So I recently decided to make the switch from Windows to Linux. I haven't used my personal PC in close to a year, but I had some need to use it again... But not if I had to use Windows 11... I know I know there's like cheats and stuff to still use Windows 10 and whatever. But honestly Microsoft was already pushing the envelope for me. So... After some research, I decided to give a crack at Linux Mint. Let me just say... The Windows to Mint transition has been so freaking easy. I'd recommend it to my grandma. In fact I'd recommend it to my grandma over Windows.
Well the story gets interesting. I decided that I want to learn more about ricing. How did people make their computers look like this?! There's an entire community around this?? Little did I know that those questions swirling my head opened the can of worms that cannot be closed back. I partitioned out my boot drive and am dual booting Linux Mint and Arch Linux now (I use Arch btw).
I just went through hell and back for about 3 hours trying to install Hyprland. I finally got it launched with kitty opening on login. But... That's it. This leads me to several questions that I'd like input from the community on:
- Where do I go from here? I have Hyprland, now how do I make it "my own?"
- What are some good resources for noobs trying to learn how to use a terminal? I have a small grasp on everything but I still don't know what all the flags and commands and everything do... I don't even know if they're called flags..? Or commands..?
- How would you explain what each "component" is in a Linux system? I'm still trying to wrap my head around what x11 and Wayland are... What a desktop environment is over a tiling window manager... If you can use those together or they're separate all together... It's hard!
I just request that any discussion isn't the typical "Don't use [xyz] it sucks" or "Just use [xyz]" because any advice I've directly looked for so far has just been that. And it's not helpful... Most YouTube videos are just as bad too because there's always a level of understanding that the viewer needs to have to understand that video! ChatGPT has helped me a good bit of the way so far, but damn it takes you around the world to get to a solution all while saying "This is totally normal, no need to panic" and "Here's why that happened" while continuing to send me spiraling.
Sorry for the rant. Just trying to get some decent direct feedback since I can't find too much noob friendly content! I know it's out there, I am just having a hard time finding what's right for me!
With Linux you want to become comfortable with gradually understanding more and more about your system. You have unlimited power, but that requires unlimited knowledge.
So, take one step at a time. Take a crack at understanding one thing that you were wondering about at any time. Take notes, because you will forget the exact commands/invocations when you get back to it half a year or more later again.
A good starting point is understanding your file system layout. What were all these root folders (
/home,/var,/etcand friends) meant for? What can I find in there?A good next logical step would be to understand how your services/daemons are started, configured, and monitored (likely
systemdbut there are others too).There are many good youtubers with various series about settling into Linux that go over the above and much, much more. So remember to focus on one thing only or you'll end up watching content for hours without being able to recall anything.
I personally like much of distrotube's stuff, bread on penguins also has awesome content, a lot of which points to further resources. Luke Smith has more advanced, self-rolled, and philosophical stuff. Mental Outlaw's linux vids also tend to be pretty good at pointing you towards more resources.
Furthermore, I would recommend getting comfortable with understanding how to search for solutions yourself. I think bread had an excellent video along those lines, but I am unable to find the exact video right now.
Prepare to get comfy with
manand taking your time to read carefully.tldris a nice shortcut for those cases where you just want to see some flags to jog your memory.Also, the Arch wiki is an excellent resource. Even when not using Arch btw.
Take notes. Lots of them. And know where to find and search through them.
This was great! Covered all my main points, or at least helped me figure out where I need to go from here! Thanks so much for taking the time!
LLMs are pretty good about understanding the semantics of Linux utilities. If you get stuck with how to accmplish a task in particular, asking chatgpt isn't a bad place to start - I think of it as an improved rubber duck. (It's probably relying on training from the useful stack overflow articles so we should continue using that resource as well.)
Have some patience and it will be a rewarding experience. Starting with Arch is certainly a choice!
You're very welcome. Congrats on switching over!
It's a long journey and I'm not sure it ever ends... but for me it's been totally worth it.
Excellent tips right here
Top line theme for you: baby steps...
Get used to mint as your daily driver, and what terminal/commands you need. Mint is an Ubuntu base, so will have a more robust guides/troubleshooting ecosystem and less confused LLM's when you need something.
Likewise you probably would be best served settling into KDE for awhile, since you're coming from Windows and not hacking the planet. Hyperland is really for power users and just going to overload you.
DHH got a lot of people on the Hyperland bandwagon only recently with Omarchy, and DHH is elite, so his setup is not going to be a noob-friendly setup.
It's not bad, but also not mainstream, so docs/llm help isn't going to go as far as something more established.
Beware the hipsters recommending it, often their self-esteem is derived purely from being for the "current thing"
Lots of "cheat sheets" out there, look at a bunch until a format hits home.
If you regularly need to CLI you can look into adding "aliases" to your
bashrc, which are basically terminal shortcuts.Don't get overloaded by learning
tmuxyet. Keep it simple.Wayland is newer than than x11, they power the GUI for your desktop.
Newer is important context here:
Have to go down that road in this case, it's required knowledge because you will encounter an issue and need to know the difference and why you may need to switch.
X11 is the OG, everything was originally developed for X11. That means many things are still broken under Wayland.
Wayland being the Shitcoin/Trans/Rust "successor" to x11 means that's what the NGO's and Megacorps are pushing, so its become the default across the the major distros and issues are becoming more rare. It works fine 90% of the time, but for that 10% you'll need this context.
You can switch your desktop instance from Wayland to X11 if you find there's several things you need to get working. You can also tell a specific app launcher to use x11, even while the rest of your desktop is otherwise defaulted to Wayland.
X11 is also important once you start running apps on remote systems over SSH. For example, running a browser or text editor on a headless VPS on your local desktop GUI.
You deep into your Linux journey. But I agree it’s gotten much better over the years making the switch from windows is easy.
Sorry I can’t help with your question
It's such a crazy operating system because you can have the most beautiful out-of-the-box desktop computer with Linux Mint, but then have to build your computer from the ground up with Arch Linux.
(Full disclosure, those are the only two distros I've deep dived)
It is not one operating system. Linux stands for just the kernel. Everything else on top of it are different flavours, and can be widely different.
If you are a noob, you can try sticking to debian/ubuntu umbrella (e.g. Mint) and go deep into learning bash. I tried arch for sometime but realised I don't have the patience to fight the system. As a developer, I have to write real codes that work and hence I am into Ubuntu based distros.
Don't get into the distro hopping or endless gui customisation, those are not productive. Learn GNU LibC, C. C++, Rust and that will make you feel like God with your Linux box.
And yes. If you are also into Bitcoin (since you are in SN), why not try to run your own knots node from the command line, connect sparrow wallet to your knots and use that to broadcast your transaction?
The original way to use Bitcoin.
I been using Pop_OS which I like a lot. If I had time I would dive into other distros because somethings just don’t work that well on Pop_OS.
I have heard a lot of good words about pop, but have not used it personally. But yeah, I would totally accept it if I was buying a system 76 box.
Mint, feren os, kde neon all pretty slick and nice too. None hurts. And it does not even matter much. Focus below the gui/visual layer to understand the system, and the terminal is the way to talk to the system.
If you know the terminal, you can also use headless instances via ssh from a cloud service provider.
Yeah that’s what I got. A really nice system 76.
For a while I was watching a lot of YouTube videos getting very comfortable with terminal but this past year I stopped and lost all my skills
Learn linux tv was my favourite YouTube channel, although now a days i mostly read documentations.
You need some degree of hunger, patience and self discipline to go through. Also, having basic knowledge of computer systems (like a computer architecture 101 course), knowing what memory, processor, drives do and ability to read/write some code help.
If using python, use virtual environments to avoid messing up the base Python needed for your distribution to function. Found this out the hard way with some versions of Ubuntu
Don't hold back to ask AI stuff
A lot of newbie questions can be answered by some kind of sudo apt install or pacman -S
When it comes to making Hyprland your own begin with the basics. Change one thing at a time and learn what effect that change has. Configure your keybindings. Adjust your bar or panels. Explore themes and color schemes. This gradual layering of customization will help you both personalize your environment and understand exactly what you have done. Trying to overhaul everything in one go usually brings confusion and limits your ability to troubleshoot.
As for learning the terminal and its language you are correct in identifying flags and commands as areas worth understanding. Commands are simply the programs or tools you run. Flags or options are the modifiers you give those commands to control their behavior. For example
lssimply lists files whilels -lchanges the output format. Reading the manual pages for a command will explain every available option and often include examples. This practice of experimenting with different flags while referencing the documentation builds familiarity fast.The architectural components of a Linux system will become clearer once you approach them as layers. At the bottom you have the kernel managing hardware. Above that you have services and system processes often controlled by systemd. On top of that comes your display server which can be X11 or Wayland. This layer handles graphics display and input. A desktop environment is a complete suite of programs and interface elements built on top of the display layer while a window manager only controls window placement and interaction. In practice you can use a window manager on its own or inside a desktop environment but most tiling managers like Hyprland are designed to run independently to give maximum control.
Hyperland sounds cool. I find this process of transitioning between operating systems to be one of discovery and renewal. I'd say focus on what you want to do big picture and you'll gradually pick up the knowledge of utilities, switches, scripts and system administration. Google searches were pivotal in making it possible to use as a daily driver and now with llms it feels like anything is possible!