I’ve also got the Linux Basics for Hackers book but it’s at home while I’m on vacation.

I’m just really happy rn yall :) this install took some work, SecureBoot kept getting in the way and I’m not the most savvy person so there was a lot of Googling and trial and error in the way of getting here.

  • CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world
    22·
    16 days ago

    Welcome! Don’t listen to anyone trying to shame you for your distro choice. The most important is that you didn’t choose windows.

    • FindME@lemmy.myserv.oneEnglish
      19·
      16 days ago

      No, no! Listen to the shamers! Change your distro eight times over the first month as you listen to them whine, and eventually return to the first one you chose, full of wisdom of why those other distros suck so you can tell the noobs who choose one of them first instead of your glorious choice!

    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.worldOP
      12·
      16 days ago

      Thanks! I plan to experiment with others, but I wanted a nice smooth transition for my wife and I both, so Mint seemed like a great starting point.

      • acid_falcon@lemmy.world
        5·
        15 days ago

        Mint is rad. I currently use barebones Debian testing with a bunch of customized stuff, but I always keep a bootable Mint flash drive on my keychain. It’s a very solid choice

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        15 days ago

        I used Mint for almost its entire existence so far, but recently I’ve started main driving immutables, and gotta say the experience is even more user friendly. That’s my current experimentation stage but, so far, it doesn’t feel experimental at all, it just works out the box, no issues.

      • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        10 days ago

        I’ve been daily driving mint for over a year now, gotta say, never been tempted by anything else. It really is solid and functional and easy to work with. The only issue I’ve ever had with the system was programs closing randomly, and turns out I was just running out of ram. Fixed that by adding more swap (using part of the hard drive as back up ram).

        Having come from windows, it’s really nice to not have to search through 5 different settings menus, not to mention not having changes I made reverted at every update.

      • Thymos@lemm.ee
        2·
        15 days ago

        My boyfriend wanted Linux on his laptop and he’s not tech savvy at all. I installed Mint for him and he’s very happy with it, no complaints. It’s a very good choice.

    • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
      4·
      16 days ago

      I agree that’s why I don’t listen to all the hater’s who say my distro Choice of Android Tv is bad.

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
        2·
        16 days ago

        If you have something to hide from The Glorious and Omnipotent Kim Jong Un, our beloved leader, you do not deserve to be a human. All hail our Dear Leader.

        M’comrade…

    • Atlas48@ttrpg.network
      2·
      11 days ago

      Mint’s a pretty nice distro, all things considered. The only one I’d turn my nose up against is Manjaro, mostly because of their leadership’s reputation as clowns.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.mlEnglish
    19·
    15 days ago

    You’ll probably be making lots of changes to your computer over the next couple of weeks, so it’s a good idea to use TimeShift to make system snapshots. (It works like System Restore in Windows). It can even rescue an unbootable system. Just boot from your Linux Live CD / flash drive and you can run TimeShift from that.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      5·
      15 days ago

      Whoah… wish I knew about this when I was setting up my raspberry pi. Got a brand new computer on the way (well half of it is here already) so this might come in handy… thanks!

      • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        21·
        15 days ago

        FYI, you can usually automate creating timeshifts whenever you add packages or update your system. I did that for mine, so that I don’t have to remember to do it.

  • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml
    14·
    16 days ago

    Quick tip: forgot how to use a command? Use man commandname to see a short manual page for that command.

    Forgot sudo on your command? !! refers to the previously typed command, so you can simply type sudo !! to fix it.

  • don@lemm.ee
    9·
    14 days ago

    ugh r u rly usin [distro i dont use] just go back to micro$haft luser

  • Veneroso@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    15 days ago

    Congratulations! It’s really fun to learn something new. Don’t let anyone distro shame you.

    (Unless it’s into installing Gentoo)

    • Starbuncle@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      15 days ago

      Does anyone distro shame Mint? The only distro-shaming I’ve seen is against Ubuntu, and that’s because of Canonical’s repeated attempts to turn Linux into Windows and push their own proprietary bullshit.

      • Veneroso@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        15 days ago

        I like Mint quite a bit myself. Mint Cinnamon is my preferred “just put Linux on it” distro.

        My comment was mostly tongue in cheek :-p

  • Affidavit@lemm.ee
    8·
    15 days ago

    Honestly, I consider myself moderately tech savvy. But I also had issues with SecureBoot when installing Linux. It really doesn’t help when every single BIOS has different settings and they all want to make everything as poorly worded and unintuitive as humanly possible.

    “Oh, you want an on/off toggle for SecureBoot? Sorry, no. Let’s just fuck with you until you either brick your motherboard or somehow manage to install Linux.”

    My congratulations! You’ve managed to get past the most difficult hurdle.

    • infinite_ass@leminal.space
      7·
      15 days ago

      To be fair, writing technical documentation for this shit is possibly the most unpleasant job in the world. After 5 minutes I desperately want to fuck off and get high.

  • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    6·
    15 days ago

    Hey congrats, @A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world! By getting through that hurdle you most certainly are that savvy of a person. Enjoy the after success glow and welcome to the hacker universe.

    Trial and error is 90% of life! Thats how you get shit done!

    • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
      3·
      15 days ago

      you most certainly are that savvy of a person

      There are millions of us.

      Glad to hear OP has the spare time to make it “it just works”

      😂

      • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        15 days ago

        Hey everyone that gets over that hurdle implies that its doable and that it might be getting easier.

        Remember that use to be just the first hurdle of many. It sounds like kobold is enjoying the desktop already and there use to be another 7 or 8 major hurdles. Audio, video, x11, network, Bluetooth, usb.

        Seems like all those were just breezed on past!

        • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.worldOP
          5·
          15 days ago

          Yeah honestly once I got past my BIOS problems everything else has been a breeze. Driver install and updates all went flawlessly. I played around with Linux a tiny bit in decades past (usually just to fix something and get back to Windows), so I was a little concerned about it at first, but, as they say… shit just works 🤷‍♂️

      • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        15 days ago

        Im proud you took the plunge! Feel free to reach out if you get stuck on anything. Im a principal engineer whose done work all over the tech stack including the linux kernel and wrote my own shell. (Think gnome/kde user interfaces.) And these days im playing with biochemistry:)

  • hondaguy97386@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    16 days ago

    “I’m just really happy rn yall” - be careful with that rn command if you’re anywhere near Arch, wouldn’t want all your happy uninstalled! Seriously though, good for you! Welcome to freedom.

  • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    61·
    15 days ago

    I reccomend trying TUI utilities to get better at Linux for example: btop, fastfetch, ranger, vim, and apt (also ignore anyone who tells you to sudo rm -rf /*)

  • Mwa@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    15 days ago

    did the same thing and Did a raid0 btrfs config on my old windows drive.

  • Samsy@lemmy.ml
    4·
    16 days ago

    Good job, welcome to the free world of tech. Installing is often the hardest part.

    Next lesson: forget about downloading installer from the browser, check out the software center or learn package manager commands, that’s the first new thing about Linux.

  • Laurel Raven@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    14 days ago

    Congrats! Made the switch finally early this year myself, after thinking about it for nearly twenty years. Hasn’t been nearly as hard as I was worried it would be.

    I will say that the “Linux Basics for Hackers” is a pretty disappointing book that really should just be called “Linux Basics”, and spends too much time pandering with things like “cool” scripts that do nothing useful or wrap a simple command in a way that doesn’t actually make it more useful or easier. It’s also full of inaccuracies and just isn’t very well written, and if you’ve gotten through much at all of How Linux Works, you’re not likely to get anything out of it.