I have tried linux mint a few times over the years and inevitably get frustrated and go back to windows due to needing to learn so many little things just to get going. Although I get frustrated with it, I still feel this enticing pull towards linux. I want to learn, I just don't understand how people consider this easy at all. Where do I go to get a good deep learning of this and to ease my biggest pain points.

Biggest pain points:
1. First and foremost, how do you learn the equivalent of the windows explore? I open it up and it looks familiar, but everything goes to weird pathways. I install things and I don't know where they go.

1. The terminal. How did anyone even figure out any of the commands for this? I have been told that terminal is essentially an optional thing you can do with linux, but most users use the terminal because it makes things "easier". I was dabbling in a few of the beginning commands. And when I thought I understood things it clearly showed I had 0 idea what I was doing. things like sudo apt commands. I just felt like whenever I was "downloading" anything through terminal it felt like I was downloading an unknown program and always had me wondering if it was really what I was searching for.

This also meant for updating, I felt like I had updates almost daily, if not multiple times a day it would show that I had updates.

I guess those are really my biggest pain points. I have tried looking at videos to learn, but it feels like I still need a background in coding or something to understand these things.

It could be as simple as the person saying so go in to the terminal and type in sudo apt upgrade and then they would just say what sudo was, but it made no sense to me. I would even consider myself a very tech savvy person as well. Which is probably why I always run away from linux, because if I feel like it's to advanced I just consider it not worth going further.

Maybe you guys can shine some light on this and really point me in a better direction. Possibly maybe even someone that was in my position and finally had that "aha" moment.

got a newer pc and on my current is mint and neon kde

1-any thing specific I need to do to transfer the whole drive to the new pc? will it work plug and play? do I need to upodate anything?

2-I do not like mint at all. too many issues. id like to try something else on that partition. I know how to cope with windows and install process on partitions but not with linux

some insight on how to remove mint and slap a different distro on that partition?

Hey everyone!

I have a 2017 MacBook with the following specifications:

Processor: 1.8 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

RAM: 8 GB DDR3 (1600 MHz)

Storage: 121 GB total, with around 100 GB available

I wanna become a soc analyst and hence I want to start learning skills on linux. I'm confused which linux should i use that'll be best for my MacBook. I asked chat gpt and it said I won't be able to run heavy labs on it so I want your help knowing whether it's right and if it's right then what should I do??

I recently got a new computer and added Kubuntu on it and I want to play Dolphin games on but I don’t know how. Can I have a very detailed explanation on how to add Dolphin games to Kubuntu? Also I don’t want to hear “just google it” because me and google are too dense to figure that out.

Hi!

I use the bash shell. I can do

$ head `which apt`
#!/usr/bin/python3

import sys
import os
import subprocess
import shlex
import shutil

def usage():
    print("""
$ head $(which apt)
#!/usr/bin/python3

import sys
import os
import subprocess
import shlex
import shutil

def usage():
    print("""

But not

$ which apt | head
/usr/local/bin/apt
$ which apt 2>&1 | head
/usr/local/bin/apt

Well, I can do it, but it won't let me see the head of my Linux Mint's Python wrapper for apt.

Apparently - according to my internet research - that's because with pipe, the path becomes stdin and not an argument for head. I need which apt | xargs head for it to work.

Could you please elaborate on the difference between these two? I have a hard time understanding it.

I also read through this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/comments/9hz1pz/piping_vs_command_substitutionwhats_the_difference/
I realize, after reading it, that if I have some commands that should be called one after another, I still don't know if I need pipes or command substitution and that I would just have to try. I'd like to do better. When do I need stdin, when an "argument"?

Thank you so much in advance!

I'm using Bazzite, and I literally just switched, so my knowledge on Linux is extremely bare bones. I'd like to set up a group of windows on a screen and 'save' their layout so that I can open them all at once at any time. Specifically, I'm trying to have OBS and a few webpages open, since from what I can tell, flatpak OBS can't add custom docks. Is there a way to do this? Or is it a manual process every time?

I'm not quite sure of how to word the question, but I'm wondering how well things can be sandboxed with Steam's Proton. I ask this in the context of the possibility some games or mods might be malware and it's assuming that the game is running as a windows game without native Linux options. I know roughly that everything in your home folder could be accessed by the game. How well can it be mitigated? Is it possible, assuming no linux malware hidden inside, to make windows based malware unable to effect or see anything beyond its own steamapp folder?

Running Debian 13 with gnome on an older system (gt 1030, i5-9400k, 16gb ram), and considering switching my DE to hyprland. Would this be a good idea / would it be as smooth an experience as gnome is for me?

I have an Acer Aspire 5610 (a laptop from around 2006, these are the specs https://www.miniputer.com/Acer/Aspire_5610.html ) with an original Windows Vista installed. However, my idea is to install Linux and then install a VM inside for Windows 98. I have checked several lightweight distros and I think the following are compatible with my laptop: Puppy Linux, Tiny Core, Linux Lite, AntiX Linux (and I'm not sure about others).

Which one would properly run a VM? (on top of my laptop being able to install said distro, ofc!)

Thanks!

So, either in a few months or more (depending on a repair thing for my current PC) I'm gonna build a new one, now granted if everything works out I'll stay on windows, but for my next PC that I'm gonna build as my first PC build, I wanna make the move to linux, granted I will have windows on a second SSD for games with kernel level anti cheats. Anywho, I wanna use Nvidia since I've had nothing but trouble with my AMD GPU and since I wanna use windows on another drive, I don't wanna use it for my next PC, so I wanna know if a 5070ti will work well on bazzite since I've heard that linux and nvidia doesn't mix that well. You can also recomend another distro, I want a gaming specific distro, well not specific but a focused one and I've heard CachyOS is good on Nvidia but I'm scared of Arch. I also don't care about it being super identical to windows, if it works well with wireless PCVR over steamlink (since virtual desktop doesn't support linux I've heard) then that's a total plus, downloading stuff should be easy, since I don't know how to install stuff with the terminal or whatever. I don't wanna use linux mint as my daily driver for a gaming PC, if it was a non gaming PC then yeah I would use mint, like if it was a work PC I'd pick it. What do you guys recomend?

Next month I am going on vacations and I would like to read a book on how to use Linux and terminal commands. Any recommendations?

around 300 pages preferably, written concisely.

Thank you for your reccommendations

or other projects for qubes os using less ram like mirage firewall

16gb drr5 ram, intel processer, 2025

ram is expensive 🥀

i tried litequbes but got a lot of errors and someone mentioned its for older systems

I have a spare laptop that my boss gave me to fiddle around with and test out Linux with our ISP servers and switches for security purposes. I have absolutely no idea where to even start. So if there are video guides to go along with the install process that would be great.

So I've been using Fedora 43 (server edition) since late last year where I choose to install the packages I want. Since then, I've been using GNOME for a while because it is default desktop environment and have very good integration with Fedora. But I've started to get really bored with GNOME because of some quirks and issue, so I want to try tiling window manager like for real. What are some programs that highly recommended to start using and configure Hyprland, together with other programs that I like such as waldl and ani-cli. I do a lot of gaming so Steam and OBS is a must. I use 120Hz monitor and plan to add second monitor with 144Hz, Ryzen 5 7500X3D pair with RX 9060XT 16GB. The most confusing part for me are how to configure the layout and setup, like window sizing, bar, search program, keyboard shortcut and customization. Like it looks and feel really cool, so any suggestion or recommendation are welcome.

I am not a newbie. I actually grew up around computers. I work in an unrelated field (bus company) and computers are a tool, not the product.

We got a new management guy, he was a former driver and never used a computer before. I started trying to help him and stuff. We use windows at work. It is a journey but a steady going one. Until he asks me for a personal computer. After pondering, i see for his use, one of my old computers i had laying around could be a nice gift. Done deal. What should I put on it? Well, debian seems a good choice.

And what do I hear the next day (after showing him around at the office) when he tries to use the computer at home? "The computer works, everything is fine, I am able to use it" oh i am so overjoyed I got one more soul the gift of freedom powered computing!!!

would like to make the c drive partition smaller so i have more space on the d drive

anything need to know about and be aware of? thanks

Do you guys know what a friggin gem this is? This type of thing changes everything!!! These apps are complete FOSS and are nearly identical to their paid counterpart.

https://getartcraft.com/apps