Getting started with Linux

I recently became a member of several Linux groups on Facebook because I was interested to see what they were all about. Many of the posts in those sites are from people looking for help. They’ve usually chosen an inappropriate distro for someone just getting started in Linux and have encountered problems that even experienced Linux geeks would have difficulty with. Many are just interested in trying Linux to see whether it will work for them and the responses to their requests are, for the most part, unhelpful to put it politely.

So if you want to learn Linux, here’s how I did it. It’s not really hard if you follow some simple guidelines.

Choose the right distribution

This is probably the most significant choice you can make. Selecting a distribution that works well for new users is complicated because there are so many distros and most are not good ones for you if you’re just getting started.

Based on my own experience and that of a few trusted friends, I can say that there are three exceptionally good distros for anyone who just wants to explore the possibilities. I’m not saying that there aren’t other distros as good or better, just that these work well for beginners.

Linux Mint

Most people who’ve started with Linux Mint have had great success. Linux Mint is friendly and can co-exist with Windows in a dual-boot configuration. This is perfect for users wanting to try Linux without wiping everything out. This is a derivative of Ubuntu so it has a solid base that makes it secure, dependable, and well supported. Linux Mint provides users with the ability to easily install many thousands of open source tools and applications developed for a broad range of businesses and individuals. It also offers three of the best desktops for beginners — desktops that use few system resources and that can be used on even the smallest and oldest computers that you’re likely to have.

Pop!_OS

Pop!_OS by System76 is another Ubuntu derivative that I’ve tried. Although it uses a different approach to Linux for new users than Mint, it’s another excellent choice. It offers many of the same features that new users like, such as ease of use, access to a huge number of open source applications, and a desktop experience that is designed specifically for new users and yet offers lots of power and flexibility.

Fedora

Fedora is another excellent distro for new users. It offers a number of different desktops and all the same open source user applications that my other two suggestions do. It is supported and developed cooperatively by Red Hat with developers from many other organizations. Fedora also offers easy installation of a seemingly inexhaustible number of open source applications.

I use Fedora for various reasons. The primary one is that I started my Linux journey with Red Hat 5.0 back in 1996 when I just went into a computer store and bought it. When Red Hat split off Fedora as a separate distribution, it still maintained many of the characteristics of Red Hat that I had come to count on and appreciate.

Try it out

All three of these distros offer bootable Live USB drives that you can use to first test-drive Linux without installing it, then perform a simple and easy installation. To get started, just boot your computer to the USB drive. You may need to use the “Boot options” choice that appears on most computers during early bootup. Most times this option is on the F12 key.

Then explore the Linux desktop to get a feel for its use. It should be very similar to the Windows desktop in terms of launching and manipulating windows containing the applications. Live USB systems don’t have all possible applications pre-installed on them, but you can install them on the live image to try them out.

Install it

This is not destructive to your existing Windows installation but it does require at least some free space on your hard drive.

Tom’s Hardware has an excellent article that shows what you should expect when installing Linux in a dual boot configuration with Windows. Although it’s a bit specific to the Ubuntu distro, the author tries to be general enough to ensure the instructions are at least usable for other distros, including the three I have recommended. The article is good for helping you to see what an actual dual boot installation would entail, even if the details for the distro you choose would be somewhat different.

You should always check the web site of the distro you choose to find the instructions for installing in a dual boot configuration.

Use it

Here’s the thing. You’ll never learn enough about Linux to make a decision unless you use it. All the time. For at least a few weeks.

Like I did when I migrated from OS/2 almost three decades ago¹, I encountered some obstacles. However I never succumbed to the impulse to return to OS/2 just because I knew better how to use it. I spent time learning how to perform my tasks in Linux, and there was never anything that I could do with OS/2 that I couldn’t do with Linux. The same will be true of your migration from Windows. It will take some effort to figure out how to do some things you used to do on Windows. Just don’t give up.

Understand it

There are a couple things that everyone migrating to Linux comes to understand.

First, there is an application that runs on Linux for everything that mainstream users like you will ever need to do. And so much more. Questions like, “Can I use Word on Linux,” are not relevant because there are multiple applications that can not only use your existing documents and spreadsheets, but also are just as easy to use. All of that open source software is easily installable directly from the Internet. Datamation has a list of open source replacements for many proprietary software programs. Although the list is a few years old, almost all of the recommendations are still right on.

The software installer provided by your distro of choice will list hundreds of open source options for those old proprietary applications. Take some time to browse through the software offered by your installation tool and see what’s available.

And nearly all of this open source software is also free of charge. You can install it all on as many computers as you want. No license police will ever show up on your doorstep and demand to count the number of computers you’ve installed it on. I’ve only paid for one software application in the nearly 30 years since I started using Linux. That was $49 for some hardware testing software. I haven’t even needed that software once I figured out that the tools provided by most distros can do more than that software could.

Summary

It took me a few months to truly understand and appreciate the vast number of choices offered by Linux and the open source community of users and developers. I’m happy to have made the switch to Linux and will never, ever use Windows.

I hope that this information can help you get started.

1. I have never used Windows for a primary operating system on any of my own computers. I do use it in a couple virtual machines for testing when I write some of my articles and books. ↩︎