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Hello, I’m going to be getting a new computer soon and have thought about linux. Questions inside

lemmy.world/post/3716204

As others have said, Linux Mint is probably the best distro for absolute beginners. You’ll have several desktop environments to choose from (the software suite that gives you things like window frames, the taskbar, the application launcher…). I like KDE Plasma and Cinnamon - Plasma is a lot more customizable, but Cinnamon is more robust and (IMO) better suited for beginners.

You’ll have to unlearn a lot of Windows habits.

  • :q! is very important, remember it.
  • You won’t download application installers from the internet, you’ll have to either use the system’s own package manager in the terminal (APT for Mint), a GUI front-end, or Flatpak.
  • You won’t be able to choose where software are installed.
  • There are no lettered drives. There is a single root filesystem (equivalent to C:\ on Windows), and every other partition has to be mounted somewhere within that filesystem. Most graphical file manager applications take care of that automatically.
  • Updates are very important. Fortunately they are much less of a pain in the ass. Graphical package manager apps usually offer automatic reminders, or you can use the terminal to update manually.
  • The terminal is much more important compared to Windows, and you should learn basic things like navigating the filesystem, handling files and directories, how to use sudo (eq. run as admin), how to manage running processes (top, kill/pkill/killall), and how to use the package manager.
  • Use manuals and the man command. The Arch Wiki is an invaluable tool for every distribution.
Flathub - Apps for LinuxUbuntu Flathub Setup | FlathubSet up Flathub to install and update apps on your system.

I swear to God this is my biggest gripe with Linux, not being able to choose where stuff gets installed. Like yeah cool I want to have the OS on a SSD but that doesn’t mean I also want my packages to go to it too, the HDD is for that

@Ozzy @rtxn I just thought of this, could one, create symbolic links that point to /lib (for ex.) to "repoint" the directory a package gets installed to?

Not sure if this would work, but was curious if someone's attempted it before.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing too, technically if we would recreate the file structure on the second drive, move everything there and set up soft links to those folders instead it might work? I need to try it out in a vm

VoltaicGRiD

@Ozzy Exactly what I was thinking. Kind of a PiTA if everyone needed to do that, but maybe an excuse to throw up an open-source script on github for it.