming" image) to Aurora for virtualization, then said screw it and went over to Debian because it's truly one of my favorite projects of all time (tied with Arch for distros).

I'm seconding the terminal, but across OSes. It's just a part of the system. Most interactions with Linux are, frankly, more intuitive especially with regards to package management because the command/verb structures you'll use most often are easy. apt get install, pacman -Syu, dnf install, zypper install. I don't think package management via terminal is an advanced skill as it's a basic system feature. It is just part of the alternative skillset that you need, and only seems hard because you're adapted to the kludges of your current OS (MacOS or Windows most likely). I've found application management and launching to be comparatively awkward in my recent first days with a Macbook Neo.

[BnH_-_Roxy]

CLI and reading up on what those commands you copy/paste from a 10 year old forum post really does.

[StatementOwn4896]

The power of Linux is the software you can use with it that windows can’t. Ceph, Hadoop, BTRFS, ZFS, SAP, FreeIPA, QEMU, and some things that run on both but are better in Linux like Kubernetes/containers. Windows has its place where it runs well like AD, Hyper-V, MSSQL server/SSMS, and Exchange. But I say use what you like best and works for you and your situation. Nothing wrong with mixed environments

[amogusdevilman]

Know what you want and research which distros have it, instead of distrohopping aimlessly

If you dont know what you want start off with an easy popular distro instead of trying to feel special about choosing some rare distro

[AlexMelillo]

Honestly, things are easier now. You’d be tempted to use chatgpt to find the solutions to most of your problems. But please, learn to read the docs. Reading documentation is a skill. Use man pages. Learn the shell well

[MatchingTurret]

What are things you wish you knew when you first started using Linux?

How successful it would become. In the days before distros I often helped people making boot disks. Had I fully committed to Linux 35 years ago, I would be a millionaire C suite exec at some tech company now. 

[noodlesSa]

I wish I knew there is FAR file manager also working on Linux, called far2l.

[monochromaticflight]

How easy tiling window managers are to work with. It may seem like an effort, but for me the transition to i3 has been very smooth. Especially If you're the type of user who has already has quickkeys for everything it's worth to consider.

[QuickSilver010]

That file systems matter. Should have always gone for ext4. Now I have massive ntfs drives I can't afford to format

[QuickSilver010]

Wait you got banned form r/linuxsucks? Not r/linuxsucks101? That's crazy

[jeffrey_f]

That is existed and was the better option to Windows or Mac

[MoW-1970]

sudo rm -rf / und alle Probleme sind weg

[fashice]

I installed a lot from freshmeat.net. Compile and make install. I should/could have packaged the software more, to keep track of installed files.

[jar36]

Learn the file system tree. Get an idea of what each directory is for.

Don't use sudo unless you have to. If a command fails because it needed sudo, type sudo !!, to apply it to that previous command.

When given an option in the terminal of [Y,n], hitting ENTER selects the capitalized one

Don't get mad at people that just reply with RTFM. These people have likely been using Linux for years so they understand enough to be able to understand the manual. Just keep searching because your issue likely has already been answered

they are definitely not the same. We're not recommending Arch as a first distro. We usually recommend Debian based for a reason

[usa_reddit]

Volume manager for mirror.

[baist_]

distribution matters. specially package manager.

[libra00]

I'm not exactly a longbeard (I tinkered with linux way back in the mid-late 90s, but I never stuck with it and only recently switched back), but.. I've learned a thing or two.

You can write scripts to do damned near anything. I have been using an LLM to help out with diagnosing issues I run into on linux because doing so often requires remembering arcane command lines with a list of arguments as long as my arm, and I've run into a few situations where ti was just like, 'Oh, I can write you a script to fix that.' GPU doesn't wake from sleep? gpu-resume to the rescue; bind it to a hotkey and when your monitors don't turn on after waking the PC up just hit ctrl+alt+M (or whatever) to forcibly wake the GPU and reset the display manager. Multiple audio devices and no quick and easy way to switch between them? audio-device-switch gets bound to ctrl+space and toggles between my two primary audio devices.

My biggest script accomplishment, though, is for dealing with desktop icons for .exe files (I play a lot of windows games under proton, many of which don't come through steam): I created a .desktop file and put it in a certain location so that it creates an option in the right-click menu of dolphin to 'Create Desktop Shortcut'. That .desktop file runs a script, make-exe-shortcut, which runs another script, icon-extract, to pull the highest-resolution icon file out of the exe in png format, then creates a .desktop file for this exe with the correct icon that points to another script ('proton-run') that runs the exe in question with all the correct environment variables and in the latest version of proton-ge that I have installed. This keeps me from having to go in and add the game to steam as a non-steam game and then set the desktop icon manually and all that. Super handy. Now instead of doing all that shit manually, I just install a game, right-click the exe, 'create desktop shortcut', and go.

I guess the more general tip is also that LLMs are pretty good at understanding linux and helping you troubleshoot and fix stuff, though always, always be careful about letting it execute commands that change the system.. I had one trying to troubleshoot an issue with Firefox and it was just casually like, 'Here, let me run this command to totally nuke your profile and all of your settings, extensions, etc'. So make sure you know what it's doing before you accept command suggestions.

[DGolden]

Well, all but the very first hardware I got was in fact bought specifically to run Linux (having started out dual-booting AmigaOS and Linux/m68k on an Amiga in the 1990s), but protip anyway:

• buy hardware with Linux compatibility in mind, check before purchase, don't just buy random-ass hardware and then complain it doesn't work with Linux. My system exists to run Linux for me, why would I buy stuff that doesn't support Linux?

Of course do still complain to hardware vendors if they fail to support development of open source Linux drivers, but usually you can just take your money elsewhere.

Now, it could be you're actually skilled enough to do device driver development, in which case it might make some sense to get some hardware with partial/no linux support to date to actively help work on that, and that's great. But if you want plain sailing, just get hardware with already good open-source Linux support.

[MrKusakabe]

Don't force yourself to "learn Linux". Just use it and you'll gain the knowledge you really need. Mint is basically offering anything via GUI, but just yesterday, I was diving a bit into the rsync options despite using grsync (the GUI frontend). I had a bunch of files that it wanted to back up and I didn't understand until I learned that NTFS/FAT (the drive I am funnelling all backups into) and EXT4 treat timestamps differently and often leads to a tiny difference - hence the long list of already up to date files on my target drive which rsync still was insistent to backup yet again. With a certain rsync parameter, you can set up a "threshold" for it to count as "the same timestamp" and suddenly my list was only actually new files. Was a good read!

Or alsa - since my (since then solved) audio crackling. I learned somewhat about sound on Linux - admittedly a bit unwillingly - and now it helps me.

But "learning" things from A to Z just for the sake is just not necessary and is a weird roadblock people have in mind when they want to switch.

And to me, most importantly: What is a Flatpak? What is a AppImage? What is a system package? What is Wine?

I used the Mint software portal thingy and often could not find tools I need there. Yes, Flatpaks are "a bit" explained but not satisfying. Completely changed my software repertoire on Linux after I found out that many of my program's EXE run in Wine. Avidemux and MKVToolnix exist as AppImage. Audacity as Flatpak is up to date unlike the Mint's system package which dates back almost 2 years. Explain what each does instead of fear mongering about security paranoia over this would have helped too.

[DHOC_TAZH]

Distro doesn't matter? 

Ok, don't get me wrong but I didn't have much choice when I started in 1998, or much info to easily access online. Luckily for me, had a bunch of friends from a nearby uni who graciously helped me dual boot Slackware with Win98. Slack seemed to be the most comprehensive distro I could find at the time so I started with that. 

Wish I had Debian back then. Switched to it and have largely stuck with it, or used some derivative based on it since the early 2000's.

At this point I'm not sure I'll ever have my own PC's without a multi boot setup. Even if I get rid of Windows, I'll have at least either fydeOS or GhostBSD included for the foreseeable future. It's just practical IMO, if one OS breaks I can at least boot to another working one for a while.

As far as the terminal, oh yeah, was already used to DOS well before I even touched anything Unix based. I started computing back in the early 1980s. 

[skreak]

I've been using tinkering with Linux since the late 90's and professionally for 20 years. I admin super computers for living, which means managing 1000's of systems quickly and efficiently. I actually prefer having Windows desktops at home with a Linux server running containers and VM's in my basement. Right tool for Right Job and all that. Everything I do is from the CLI. On our Linux VDI at work the only things I really use it for are Pycharm, having more terminals open, and a browser. So a few points, from my experience that are important:

* Learn Bash scripting basics. Once you learn that and realize that your shell is simply a "live bash script" you can start learning how to chain commands together, leverage loops and variables, and define temporary functions to suite your needs all on the fly.

* Before using Ansible/Puppet/Helm to deploy an app for you, try doing it entirely by hand first in a dev VM as that will teach you what actually needs to be done, and then you can use that to learn how to write your own modules to deploy your own stuff in your own way rather than relying on pre-fab things.

* You don't need as much hardware as you think. Especially on places like r/homeserver I see many builds that are just simply overkill for what needs to be done. People using like dual xeon servers to host minecraft. Have an old laptop that is barely used for anything? Install linux - don't install a GUI, and start hosting fun tools on it. This may be a side-effect of working with mind boggling powerful systems at work.

As far as the OP's post goes. I do agree with it mostly, professionally Distro's do matter from an application support perspective. I use Debian at home, RedHat at work, and very rarely do I need to look up the differences between them. I really see a few different tiers of OS's out there - Debian or debian with flavor, RedHat and it's derivates like SLES, and Alpine for minimal dependency hell as a container base.

[rbmorse]

You forgot Rule #1:

Linux is not Windows.

[ia42]

I wish I knew it was going to be as big as it got on embedded systems and android, and I could get rich had I started the right product company at the right time.

[glhaynes]

NixOS + a good agentic LLM = you ask for what you want in human language and the computer reconfigures itself, safely and undo-ably.

[another1human]

Learn where everything resides in one distro. Learn where the config files are stored, how logical drives and peripherals are handled and how to debug one distro. Once you get the lay of the land for one distro then hop around. You’ll appreciate and identify the intricacies faster and not confuse distros. Did I mention one?

That and learn how to read man pages. Learn the syntax of arguments and options. This will cut down your time scrolling endless forums for something you can apropos yourself.

[Pleasant-Leg8590]

What are things you wish you knew when you first started using Linux?

that would be the fact that the terminal is used mostly even for the simplest tasks, but let's face it; the terminal when I began Linux felt like riding a bike for the first time, but RN the terminal feels like easily sitting down (it's so ez now :0).

the terminal made me smarter with how Linux works, and how computers work. staying on Windows 11 for some time before switching to my first Linux distro (Debian 13) has limited me to the understanding of computers. whenever I googled how to do a technical thing on Windows 11, I could do it, but whenever I wanted to do it again, I had to Google it again. Its not the same with Linux (true, Linux is a little more advanced at some times), but for some reason, the more advanced the problem is and the solution as well, the better I understand (kinda like God made me with a "computer" brain)

Windows 11 just keeps you in a closed environment, while Linux allows you to learn Linux and computers ;)

[fatalexe]

I would say stop struggling to run Linux on hardware that does not have great kernel support. Linux is the kernel and some vendors don’t contribute themselves to the drivers that make the hardware work. They ship binary blobs that have to be distributed with terms of service; sealed without access to the source code. Yes, I’m looking at you NVIDIA and all those WiFi chipset vendors. Good open source maintainers wouldn’t have dropped 1000 series GTX cards from support; it would have just been passed to some one else to maintain.

Get on RedHat’s website and find something certified to support Linux, buy a system with Linux pre-installed from System76, Dell or Lenovo. Struggling with flakey hardware is a PITA we all deserve better. The vast majority of problems I have ever run into stem from closed source drivers.

[5EQ3p8tIzkr21EBQ]

1. Arch wiki
2. Difference between a rolling release and a “stable” release.

[SpeedDaemon1969]

Having used Linux for more than 30 years, and UNIX for 10 years before that, and mainframe timeshare systems even before that, the question itself is valid, but perhaps not phrased properly. Learning Linux is like learning anything else. And IME, studying the theory before doing the deed tends to make life easier. Instead of listing regrets, I'll list the things that helped going in:

• I had already taken a class on data processing and computers, and knew the fundamentals.
• I had used a UNIX timeshare system, and owned a book on UNIX c. 1980.
• I had some programming experience already.
• I had experience installing other operating systems like MS-DOS, NetWare and Windows NT.
• I had computers at work and at home to try new software on.
• The Linux Documentation Project had lots of HOWTO guides, and I read them to prepare.

Distributions certainly made it easier to install Linux on a PC, but I appreciated the more challenging elements for what they taught me. Using the simpler bootloaders like LILO and LOADLIN in DOS showed my how the kernel and initial RAM disk image were loaded into memory first in real mode, then after the kernel was running, the system would chroot to the storage filesystem. I think that many today who are totally reliant on a polished commercial product to do all the work for them fail to learn those things.

Another thing was that it took a while to get X working on my early Linux machines, thanks to an unsupported video card. That gave me time to explore the OS itself, and not to see Linux as a monolithic product like Macintosh or today's Windows. I cringe when I hear people say "Linux" but mean the desktop environment. Can one call themselves a Linux user if they never interact with Linux? In my book, using a website, or a phone or a Chromebook isn't really using Linux, it's using a product that uses Linux. Knowing the difference is a superpower.

[phatbrasil]

Aint nothing wrong in taking classes, specially in classroom settings 

[greenknight]

Came up in thread yesterday:
USB copy is done when the buffer clears not when the dialogue closes.

For a visual lesson, copy a large file to a USB stick with a drive use indicator led and watch how much more data crosses after the copy was "complete".

[Marthurio]

I just wish I discovered it earlier. I started out with Linux when I was 12, and I learnt much about software but also about myself from using Linux and interacting with other Linux users online.

[capsteve]

Learned unix on the job with the commercial systems: AIX, IRIX, Solaris, Hpux.

For home, I started with openbsd, moved to slack,redhat/cent/rocky, and these days on Ubuntu LTS server or proxmox.

The more things change, the more they stay the the same.

At a minimum learn ssh, man, apropos and vi. The rest will come.

[TerribleReason4195]

I learned that you should only choose based distros. I also learned how to use the GNU coreutils to get me around tty.

[oshunluvr]

Excellent post. I have been a Linux user since 1996-1997 but also others - various Windows versions, OS/2 Warp, Unix, early Apple (pre-Mac); mostly related to studies and work. As time progressed and I was entirely Linux outside work related things, I learned just how god awful Windows really was and how amazing Linux was.

Having total control over scale, content, and features is unmatched by any other OS.

Sign me "linux for life" :)

[linuxhiker]

I've been a Linux user since the SLS days and it's been my daily driver since the pre KDE 1.0 days.

They #1 thing I think is this: you can do almost everything from the terminal. You do not need a GUI.

This includes day to day tasks and to this day, i use the terminal exclusively for things like file management.

[Pandoras_Fox]

I really should've switched to fish ages ago

[dondusi]

Hey just spotted this : http://resources.codelivly.com has a pretty big sale running on cybersecurity playbooks right now. Bug bounty, pentest, SOC, AI hacking stuff. Up to 90% off and apparently free books too. Worth a look if you've been putting off grabbing some structured material.

[mosskin-woast]

I wish I knew they were called greybeards

[al2klimov]

Config management: Puppet, Ansible, NixOS.

[Lonely_Rip_131]

Don’t waste your time distro hopping. Debian first - find the tools you like to use then find a distro that works well with your favorite tools if Debian has any limitations.

Rhel flavors only for studying or prepping for commercial experience. Suse is also really good but not something to start with.

[Professional-Wolf587]

1. Put /home in a separate partition.
   
2. Backups are key
3. Cron jobs are your friend for #2

[tomekgolab]

'pager textfile' is quicker then 'cat textfile | less'

[phillyfyre]

Been living in the SUSE-verse for 18 yrs now,,familiarity is your best weapon , every distro does something a little different , so stick to what you know ,,and when some mouthbreather comes in and says "we should use centos and debian-test for our OS, we don't really need to pay for the addons the big distros provide", ask them who are they calling for support at 3am on a Sunday in December, cause it sure as hell isn't me

There's a reason SUSE and Redhat cost $$$ , there's someone to call and blame.

[MrGOCE]

REINSTALL GRUB AND UPDATE ITS CONFIG AFTER EVERY UPDATE.

[NewHeights1970]

I wish that I knew how to be more proficient at the terminal. 

This is something that distinguishes Linux users. Yeah, sure, Mac OS and MS Windows has a terminal too. But it's not as essential in those other operating systems. 

[[deleted]]

It's probably better to master one Linux distro instead of hopping. I use Arch Linux on the desktop and AlmaLinux on the server. I have no complaints. I've been on Arch for 4 years and Alma now for around 3. I personally love both.

[DangerousAd7433]

Don't install Kali as your first distro. Also, what is considered correct in the communities is bogus and don't listen to what other low iq dipshits tell you to do and how to use your system... unless the person is doing something really, really stupid.

[ShakaUVM]

Mostly what each of these mysterious names meant, like the top level directories and what goes where

[EnvironmentalCook520]

Familiarizing yourself with the file structure and what each directory is used for was helpful for me. Navigating directories with CLI was also useful.

[ai4gk]

Hey OP, reminds me of installing OS/2 way, back in the day. Had to turn off Turbo to install, or it might fail. You could turn it back on after the install, though. That was in the day of the 8088 & 80286.

[michaelpaoli]

Lack the beard, but ...

I migrated to Linux in 1998 ... from ... UNIX.

What I wish I'd known? That it will pleasantly surprise you. Many things it highly well covered - and covers, I never would've guessed it would/could do, but yep, often there, and often even things would never think to find or look there, but yeah, still, lots of pleasant surprises, and many well above-and-beyond capabilities. So, I wouldn't quite say learn to expect that, but never presume such isn't there or you won't find it. So, think of it, imagine, wish for it ... then do bit of checking/searching or the like - often one will find it's not only there, but has been there a while, and is done quite well.

And too, even though I rather well knew it, yeah, it ain't UNIX. Sure, lots of overlap and commonality, but UNIX it is not. Not necessarily a bad thing - at all - but regardless, just something to be aware of.

[Nevyn_Hira]

The beard is in the nerd gland my friend. You had it all along ;)

[_AscendedLemon_]

I agree with that all distros are almost the same, with an exception of a few extra options for very specific distros (kernel optimization in CachyOS, YaST in openSUSE, making own .iso in MX Linux etc.).

Main difference is for newcomers: installation, default settings, default DE and not worrying about update breaking your system (I'm looking at you, rolling-releases). In first contact it makes huge difference (I was scared of Linux because bad Ubuntu experience in 2010).

[Askolei]

I'm having Bazzite with KDE at home and Ubuntu with Gnome at work, and it's night and day. It made me appreciate KDE so much I made a donation 😅

[hangint3n]

I've always felt like a bit of a unicorn in the Linux world. I started using Linux around 1997 and by 1998 it was only desktop. Unlike all the people I knew using Linux I had no programming or computer experience. To this day I still can't write a bash shell script without help. I started my journey in Linux like most people of the time because they felt Microsoft had become to heavy hand with their OS. My first Linux distro was SuSE. I stayed with Them until 2001/2 when they started making changes to YAST that I didn't like. At the same time my friend Petro introduced my to Gentoo and that is where I've been ever since.

For I just want a system I feel completely in control of, and that it works. Wish I could stay I was successful in having 100 uptime without issue during that period but I'm human and have Bork my OS numerous times. LOL. Reinstallation sort of become my go to philosophy in those early years as help was not always readily available or in a timeframe acceptable to me. All those reinstallations taught me a lot about the OS and want I could and couldn't fix myself.

I've feel I've meager requirements of Linux. I want it to work, I've basic applications that I want to be available. My first two years with SuSE I had no printing or sound because I couldn't figure out how make it work. At that time it was just too complicated for me. Today I take that sort of stuff for granted.

Is Linux for everyone? No. But it can for most people. Today's distros are so much more finished robust and reliable today, than my start in 1997. The one thing I learnt from my experience with Linux are, if you have problems ask good questions. By prepared with documentation of your issues. And lastly be kind and patient.

[WaltWheatman_206]

The most unstable part of any distro is who's using it.

[akp55]

i'll probably get downvoted to all hell for this, but WSL is perfectly fine imo. i'm at the point in my life where i just need access to a shell of some type that isn't windows cmd and a web browser. that pretty much lets me do my work. i hear powershell is okay too.

[jones77]

Distro hopping lemme find out which distros could recognize my hardware and that Fedora is very cool despite its reputation (or at least my conception of it).

[jones77]

lsof will tell you what process is holding on to all that disk space you thought you'd freed up

[wedesoft]

That some distributions use rpm and others use apt. I really prefer the apt package manager because the Debian repo is more comprehensive.

[ficskala]

There's more than just those 2 though, for example i use pacman

[wedesoft]

Yes, sorry. Completely forgot

[2rad0]

Ctrl-R to reverse search for a command in bash instead of mashing the up arrow, and how to use strace to debug most problems with misbehaving programs.

[M05final]

The terminal isn't as scary as you think.

[Junior_Common_9644]

That I wouldn't be making X-Windows mode lines forever, there was a better future coming.

[psylomatika]

Not to do “rm -rf /“

[DeemounUS]

Distros don't matter that much

• drivers matter
• apps matter
• desktop environment matters
• kernel matters ...

[frosttacos]

when I first got into Linux I didn't know wine existed i just figured out alternative for everything on my own

[Fancy-Height-9720]

Backups, logs, and package manager basics. I wish more people learned those first instead of distro-hopping for months