This video goes over what the typical Linux user will go through as far as distributions. Here is the journey from beginner to expert. .
►► Digital Downloads ➜ https://www.cttstore.com
►► Patreon ➜ https://www.patreon.com/christitustech
►► Twitch ➜ https://www.twitch.tv/christitustech
►► Website and Guides ➜ https://christitus.com
only one distro to ever be annoying to install for me? Ubuntu…
Mate, Kali, Fedora, Anything else, a breeze… Ubuntu just hates me…
Do not Gentoo quality only for Devoted? For Crazy People cathegory is for Linux From Scratch, is not it?
Where does raspberry pi fall in that lineup?
Revisiting this video a year or so after I started transitioning to Linux. Sharing my journey. For context: not an 'IT guy' at all. I dropped out of computer science college 15 years ago for reasons that aren't important. I am a novelist and marketing communications professional today.
Hopefully some help for users thinking of going on the same journey:
1. Start with VMs. I ran a few distros on my Dell XPS Windows Install to just get a feel for using it. Don't move workflows into these yet; instead use it for regular internet browsing – sync your browser from Windows with your browser in your Linux and just do what you do usually online through the VMs. Get a sense of what you like, what you don't like, what is comfortable, what isn't. Let the VMs represent a good slice of distros and desktop environments. I had Ubuntu, Mint, Kali and ArcoLinux on mine. Sometimes I'd try the RL branch distros though, personally, they didn't click. Experiment like a crazy person because if something goes wrong, you just delete the VM and reinstall it.
2. Next select one of these VMs to do some productivity work. While locked down during the pandemic, I started Project Odin's full stack web development course which recommends either Mac or Linux development environment – this gave additional reason to use my VM of choice (Ubuntu running Gnome specifically) as a pseudo daily driver OS.
3. If possible, buy a good second hand laptop. It is possible that most users on similar journeys will also stumble upon the ThinkPad cult (which really is a Linux group in disguise most of the time). I got a T420 for myself, did some minor upgrades (SSD and additional RAM just so that you have a very responsive experience), wiped Windows off, and installed Ubuntu. I also took my old Asus, wiped off the Windows on that, and installed ArcoLinux. More on this Asus Laptop later.
4. Move more of your workflow from your main daily driver laptop on to the second hand laptop purchased specifically for Linux. Of course, within reason. The T420 with a second gen i5 and 16GB RAM couldn't handle any video editing work that I was going to do, but for my writing and coding? Easy peasy. Point is to make this Linux laptop central to your workflow as much as possible. During this stage, I really began experimenting with having multiple desktop environments and had my fingers burnt a couple of times. It's okay – you still have your main laptop to go back to in case something goes wrong.
5. I spent a couple of months in stage 4. By this point – and this is very much a personal anecdote – I began to grow tired of using my XPS 15, a laptop I love to bits. I really wasn't enjoying going back to Windows for any reason. I think I went 3 weeks of not touching my XPS 9570, preferring the T420 for pretty much all my computing needs, whether work or pleasure. Two weeks ago, I woke up in the morning with a certainty that I didn't want Windows on the XPS. After backing up most of my important data, I installed Ubuntu, wiping out Windows from my prized XPS.
6. Today, there are three laptops in front of me. XPS running Ubuntu 20.04 on Cinnamon DE (because nvidia on the other DEs is absolute hell to get to play nicely with multiple monitors). The T420 running Ubuntu 20.04 running Gnome, heavily modded to my tastes using Gnome Tweaks and a bunch of extensions. The Asus running Arco Linux with about, at last count, 7 different DEs. The first two laptops are my daily drivers, central to my workflow for my writing, coding and video work. The Asus mostly a project laptop where I can freely experiment with no consequences at all. It is currently running a VM for Kali Linux for shits and giggles.
Things to remember for Windows users once they choose their distro:
1. Cinnamon is your best friend. I have it running on my XPS Ubuntu install, and it is just an utter joy. It also allows multiple monitors to play nice if you have an nvidia GPU running underneath your machine. I lent my T420 to a friend la fortnight ago, a Windows Power user, because his laptop crashed and possibility of repairs with pandemic lockdown is zero. Before giving the laptop to him, I installed Cinnamon, Android Studio, Zoom and Slack – Android Studio, Zoom and Slack so he would be able to get back to his work without needing to figure out how to install apps on Linux. I expected him to call asking for help, but nope. He called me a day before and said he hadn't even realized that he wasn't on his Windows machine. So seamless was the transition, and a large part of that seamlessness came from Cinnamon DE.
2. KDE Plasma is a double edged sword. It's incredibly powerful with its options for customization but most users, including me, will break it. I can't tell you how many times I've broken my KDE DE. When I say 'broken KDE', I mean how the Super key (Windows Key) is functional at times and completely useless at others. In my experience, trying to fix that particular issue has led me into black holes where global keyboard short cuts come into conflict with one another. Not fun if it's a productivity laptop.
3. Gnome gives you an Mac OS-like experience even without applying heavy themeing. It works great IF you don't have nvidia GPUs. If you do and, say, you have a laptop with 4k and a external monitor at full HD, you are going to have headaches that last a couple of days. I'd like to think I am a reasonably above average computer user even before this journey, but I will admit my heart sank at how hard this particular part of the transition was.
4. Google is your friend even after you become familiar with your distro and DE. Become really good at Googling.
5. Join reddit's Linux forums and ask for help AFTER googling around.
6. Follow along with tutorials from guys like Chris, Joe Collins, Learn Linux TV on how to use the Terminal AND what you can do with that new found knowledge of the terminal. Seriously. If life is a video game, then that day you become comfortable with the terminal you'll feel like you are leveling up. Learn some basic Shell Scripting and that feeling intensifies.
7. Good luck.
Chris said in one of his videos that moving to Linux reminded him of why he fell in love with Computer Science in the first place. I couldn't agree more.
EDIT: if multiple laptops isn't an option, another alternative would be trying Google Cloud Computing. They offer a $300 credit just to sign up. You can install an instance of Linux (either Ubuntu or Fedora) and SSH into it using putty on Windows . Yet another alternative is using WSL on Windows 10 and learn Linux using command line while on Windows. I don't think you can get a GUI (and thereby a DE) to run like that – if it's possible I don't know how to do it – but it'll throw you into the terminal and get you a chance to accustomed to using the command line to do some pretty powerful things.
I have been using Arch Linux for 5 years now and may say it's a very solid distribution. Yes, it has all the most recent updates for its packages, but at the same time it's still extremely reliable. During my 5 years of experience with it only twice it crashed horribly after a kernel update so that it stopped working at all (on different machines, around the same time, so it probably counts as a single issue). That was probably some driver issue related to the major version shift in kernel and it was sufficient to rollback to the previous kernel version to make it work again. On the other hand Debian, which is considered a very stable distribution, used to break down almost every major update back in the days when I was using it. And no, I have never done any backups, I just know how to identify broken package and roll it back. That said however, Arch really does not break often. So don't be scared of the bleeding-edge thing. Arch is really an awesome distribution. I install it on all my computers, for work, for gaming, for internet and it just works great. However, as Chris has said, it's an experienced user's choice. Make sure you really feel comfortable with Linux before you set out to install it.
how bout mx linux?
How about Distros with the KDE environment?
mxlinux is also good for beginners
I chuckled when I say the "Gentoo for crazy people". I tried installing Gentoo from the command line about a decade ago and it was not pretty. I had read it was supposed to be inspired by FreeBSD so having come from using FreeBSD 5 and 6 I figured I would give it a whirl. It did not go well.
I run Debian bullseye of an external hard drive. And its fast!
Wait, why does Pop OS have the Ubuntu logo in neofetch?
Where would you say Opensuse is?
What about Opensuse programs availability?
my list:
beginner: popos or mint
intermediate: vanilla debian
expert: arch or gentoo
Arch. Learn how to install it from Youtube or something, hopefully you'll screw something up and have to do it again.. and maybe again, so by the time you get it done, you both know more about it and feel some sort of accomplishment. Go for an encrypted UEFI install using UUIDs.. Install xorg and maybe plasma after that.. and you've got something really nice you feel invested in. I highly recommend it. After that, all other distros will seem simple. Either that or just go the easy route and install Manjaro. You'll still have an Arch-based setup with pacman and AUR. Good as well.
This is how I'd recommend Linux:
Beginners: "Thinking hurts my brain"
Linux Mint (Debian based)
MX Linux
Intermediate: "Let me tinker"
CentOS
Kali
Manjaro
Experts: "I want to learn everything, and be punished if I don't!"
Arch
BlackArch
Gentoo
I haven't really looked into Ubuntu recently or in depth, so I still have the impression that they're a new Windows. If you're asking about Linux, you probably don't want another Windows. So any great, user-friendly distro I recommend would be their Debian-based alternative to Ubuntu-based.
I also consider myself an intermediate user, and the expert distros I listed are ones that have peaked my interest but have never tried out — you have to be a little crazy to be an expert in anything. As for the Intermediate distros, these I recommend as per specific interests in tinkering (Manjaro for more general tinkering).
No LFS. Invalid 😉
For Linux noobs(Welcome) Fedora doesn't have to use ONLY GNOME. There are several Fedora spins straight from Red Hat that default to other DE's. XFCE is a good one, and the one mentioned in the vid Cinnamon should be the default for ALL Windows refugees because it's basically GNOME setup like Windows7. You can try KDE if you want more buttons than you will ever possibly use, maybe you'll like it, I don't. And here's the real kicker – you can install them all at once and switch between them at will just by clicking an asterisk icon on the login screen. I'm typing this on a Fedora XFCE machine with GNOME, Cinnamon, XFCE, and MATE installed. I jump between XFCE and Cinnamon. My CentOS7 box uses the default GNOME2.
I started with Arch 5 months ago as my first linux distro. It is definitely possible as a full blown beginner (maybe not a general computer beginner) but requires much more reading and testing.
I thought all Ubuntu distros were, at their core, based on Debian.
Really appreciate your videos, thanks for all the effort you're putting in that! An interesting and different axis (that you mentioned) is the "free aspect", I tumbled on that here – beware, it's somewhat … extreme? and I'm not sure yet how practical those distros are: https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html / https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html
to my experience, manjaro is rock solid, as long as you dont switch aur sourced software for core system packages. I only use the aur for auxillary software. like rstudio or before they made it part of the distro, freeoffice.
void linux is a good alternative to arch if you want to tinker more yourself. install is a bit more chill, and the packages provided are good and all I need, but less comprehensive than arch. I feel right this being a bit less polish is very teachful! learned about kernel parameters the hard way thanks to void (gui freezes due to gpu driver issues). thats a good thing I find, as I was exactly looking for (having to) learn more about linux.
Still rocking Pop!_OS myself.
I used to really like Ubuntu until I found Linux Mint, then I switched to Ubuntu Mate after I had performance problems with early days of Cinnamon.
I really didn't like Gnome 3 for the longest time, but Pop!_OS allows me to enjoy it.
Plasma 5 was working well for me until KDE Neon updated to 18.04 and they broke the updater a few weeks later.
System76's hardware and software just works for me, so I will continue to use both.
for debian/ubuntu users at fedora:
alias apt="dnf"
I haz Penguy
Kinda funny… I started out with Suse 4.2, switched to slackware 3.5 and then Debian 2.2. Then switched back to win2K because it worked better for gaming on my dual pII-300 system.
You seem to think a distro that's "hard to install" is something for "advanced users". Something like arch is just for people who have enough time to screw around with their system instead of it just working. Being a masochist does not make you "advanced" 🙂
I'd say you start out with something like ubuntu or mint and then try arch, then when you get tired of crap and want something that just works, you stick with ubuntu/fedora/something like that.
Crazy people isn't Gentoo. It's Linux From Scratch.
Gentoo is actually not that difficult to install and setup for a more technically capable users. When I had my start on Linux, around the mid-2000s, after a couple years on Ubuntu I pretty much jumped from Ubuntu straight to Gentoo. It wasn't actually that hard, I learned a lot but it wasn't actually that bad, the guides are well written and they teach you a lot about how a Linux distro is built.
The main problem with Gentoo though, is that it turned your machine into a space warmer, due to all that compiling you have to do. Oh, and a lot of waiting for upgrades to finish.
I once tried Slack, and I didn't go back.
Where's gentoo? Makes arch look like mint
I recommend Mint Cinnamon to new users coming from Windows who ask me online, because it's so much like what they're used to. When it's someone I know and can show them the ropes, I install PCLinuxOS, which is what I use.
How many distros have corporations behind them to back potential commercial customers or even corporations?
Surprised you didn't suggest in the intermediate vanilla Debian.
Also please do a Gentoo video install 30 day's :), and Gentoo vs. Arch video series. would be cool.
Deepin si the best for new users.
After watching this video decided to give Fedora's KDE a try but retain my Ubuntu and Windoz10. After a few boot issues resolved by very prompt reply from Fedora forum all working great. Nice thing is booting to Fedora all my Ubuntu files are still available.
Pop_OS FTW
Since MX Linux has now climbed to the top of the Distrowatch "hit list", any chance we will get your take on that OS sometime soon?
Nothing about Gentoo?
Thanks
Can't game on Mint? Can't they merge Mint & Pop into the one "Big Mac" Linux for newbies to rule them all — maybe even with a KDE desktop to look the most like Windows 7? We've got to make a Mint gaming machine that has KDE baked in to look the most like home (Windows 7) and without ANY qualifications, say THAT is your saviour, it does everything, you'll never have to command line, and everything is where you thought it would be, even the App Store.
I am rather old school, and prefer Mint MATE or Ubuntu MATE "spins"
Would linux mint be completely open source? When you say windows est???? Does this distro play well with wine??? I run mainly Dr Divx 1.0.6 and office 2007. Have little experience with wine except when I first herd of it about a decade ago. It did not do much of anything back then, atleast not where it was useful. Is there a Linux office that is better than ms office 2007 (does all the same things plus ??) ? is there a DivX encoder for Linux that does anamorphic video???
It's actually GNU/Linux
Kubuntu is my thing – is just made my 10 years old desktop work out of the box. Been round Ubuntu, PopOS and Linux Mint – but they all needed tweaking (some didn't even work) to support an old Nvidia graphics card and 2 monitors.
When I think of progression, I think of Prog rock. Namely Genesis. Dang, I am dating myself and I am not even old.
I am feeling the laggy experience in my Debian 10 buster Gnome. What can I do now?
You've inspired me to finally get rid of windows for good. I use Mint as my primary OS
Guess I'm intermediate 🙂 I use Manjaro Cinnamon on my ASUS notebook
apparently for me arch was more stable than debian…. debian broke after an update in the second week while arch is going strong for 2 months, to all the people who think arch is unstable, it's just high maintenance