linux for (computer) beginners

tired of microsoft stalking your every move but worried that linux is going to require you to learn how to (shudder) use the command line? DO NOT FEAR! there are many avenues to use linux, and most of the best options have a similar desktop experience to windows WITHOUT the spyware bloating your hard drive!

this page will serve as your quickstart guide, as well as my reference for some of the most common command line prompts that linux-based guides expect me to know (and the ones that might be useful to you as well!)

OPERATING SYSTEMS

fun fact about me: my very first personal computer was an ubuntu machine my dad built for me out of an old tower that had once run windows 98 (the pitfalls of having a dad who was an IT professional). it was for me to type up my homework and occasionally play, but being the absolute fucking dweeb that i was at age 11 i was absolutely obsessed with changing the colors on the ubuntu built in periodic table of elements. to this day ubuntu is the most widely used linux desktop environment, and is very easy to set up and get running. for something a little lighter weight (and a little less "we're used by development professionals" in case that's a thing turning you away from ubuntu) i have had a lot of luck with linux mint, which is what i currently run on my machine and advertises itself as working "right out of the box", which is true!

now, both of these operating systems provide you with instructions for how to install them on a machine, but for the sake of simplicity, i'll walk you through the process of making what's called a boot drive: the device you'll use to install your linux operating system. (if you never have installed your own operating system: windows used to come on CDs. flash drives are the new normal!)

CREATING A LINUX MACHINE

whichever one you pick, the basic setup will be the same. you will download the ISO file somewhere to your computer, and then you will have to create a bootable flashdrive with it. the program i use is called balenaEtcher, which walks you through the three steps to make a bootable drive. basically: pick the ISO file you downloaded. select the drive you want to convert. press start. it's pretty simple. i have a couple of 32GB USB drives i keep around to turn into boot drives, but i think as long as the drive is 8GB or bigger you'll be fine. just know you can't use the USB drive for anything else when you boot from it - so back up anything you have on it before you use it as a boot stick!

from there, plug the boot drive into whatever computer you want to make your linux machine and turn it on. it should automatically boot from the flash drive - if it doesn't, there will be a key on your keyboard you'll need to hit to load a boot menu. it's often f12, but there might be a message that pops up to tell you which key to hit instead. at this point, whichever operating system you have chosen will walk you through the installation process.

PROGRAMS

many of the programs we use on a regular basis work quite well on linux machines! there is a program that comes installed no matter what operating system (OS) you're using called a software manager that works similarly to the mac app store or the windows store, showing software available for download on your new machine. however, as with both windows and mac stores, just because you don't see an app you want in the software manager doesn't mean it isn't available for windows! you just might have to download it from the webiste instead, per usual.

for an office-like suite i highly recommend libreoffice, which i believe comes pre-installed; this is also a good recommendation if you decide to stay on windows for some reason! it's free and open source (which basically means all users have the right to use, edit, and distribute the software in perpetuity; and can contribute to development if they have the means) and totally private. while it may not have all the functionality of word or excel, it also doesn't have copilot!

as for the internet: i regret to inform you that if you want to remove chrome from your life, almost every single non-chrome browser with any sort of extension support is built in chromium, which is still owned by google. your best option to drop chrome from your life will be firefox. take my hand and join me. i promise firefox is good.

THE COMMAND LINE

i PROMISE you do not need to know the command line in order to use linux. i promise. there are times i find certain command prompts more useful than the graphical user interface (GUI), and primarily that's because my machine's software manager is a little laggy. SO. if you want to brave the command line, read on.

in my opinion the most important command you need to know would be sudo. this is a prefix you would append to a command to run it as an administrator. how do you know if you need to use sudo? well, you try to run a command and it tells you you don't have the permission for it, basically. sudo will prompt you for your user password in order to proceed, and then will run whatever command you input automatically.

sudo is also important for possibly the only command you will ever run as a casual linux user which is: sudo apt-get update. this will run through every piece of software located on your system and update any information associated with it, including whether any updates are available. this and the command sudo apt-get upgrade are the easiest way to insure every piece of software on your machine is completely up to date without manually updating everything one by one. these are valuable things to know.

ALSO hitting the UP arrow key will cycle to the last command you typed. useful if you make a typo, or need to repeat an older command for some reason. keep hitting UP to cycle through older commands.

AND NOW FOR MK'S REFERENCE LIST

i have begun doing a lot more work in the command line in order to build my own file and media servers. these are commands i always forget and need to remember to use.

sudo nano [FILEPATH] edits a file directly in the terminal. (again, the sudo prefix means it can be edited regardless of permissions, making it easy to edit config files that are owned by the root user for whatever reason.) after editing ctrl + O saves the file and ctrl + X exits the editor.

cd stands for change directory. using this in the sense of cd [DIRECTORY PATH] allows you to navigate into a directory in the command line, which is useful for when you are running repeated commands with the same filepath. (as an example. let's say i were doing work within my documents directory that required me to repeatedly type the filepath /home/username/Documents/filename. i could type cd /home/username/Documents/ and my terminal would automatically point into that directory for every subsequent command. now, any filepath i type into a command - let's say for example a sudo nano as above - i can drop everything except the filename and save time.)

cd by itself points the terminal back to the home directory, which is the default for the terminal.