I've been using windows for 21 years. I am about to create

>>51412041
Don't buy that book. You don't need it.

>>51412041
Something something gentoo.

>>51412061
Any tip? No idea how should I start. I found some uni notes on the internet and and am reading atm

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go with ubuntu and gnome shell ,good combination

>>51412072
wot?

>>51412113
Just keep searching online. Something like "Linux beginners guide" should turn up plenty.

Buy Tylenol and hemorrhoid medication.

>>51412041
> Install Arch Linux
> Install i3
> Forever lurk desktop threads

>>51412113
Install ubuntu, when you hit a problem Google it. Don't need stupid books until you start doing shit that matters

>>51413167
L M A O
M
A
O

>>51412041
Install a *buntu distro. Anything based on ubuntu is usually pretty beginner friendly. What exactly are you looking to get out of linux? We can probably make better recommendations if you are more specific. For example, do you want to use the command prompt? If not something like ubuntu you will almost never have to touch it.

>>51413185
Basically this.
Use it and fuck around with it.
Keep braking the system and then go and fix it and learn about how everything operates.

>>51412041
>I am about to create a partition for linux and buy linux for dummies. What do you think?

Depends, what is your reason for looking into linux?

>>51412041
That book is bound to be out of date. Linux includes a manual for every command in terminal, which is also hosted at die.net. I'd learn from there. Linuxmint is Ubuntu based, so all Ubuntu forum information will apply (and their documentation is very good), but the GUI is more Windows friendly.

>>51413650
>command prompt
>terminal
Pick one

>>51413650
>>51413963
First off OP, do NOT get that stupid ass book. The only book you need is Linux commands book by O'Reilly, or at least the pocket guide. When you get into some serious things books will become more important. A book with all the commands will be useful, until you remember them.

Mint cinnamon is good for a Windows user. It is set up similarly, out the box and is friendly.

Second to be fair, Anon could have used command prompt instead of terminal because OP is coming from a Windows background. Although, that should have been OPs first gnu/Linux lesson.

Should I dual boot ubuntu just to mess around with ricing?

>>51414277
Yup!

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>>51414277
Go for it. Be prepared to burn it to the ground and start over at some point though. There will come a day in the future where you look back on your config files and weep for the foolishness of your old self. This is normal.

>he says as he backs up his files in preparation to burn his Ubuntu installation to the ground to install Arch

I didn't even realize how bad it was until I started ricing my work computer from a fresh install.

>>51414354
>>51414363
Cool, downloading it right now

>>51414383
Make for sure that you defragment your hard drive before you partition.

>>51414277
Just make VMs. Play around all you want. Make it badass, fuck it up, does matter; Its gone with a button.

And you can have multiple projects on numerous types of *nix distros. As opposed to the one you get dual booting. And it is more of a process to get rid of, then load another OS. While having whichever OS there witout restart.

>>51414406
*doesnt matter

>>51412041
You don't need to buy a book. Just go to your local library and get a book. Linux is free so the books often come with an installer. This is a really good way to learn Red Hat. I know a few people who have done it.

>>51414383
Awesome. My main advice to you is don't be afraid of breaking things while you rice. (The only time to be super careful not to break things is while you are partitioning your hard drive.)

After you've got it partitioned and installed, go crazy. You'll learn more by fixing your stupid mistakes, and you're probably going to start over a couple times anyway.

>>51414406
I would do that, but messing around with linux would help me out with seeing if I would like to keep linux on my machine and maybe only use linux

>>51414470
That's good. Dual booting makes it just the right amount of hard to get back to Windows. It's still there if you need it, but it's annoying enough to switch that it'll be a last resort.

I started off dual booting, and now I don't even waste the space on Windows because I was only using that partition as a storage space for my movies on my last computer.

Just saw this thread and thought I'd ask:

When you install something on Windows, it asks you where you'd like it to be installed; when you install something on GNU/Linux, you aren't given a choice and it seems to put pertinent files in several different directories. Why is this?

I apologize if this belongs in the /sqt/.

>>51414470
All the more reason to try out a few different ones to see what you like best. Then install that one, if and when you want permanance.

I got 3 designated Linux computers, along with one Windows one that has 5 different Linux based systems on it, as projects.

INSTALL

>>51414518
With Linux, there are conventions to what goes where. It's a pretty big subject, actually, but the idea is to make things as maintainable as possible.

In particular though, the binaries go to specific places because they need to be on the PATH so that terminal can see them. A lot of the stuff in other places are things like databases, metadata, config files and basically just shit you don't need to worry about in most cases.

But essentially, it puts everything in all those places because those are the places the computer knows to look for certain things.

This might help you understand more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

>>51414653
Neat.
Thanks, anon; I'll give this a read.

>>51412041
You have the internet for learning linux.

>>51412041
If you're anything like /g/ you're going to download a new distro at the first sign you might actually have to learn something and continue hopping until you realize it's all GNU/Linux. You'll want to make a separate partition for /home. This way you can nuke / and not have to redo all of your settings in ~/ (user account). If you have 8 or 16GB of RAM, you don't really need to make a swap partition, but most people do 2X physical RAM anyway. Some people also make a separate /boot partition. This can be very small (128MB-256MB). If you want to run a server where people upload stuff to you, you will definitely want to make a separate /var partition for when they decide to use up your entire hard drive space. This is what I usually do. your mileage may vary.

/boot 128MB
/ 12GB
swap 8GB
/home everything else

p.s. if you fall for the gentoo meme /usr will ballon in size very quickly so 24GB-32GB for /

>>51414685

man hier

Will give you the exact same info so you wont need to go digging on the internet to figure out where things are.

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>>51414894
Holy shit, I never knew about this. I could have saved so much time and agony if I had known about this two months ago.

>>51412041
You probably won't need the book, really.

My advice is to start with Ubuntu, Mint, or OpenSUSE Leap.

You should also learn to get familiar with the command line and bash, just in case.

>>51412041

Been using Linux off and on for 10 years. If I could learn it again efficiently, I would do the following:

- a friendly *butnu on my main computer
- a Raspberry Pi for projects and experimentation
- some choice Linux PDF's from O'Reilly on a tablet with Serverauditor for remoting into the Pi

Reasoning: your Ubuntu main will get you used to working in a Linux desktop environment, and help you figure out free software alternatives for things you do on Windows.

The catch: you'll be afraid of breaking your setup and afraid of the command line. So you need a disposable, experimental setup.

Having a headless Raspberry Pi in the house was one of the best things I ever did for my Linux knowledge. One of the first things you have to do with it is setup SSH with public key cryptography. For bonus points I setup X11 tunneling over ssh. Then you have to really get into learning vi, understanding user and /etc config files, /var/log/, find a terminal multiplexer you like (screen or tmux), learning to navigate man and info. Then setting up wifi, a samba server, maybe CUPS, some simple bash scripts, then MySQL, then Snort...all command line only, run on a computer the size of a deck of cards.

At some point you'll go back to your main computer and realize you aren't afraid anymore. There's always a config file somewhere to fix what's bugging you. Even if you break X-windows and have only a command line, you'll have the tools to search the log files, even go online for help with lynx and wget, and get it working again.

>>51412041
Don't buy that book. You don't need it.

Books are out of date the second they're printed, OP. Just remember the man command. Man followed by a command will open a manual page on that program. 'apropos" will search all man pages for a term and tell you which one to view for that info. Lastly, the Arch wiki is by far the best wiki regardless of what distribution you're actually using.

For the most part all the distros can do the same stuff, but there are minor differences in things like how new packages are or the package managers used and what comes with it out of the box and such. I suggest lurking in Friendly Linux Thread as well. A lot of those guys are idiots, though, so try to think for yourself.

>>51413167
If he's been on Windows, something tells me he doesn't want a tiling (or dynamic or whatever) wm right away. I could be wrong, though. I did have a friend who was watching me use i3 with two VLC windows open when I said I was gonna open another one for a separate playlist. Then he said something to the effect of "yeah, I'd be jealous if Linux could do that with 3 windows" followed by a little laugh. I then proceeded to open several vlc windows that automatically tiled and just got quiet. I'm still not sure if he was embarrassed or just decided it was a different feature and he lost interest.

>>51414277
Arch would be better for ricing. AUR + newer packages in general helps a lot. If the install is too hard for you, try using Architect. It's a third party installer, but installs vanilla Arch instead of a shitty derivative.

The command line course on codecademy is pretty good for beginners. It's also an Ubuntu VM with internet access if you wanted to screw around.