I’ve been reading about Linux for a few days now and I’m considering it to use it in the future (probably one on my future laptop or something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).
I’ve read some few resources already but still confused where to start so might as well use some help.
Ahh… good idea. 
Thank you for the help.
For the first question: I’ve known only a handful of them because of a particular course on Udemy (this one) and yes, Ubuntu is exactly the one I want to try.
On the second question: well… kind of 
I mean most of the online course I’ve taken before encourages to use a terminal instead of an GUI explorer, so I guess there’s that. Overall, I’m just on the way to be comfortable using it, on getting files — yes, on the other stuff — uhh… not yet.
On the third question: kind of both but mostly on the first one. I’ll just test the waters (if I said it right) for now.
Neat! 
I very much appreciated the help!
And another thanks for the links! Already read some parts of it and getting started for tomorrow (since my Internet is very much slow in here). I’ll be sure to fully read it (and ask for help, of course).
A few other options to consider (VM is a good idea, mind):
if you’re on Windows 10 at the minute, then you can install Ubuntu (or a handful of other distros) via the app store. This gives you an Ubuntu subsystem within Windows, and all terminal-based stuff will work great - it’s specifically for terminal based things, it’s not a graphical environment. But you get Linux on Windows.
if you burn a live image to a USB (which is normally what you’d do anyway if you install Linux), you can restart your computer and boot directly into it without installing. That’ll let you play around with Ubuntu straightaway.
I’ve always found Linux to be one of those things that you learn by necessity. Set yourself up with a Linux environment (Desktop, server, dual boot, USB boot, VM, whatever) and try to do something in it. If you’re using a desktop linux distro (like Ubuntu), still try to do things from the command line as much as possible. (For example, do some Googling to find out how to launch your browser via the command line instead of clicking the icon). Try to do something in that environment. You’ll probably have to go researching how to do it. Put the time in to understand what you’re doing instead of just copy-pasting into the terminal until something good happens.
IMO making a USB boot stick and running Linux as a “LiveUSB” is a very gentle way to get started. You won’t have to mess around with installation and you won’t have the performance hit of running in a VM.
Linux mastery for me is bash, familiarize your self with it and everything else will fall into place.
Bash is (or was, until systemd came along) the glue that made any distro tick, stdin, stdout, stderr are the file descriptors that bash has under its fingertips to boot systems, start services, log them etc…
Neat! Thanks for the link!
I am starting to be comfortable with Linux (and a bit of shell scripting with Bash) through Fedora (tried Ubuntu but it crashes a lot in my case probably due to hardware or something else). Also, I’ve been trying to understand Linux further by taking Introduction to Linux course in edX even if it’s bit by bit.
i have been checking bash / linux / devops tuts for a while now.
im now reading / doing the tut you gave, and its really the best. it just answered all my questions i had all this time right from the start.
punks, no need to look any futher!
Go to Cisco’s Netacad.com and you can sign up for free self-paced (online) classes, of which there is a Linux unhatched course which is good for seeing if it’s really for you. If you like it, then go for the Linux Essentials and then the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 courses. They are progressively in-depth and you really learn alot.
It’s not hard to learn and you can’t let your head get caught up in “I can’t remember what this letter option is.” They have chapter labs that you can take over and over. You’ll get it. You just have to keep doing it. Enjoy!
Just to encourage you I learned Linux in less than a week. I am still an intermediate user but one thing I learned the more you use it the easier it feels
never. EVER. use SUDO unless the system asks you.
Ubuntu or Mint are both a good place to start, or you could go with Debian. There’s good support with those 3 because, of the amount of folks that run them. Stay away from Gentoo, Void, and Arch until you have a few miles on that new ride. If you do take the dive into the deep end of the pool, use the terminal. Each time you reach for your mouse ask yourself, “How can I achieve the same result from the command line.” Get some tmux in your life and you’ll start seeing dust on that mouse before long. It’s like anything else, the more time you spend with it, the more comfortable you’ll feel. I got the Linux Essentials from Linux Academy. It was a good class. It’s a pretty useless cert but, you can learn a good deal quick. tldr: Tux good. Windows bad.
@MichaelTd thanks for that bash link.
edit: @Foo_Dog I just realized that you started this thread over a year ago. What happened with this? How’d it go?
I’ve recently started out with Linux (though on and off for months). This time, I’ve gone with Fedora since it’s the most compatible distro I’ve experience so far. No hardware issues whatsoever. Also the software support is pretty good so far, I was able to get all of my needed dev software to use here.
Nice! If you like the minimalism desktops dwm is pretty cool. It can only ever have 2000 lines of code. It’s fast!
Nice! I’ve never considered a window manager since my usage of programs is already minimalistic (only using a few programs at a time) but I’ll take a look at it!
Linux is my daily driver so, it’s nice having one. 
I started out with Debian as my first linux distro and I really recommend it you want to get the most out of your Linux learning experience. It’s not really much more difficult than Ubuntu IMO, and many distros are based off of Debian (including Ubuntu itself). It has the best stability, the most support, the most packages. A lot of versatility too, you can use it on a desktop setup or a server.
If you are setting up a desktop I personally recommend choosing Xfce as your desktop environment during setup as it’s simple and lightweight but also easy to customize. GNOME would be my second choice.
If you aren’t ready to commit to a hard install go ahead and set up a VM. It definitely couldn’t hurt to play around in one a bit and get a feel for setting everything up.
As long as you follow the guidelines on this page while you’re getting up and running you’ll be fine!
https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian