Hello, I have a windows system and ive been advices to install Linux which seems challenging given that I’m just a beginner web developer… so questions- is gitbash for Windows te same as bash on Linux? Do they have the same commands? Will I be able to work on a Linux she’ll if I learn gitbash?
Yeah Gitbash is the same as bash on linux and gitbash is the windows version.
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I don’t know if it has all the functionality of bash but your experience will be similar to using bash on Linux and you’ll be able to transfer those skills if you work on Linux later.
If you want a halfway house between using gitbash and dual-booting Linux on your windows machine, Brad Traversy has a tutorial on using the Linux subsystem for Windows. You just have to remember not to use Windows to edit your Linux files since this could cause data corruption in them.
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Hmm, sounds like you ran into a Real Programmer™. (Heavy sarcasm.)
Personally, I love Linux. I think it’s beautiful and it’s a joy to program on. But if you’re a beginner web dev, learning Linux should be pretty low on your agenda unless you’re personally interested in the OS.
It’s okay to code on Windows at first. You won’t actually get a ton of benefit from writing HTML on Linux over Windows, because all your stuff is processed by the browser anyway! Linux shines when you need to install and keep track of lots of packages when you’re coding in a language like Python or C or Clojure.
There are going to be LOTS of people telling you that Real Programmers™ use vim or emacs, that you aren’t legitimate if you don’t know x, y, and z, or that you need to use their favorite shiny new toy. Once you get into Linux, there’ll be people telling you that you should use Arch or Gentoo instead of Ubuntu or Mint. This is something you’ll learn to ignore. I mean, definitely check out new technologies and see if they’re worth your time investment. But whenever someone tells you you “should” or you “have to” use foo, take it with a grain of salt. I just wrote a blog post about this earlier today.
If you’re interested in Linux anyway (and I highly encourage you to check it out), I suggest running Mint on a virtual machine. That means you open up a program, and you get a kinda… mini-computer using whatever operating system you want, in its own window. The virtual machine just lives in a file on your computer and you open it up with VirtualBox (free) or some other VM software. I have a tutorial on how to do this.
If that looks intimidatingly complex (it can be the first time), you can just burn a Linux .iso to a normal CD or DVD and boot to it. It gives you a sandbox where nothing’s permanent (if you write code while using one, make sure to save it to a USB drive or GitHub or Dropbox or something, because your files will get erased if you shut down the computer), you can just try Linux out from the CD. I have a tutorial on how to do this too!
Using VMs or live CDs is really safe. When you edit partitions in order to set up dual-boot systems, it’s possible to get it wrong and erase your drive if you don’t know what you’re doing. But VMs and live CDs won’t hurt your computer, and they can be a looooot easier to set up, because Windows and OS X do things that try to keep you from installing Linux alongside them. You can get around it, but sometimes it’s pretty frustrating.
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