Linux - Getting started

Fixing and making things, what tools to get and what skills to learn, ...
horsewoman
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Linux - Getting started

Post by horsewoman »

So I decided I want to learn something new (that isn't a musical instrument for a change) and I settled on Linux.
I don't have anything against Microsoft Windows in general and use it every day at work. But it bugs me that has so high requirements in regard to hardware. I would love to use refurbished, older laptops, but with Windows often the CPU is on 95%, while there isn't a single application running.
At least with my old laptop that was the case.

Since I needed a new (to me) laptop anyway I purchased a refurbished one and would like to run it with Linux.
It's a Fujitsu Lifebook Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.50 GHz 16 GB RAM.

Right now it's running with Windows 11, pretty smoothly so far because I have a) splurged on 16 GB working memory and there are no applications on it yet besides Audacity and Firefox.

I have used a search machine to find out which Linux is most suitable for a beginner. Most people recommend Ubuntu / Xubuntu.
My plan is right now to have 2 operating systems on the laptop and to get rid of Windows, as soon as I'm used to Linux somewhat.
Is that a good plan?

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Slevin
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by Slevin »

Yeah, Ubuntu, Debian, and fedora are the most mainstream Linux distros (and easiest to use). Dual booting while you learn how to use linux is a must in my opinion, and make sure you have a way to google weird specific linux issues in case your machine is locking up or doing something weird.

Be patient, linux can have some weird weird issues. I’ve spent days debugging weird issues on fedora when I upgrade versions, and some bits and bobs always don’t quite work right.

For just casual use (browse the internet, docs, and spreadsheets sorta stuff), I’m a huge proponent of chromeos which uses very little resources and is massively more stable. I run a fedora laptop for work, but the casual laptop I use for video chats etc is a 4 year old chrome book that is hands down great to use for pretty much any basic computer usage, supports all android apps, and is actually stable as opposed to most Linux distros:

sky
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by sky »

I would install Ubuntu by itself, using the whole hard drive, not as a dual boot system. This simplifies things and gives you as much data storage as possible.

zbigi
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by zbigi »

Windows should run perferctly fine on such machine (at least Windows 10, I don't have any experience with Windows 11 yet). If it won't, it's just a matter of some tuning - something that can be learned and requires probably 10-100x less total knowledge than maintaining a Linux installation.

Scott 2
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by Scott 2 »

I'd encourage you to have a confirmed data backup in place first. Ideally both via a portable hard drive and an offsite automated cloud solution. Even better if it's versioned.

When you start playing with alternate OS's, especially in ways that touch how you boot, it's very easy to wipe access to your data. The files might still be there, they might still be recoverable, but getting at them can be a pain.

For playing around with the software, I've enjoyed pen drive versions of Linux. They run from a USB stick and let you get a taste, without making a firm commitment to dual booting or wiping Windows. With 16 gigs of RAM on that laptop, this should be a very feasible option. If you don't mount the hard drive or play with how the device boots, risk of messing things up goes way down.

Personally, I've found paying the Microsoft tax easier than not. That laptop will probably run Windows 11 well until the hardware fails. Linux takes work. Especially on a laptop, having the right drivers for your devices can be a pain. The interface is also less polished. You can get over it, but there's a steep learning curve. The platform favors an extreme power user.

Admittedly - I haven't run Windows 11. I've heard bad things and will cling to my Windows 10 install until October 2025.

jacob
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by jacob »

I think there's some grass is greener effect going on.

I've been using *nix since 1994. ERE HQ runs on Ubuntu20.04LTS with the third major upgrade since starting with 14LTS seven years ago. Software updates usually take a few minutes. IIRC, the update process has broken itself once; the upgrade process has never failed.

On the other hand, I only started dealing with windows10 in spring 2022 (to set up a gaming rig) after abandoning windows98 back in 2000. OMGWTFBBQ, what an absolute pain windows is to deal with. First problem was that it would basically grind itself down every time it started. Turned out that at one point someone had set up auto-scheduled defrag which never got to finish. After that it took weeks to remove various bloatware (no I don't need microsoft shopping or weather forecasts and so on running in the background) and getting it to recognize my controllers. I went as far as hacking the registry to force switch off the-not-very-helpful power saving on individual ports. I now more than anyone should about the generational changes in how peripherals were historically identified going back 30 years. I also know why "mission critical" windows computers are only ever installed with that one mission critical program and then never changed again. Every update takes a few hours of grinding and occasionally fail to install. Major OS upgrades are considered terrifying. And so on and so forth :-P

Either way, everybody has their favorites, but I think a good strategy is to pick something commonly used both in terms of software and hardware. Also something that has been in use for a while (at least a year or two) but not so ancient that nobody uses it anymore. This way, you can be almost sure that the internet has an answer. It was the only way I was able to fix my windows issues.

horsewoman
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by horsewoman »

zbigi wrote:
Thu Dec 01, 2022 2:04 pm
Windows should run perferctly fine on such machine (at least Windows 10, I don't have any experience with Windows 11 yet). If it won't, it's just a matter of some tuning - something that can be learned and requires probably 10-100x less total knowledge than maintaining a Linux installation.
I think you misread my post - my old laptop had those issues, it is considerably older/weaker. The one I have in use right now has 16 GB RAM for a reason - I got that in case the Linux experiment fails (plus it was really not that expensive as an add-on).

Scott 2 wrote:
Thu Dec 01, 2022 2:10 pm
I'd encourage you to have a confirmed data backup in place first. Ideally both via a portable hard drive and an offsite automated cloud solution. Even better if it's versioned.
There is no data on this laptop yet. I would create an image of Windows to re-install it, if things go south.

Scott 2 wrote:
Thu Dec 01, 2022 2:10 pm

For playing around with the software, I've enjoyed pen drive versions of Linux. They run from a USB stick and let you get a taste, without making a firm commitment to dual booting or wiping Windows. With 16 gigs of RAM on that laptop, this should be a very feasible option. If you don't mount the hard drive or play with how the device boots, risk of messing things up goes way down.

Personally, I've found paying the Microsoft tax easier than not. That laptop will probably run Windows 11 well until the hardware fails. Linux takes work. Especially on a laptop, having the right drivers for your devices can be a pain. The interface is also less polished. You can get over it, but there's a steep learning curve. The platform favors an extreme power user.

Admittedly - I haven't run Windows 11. I've heard bad things and will cling to my Windows 10 install until October 2025.
The pen drive sounds interesting, I will look into that!
I'm simply curious about Linux. It seems to be a worthwhile endeavour to be able to use old conkers of hardware for everyday stuff. I'm not a doomsday prophet, but it is just possible that due to shortage of raw materials it will not always be easy to purchase computers nilly-willy.
My brother works in development of synthetic materials/polymers. It's kind of alarming how many shortages his internationally operating company had in the last few years (of which the public noticed noting - YET). It's probably even worse with rare earths and other stuff you need for microchips and stuff.

If Linux is not for me, I have still 2 PCs with Windows running, plus this laptop. Since my resident Luddites (hubby and daughter) use those PCs as well, I'd like to keep the Linux experiment at my personal laptop. ("Mooooooom, the PC is doing weird stuff!!!")
I don't mind steep learning curves, if the material interests me.

horsewoman
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by horsewoman »

jacob wrote:
Thu Dec 01, 2022 2:31 pm
Either way, everybody has their favorites, but I think a good strategy is to pick something commonly used both in terms of software and hardware. Also something that has been in use for a while (at least a year or two) but not so ancient that nobody uses it anymore. This way, you can be almost sure that the internet has an answer. It was the only way I was able to fix my windows issues.
I'm an office admin by trade, so I will always be working with Windows in some capacity. I really get along well with it, but I don't like how they force you to buy new hardware.

Thanks for the vote of confidence :)

fingeek
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by fingeek »

I would also recommend Ubuntu as a more accessible version of Linux (have also run it for years).

Look at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wubi - you download the installer on windows, run it, and it installs Ubuntu like magic as dual-boot. And you can also use it to "uninstall" Linux if you choose to too.

If you want to try the USB option, that's called a "live disk" whereby it doesn't touch the machine's hard disk. You can set that up with https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubuntu ... ng-started and it might be worth trying that first (although your post is technically deep enough to lead me to think you'll be fine and will thrive with Linux :-)). Enjoy!

Crusader
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by Crusader »

My vote goes towards EndeavourOS. You can experiment with the desktop environment you like (I like KDE the most). It has the least amount of bloat, and it has the benefit of being able to use the Arch User Repository:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository

macg
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by macg »

I've had experience in both - I worked on the Windows OS team for 20+ years at a couple of companies. Also, for the past 5ish years I've dealt primarily with Linux servers. And add to that, like Jacob, my primary home computer has been some form of Linux since the mid-90s.

In my opinion, Windows is worse than Linux. I always tell people that unless they need a Windows PC for gaming, or for some specific application/hardware that only works on Windows, to go with Linux. Especially over the last 10 years or so, Linux has become so much easier for people to use.

I've had Ubuntu on my home computer for at least the last 10 years, no issues. There are traditionally issues with Linux and drivers for certain pieces of hardware, as some have stated, that is true. But my home laptop is not used for anything that requires any special hardware or software, so it's fine for me.

I've also delved into the Raspberry Pi arena, basically since they were released. Currently my Pi is running Plex, streaming to my TV. Those are fun learning modules, and cheap, but unfortunately I believe right now there are still issues with stock because of the supply chain disruption.

I never had issues with dual boot, and it is a fine way to start. The boot-from-USB suggestion is also good. The only thing I would say is if you decide to reformat your whole laptop to Linux, then be sure to have the proper Windows codes in case you ever want to reinstall Windows again. If it's a laptop you bought used, you may not even have that information. There have been times I've wiped laptops and then didn't have the license to be able to reinstall Windows. I am not sure if Windows has addressed this licensing problem, so it's worth noting.

Good luck and enjoy yourself!!

steveo73
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by steveo73 »

I've been using Linux for years. I used Windows at work when I had a job and I found it a terrible operating system.

The issue with Linux is that you have to debug various issues when they come up. I've had some issues that are hard to handle but there is a wealth of information on line. I don't actually think Linux is harder to use than Windows. The issue is a lack of someone to take it too and fix it.

I'm going to give a vote to Arch Linux. It has awesome documentation and the software is typically updated.

The thing with Linux is that it's a bit different. I'd recommend getting Arch and then putting Gnome over the top of it. Gnome to me is a much nicer looking and easier to use front end or better desktop environment compared to Windows.

I currently use i3 because I had some problems with Gnome but I think Gnome will probably be fine. I've used it for years and it's great. I've just set my PC up to use i3 and I can't be bothered reconfiguring it.

I'll tell you what I do:-

1. Browse the web. I use Firefox. It's great software.
2. I play guitar. I use a simple interface into the computer and on the computer I use cadence to integrate my sound. I also have guitarix which is an amp simulator. I also have a DAW (Ardour) that I rarely use but sometimes I do. This is so freaken awesome. I can play over the top of YouTube or whatever songs.
3. I occasionally play games. I use steam. I don't play many games. I really just play Civ 5. Every so often Civ 5 doesn't work and this happened the other day. I enabled the proton experimental setting on my steam account for this game and now it works perfectly. I think you could play a lot of games this way including Windows games. It's freaken awesome.
4. I have spreadsheets and text files that I use to track various things like my expenses.
5. I use torrents and download everything I want. I read a tonne of books and we watch a tonne of TV shows and movies. I have Plex server on my PC and it streams to the TV.
6. I upload all critical files to Mega via a Mega interface that all I have to do is run it and it does the work for me.
7. I use a VPN basically all the time.

I should add that I am a technical user in that I worked in IT and data specifically. So I have a good grasp of IT. I still don't think this is that hard but just so you know.

I dived straight into Arch years ago and it's been awesome. I never dual booted. We have a family PC as well that is Linux as well. It's arch but I think I put KDE on top of it.

When I post the things I do I think I get so much usage out of my PC.

I should add that when I state things go wrong. I think it's more reliable than my Windows PC. It's just little issues that pop up every so often.
Last edited by steveo73 on Thu Dec 01, 2022 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

steveo73
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by steveo73 »

macg wrote:
Thu Dec 01, 2022 6:14 pm
In my opinion, Windows is worse than Linux. I always tell people that unless they need a Windows PC for gaming, or for some specific application/hardware that only works on Windows, to go with Linux. Especially over the last 10 years or so, Linux has become so much easier for people to use.
I agree but I just posted how Steam has a proton enabled function. I don't use it much and maybe it has some holes but unless you are a cutting edge PC gamer I don't see the benefit. I'd also suggest you could just by a Play Station or xBox as an alternative.

I forgot to add in my post that all my software is free and it's been free for years.

I love my computer. I love how I've personalized it and I maintain it as well.

I had Windows and it sucked. I used it at work and it sucked.

steveo73
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by steveo73 »

fingeek wrote:
Thu Dec 01, 2022 3:28 pm
I would also recommend Ubuntu as a more accessible version of Linux (have also run it for years).
I remember Linus stating that he found it easier to stick with one distribution simply because he found it too hard to change and work out the idiosyncrasies of each distribution.

I did try Ubuntu on the family PC and I found it harder than Arch.

OutOfTheBlue
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by OutOfTheBlue »

Linux Mint is one of the most popular beginner friendly distributions that I haven't seen in the thread.

It offers three main versions of desktop environments (DE): Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce. All three sport a familiar Windows-like menu and are well thought out in terms of usability. Cinnamon is the most modern/eye candy, the two others are more lightweight.

Ubuntu uses the popular and modern Gnome 3 as it's DE, which is nice but quite a departure from Windows. It is also more ressource heavy, as is KDE, another popular DE.

Xubuntu uses Xfce, which is a mid- to lightweight, suitable for older computers as well.

Ubuntu and its flavors offer LTS (long term support) releases that receive security updates for at least 5 years. This means you can just keep the same version for many years.

Your laptop can run any Linux distribution and DE, so lightweight is less important, but their are some other options specifically meant for older rigs.

PS: Over the years, I've used many many distros. The last year's, I've found safe harbor in Regolith Linux, which is based on Ubuntu/Debian but uses the i3 tiling window manager (lightweight, functional, keyboard-friendly). There is really something for everyone!

About installing Linux alongside Windows, I'd advise doing so if you need to use a specific program or wish to have something ready to return to if the Linux experience doesn't turn out what you enjoy. Otherwise, just let it take over all hard drive. You can always run Windows in a VM (virtual machine).

Another way to test Linux is to install/run Linux from Windows via WLS 2.

zbigi
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by zbigi »

Let me just list some issues off the top of my head I've had with Linux while using it as a daily driver for work:
- Bluetooth drivers stop working after every system update (so, basically every week or so) and need to be reinstalled manually
- Linux-specific software is more buggy than Windows-specific software (for example, the volume slider in Ubuntu's default music playing app is buggy and hard to use)
- Even cross-platform software works worse on Linux than on Windows - for example, when using Google Meet, it randomly won't show camera feed from some people in the call
- You're often limited to software that's supported by your distribution. So, if you want to use latest release of say Mozilla Thunderbird (because the current one has an annoying bug), it won't be available unless you install it manually, which can lead to you easily breaking the entire system if you don't understand exactly what you're doing (it's enough to answer Yes just once to perfectly-innocent sounding question from the package manager)
- Proper documentation for Linux is very hard to find. Not only there are so many distros, but Linux world has a way of changing how basic things are done (say, command-line network configuration) every few years, so most of the older references you will find online are useless and misleading
- Libre Office sucks compared to MS Office, it's a no contest
- no iTunes, so it's impossible to backup my iPhone to my PC
- no iCloud integration, so pictures from my iPhone don't upload automatically to my PC
- no Visual Studio, so can't program in C/C++ as effectively as on Windows
- poor/no games support

For comparison, the issues of the top of my head with my Windows laptop:
- the Win 8 "flat UI" debacle - some of the windows (control panel etc) are still styled with the Win7 style, while others are styled with the flat UI style. Moreover, the features are now scattered across both the old and the new windows. This makes the whole system substantially harder to use and is a major step backward compared to Win7...
- forced system updates. I think you need to upgrade to the Pro version of Windows (which costs extra $100+) to be in control of them.
- Antivirus slowing things down. It's REALLY hard to disable in the non-Pro, version, but alas I've found some hacks that work for now
- "Dead" apps in Start Menu when text-searching for them. Apparently, it's a known bug and can be fixed, I just haven't gotten to it yet. Still, WTF Microsoft.
- No native support for UNIX-style shell scripts (there's Powershell which is apparently just as good, but I don't want to learn it)

jacob
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by jacob »

zbigi wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:15 am
- no Visual Studio, so can't program in C/C++ as effectively as on Windows
For my quant job, I had to use visual studio. I never learned how to set up a new project and clicking on all the right context menus in the right order. I had to ask a friendly engineer to come over and handle it for me every time. I tried taking notes, but there were some 15 different steps involved.

On *nix, you'd use emacs (definitely not vi :lol: ) and manually create ONE so-called makefile that provides a list of dependencies between the various source files and how they are to be compiled. For example, most of your program could be in C++ but one legacy source might be in F77 and so would be compiled by fortran. Running Make in the command line would automagically figure out which files are needed to be recompiled to make new object files and make the executable. The beauty is that Make is flexible, so it can also be used for other things such as cleaning up test data. Preloading/generating sample data and not doing that every time for subsequent simulations. It also generic enough to be used for every command line utility. I even used it to make the ERE book. Indeed, the clever thing is that the same Make is used throughout the system, so you only have to learn that one. If you switched to another language, it would also use Make. (In terms of debuggers, their helpfulness really depends on what kind of coding one does. It's helpful for applications (coding errors)... not so helpful for numerical simulations/analysis-type codes (runtime errors).)

I think the hard part is learning a new mode of thinking (a new paradigm). Each platform (major software company) seems to make a point out of trying something that sets them completely apart from the other platforms. Patent law probably has something to do with this.

On windows a lot of things is hidden in context menus (unknown-knowns) and you basically have to know where and when to click. (This is the stuff I google all the time. I know it exists. I just forgot where to find it.) Everything happens in major applications like office, VS, or the OS itself. Learning usually happens by tutorial on youtube or certifications.

*nix you have to learn the command line and how to pipe and redirect. Practically everything is based on tools, which ideally do just one thing very well, and changing files. Files are generally human^H^H^H^H^Hnerd-readable. And everything is in the (man)ual. Standard refrain is RTFM. People would "certify" themselves reading an 300 page manual over the weekend.

For Android et al you have to learn how to swipe and which way to do so. And you have to learn enough Ancient Egyptian to know how a paper airplane means "send", that a shoe means "walk", and three horizontal bars means "menu".

The struggle happens when trying to use the systems one has learned in one paradigm on a different platform. Or trying to use systems in a way they weren't really designed for. (I fully agree on LibreOffice. With all due respect to the attempt of the developers, if you're already on *nix, just use latex.)

avalok
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by avalok »

jacob wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:40 am
three horizontal bars means "menu".
Known as the hamburger icon in the industry. It is surprisingly one of the few glyphs I find intuitive in modern UIs.

Regarding how poor MSs tooling is: I have found that of late they have followed the walled garden approach (a la Apple), whereby so long as you use exclusively their tools it is quite painless. At work we host in Azure, develop in Visual Studio, and all builds and code hosting are done through Azure DevOps. The integration is pretty seamless. As soon as you want to use something other than a combination of those three (except GitHub), it becomes a massive pain, though less than trying to write code for an iPhone without a Mac.
jacob wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:40 am
(I fully agree on LibreOffice. With all due respect to the attempt of the developers, if you're already on *nix, just use latex.)
Once you "get" LaTeX all WYSIWYG editing pales in comparison. However, are there any recommendations for replacing Excel/Calc? R?

zbigi
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by zbigi »

@jacob
- Visual Studio has supreme debugger. Nothing on Linux probably still comes close to it (I haven't tried CLion yet). It's not that important when debugging scientific scripts, but very important when debugging applications.
- VS supports CMake (a superset of make) projects, so you could just describe the project structure with CMake and import into VS as a project.
- VS usually has pretty good support for turning your code base into essentially a hypertext document (click on a type to go to definition, ctrl+space to show suggestions etc.). You can do similar things with emacs and external tooling, but it's much crappier from what I've found.

Essentially, scientific programming is usually simple programming-wise (the difficulty is in the math, interpreting results etc.) so you can get by with subpar tooling. Working on applications however is usually rather overwhelming and you need all the help you can get.

luxagraf
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Re: Linux - Getting started

Post by luxagraf »

I've used exclusively Linux since 2008 when I first tried Ubuntu (eventually finding my way to arch). FWIW, I have been recommending System76's Pop_OS for newcomers. It bills itself as something for STEM types, but I've found it to be the most trouble free Linux experience no matter what you want to do. The documentation and community are also excellent.

https://pop.system76.com

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