Yes, though this is true of a lot of the easier distros.
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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I'd argue for a basic use case most distro's would work well, right? All come with a browser, a PDF reader, and some word doc/spreadsheet program. I truly hate using windows at school, so I just plug in a USB, restart, and boot from the USB. Otherwise Firefox always needs updating, which results in freezing 1/10 times, and I need to make an adobe account to simply read a PDF.
All come with a browser, a PDF reader, and some word doc/spreadsheet program.
Strictly speaking, "All" is a bit of a stretch - Arch doesn't come with any of those by default, neither does Gentoo, or for that matter, nor do any of the minimal/netinstall/server variants of other distros.
Touché, you're right for sure. I should have stayed with saying most and not said all. But that's where my head was at least.
Definitely yes! Pop OS is one of the best distros for starters, along with Linux Mint. Basic tasks like web browsing, playing games, and writing docs all work well on Pop OS. If you have familiarity with macOS, you'll notice that Pop OS is very similar when it comes to layout and certain multi-touch gestures.
I've been experimening with a few beginner friendly linux distros such asUbuntu, Pop os linux mint etc in a a virtual machine. Since i don't know much about linux as i have never used it, it's quite difficult for me to get things working for now. I've been using Windows for years as it's the"default" operating system everywhere and lately I've been reading stuff about privacy and open source so i don't want to use windows for that reason and more. Where do i learn more about linux system so i can get more familiar with it? I don't want to break things up because of my curious nature so it would be nice if there was a detailedtutoriall covering basic or possibly advanced stuff.
it's quite difficult for me to get things working for now. [...]
Where do i learn more about linux system so i can get more familiar with it?
You said it was difficult "to get things working" - identify what exactly is it that you're finding difficult, then type that into Google/DuckDuckGo and check the results. If there's anything in that results you don't understand, Google/DDG it further. Keep doing that until you understand everything that you want to about that topic. Then proceed to the next topic.
There are also IRC, Discord and Matrix chat rooms for most Linux distros out there, so if you're unable to find an answer, feel free to hop into one of those channels and ask a question.
ChatGPT is also a decent resource for general understanding - but don't type any commands it suggests (unless you know what you're doing!).
it's quite difficult for me to get things working for now.
What sort of things are you having problems with?
Where do i learn more about linux system so i can get more familiar with it?
Most of us learned by being curious and poking around, reading on Google or asking our friends who use Linux. If you don't have friends who use Linux the community is also great, asking in forums such as this one will likely get you answers and explanations for things. Pop is based on Debian, Ubuntu is also based on Debian, so most things that apply to one apply to the other, in fact the vast majority of things that apply to one Linux apply to most of not all, which is why a lot of people look to the Arch Linux wiki for answers even if they don't use Arch themselves.
I don't want to break things up because of my curious nature
You will break things, consider this a fact because it will happen, Linux gives you too much access, so if you don't know what you're doing you might shoot yourself in the foot, but that's fine because you would have learnt something important in the process.
So if you're going to break things, how can we make it easier for you to recover? On Linux different drives or partitions don't show up as different letters on the "my computer" like they do on Windows, instead they need to be mounted onto a folder. This means that you can have folder A and folder B side by side but both being in different drives inside a folder C that is in yet another drive. That sounds confusing, but we can use this to our advantage, the root of the Linux filesystem is / everything is inside that folder, so for example the full path to your user directly is /home/ whereas the full path to the Firefox binary (which you can check by running which firefox on a terminal) is something like /bin/firefox. When you're installing a system you can partition the disk (or if you have multiple disks) and select each one of them to mount in a different place on boot, to do that on most installers you need to select manual partitioning or something like that, then you select one partition of at least 100GB (you can do a lot less for testing on your VM, this is my recommendation for your actual system) to be mounted on /, then you select a partition of at least the same amount as your RAM to be swap (swap is essentially a RAM in disk, this is used when you run out of RAM, or when you want to hybernate), and finally the remaining space you put to mount on /home. Remember how I said your user home directory was inside /home? So that means that now your user home directory is in a separate partition from the system, but why would you want that? Simple, because now if you break your system, or want to reinstall it for whatever reason, you'll only format the partition you used for /, leaving the one on /home untouched, which means that all of your personal files, configurations, etc get preserved. You'll only lose the system, programs installed, and other such things which are easily recoverable. If you do this, the worst case scenario for your curiosity is around half an hour of reinstalling the system before you're back to where you started without losing anything important.
Hmmm...given the beginner friendly nature of distros like Linux Mint and Pop OS, I doubt you will find much tutorials centered around those distros (though you will definitely find a lot of commentators and reviewers talking about these distros and how "great" they are). However, if you want to learn about Linux as a whole, then there are definitely some great resources you can use to help you with that.
What is your preferred learning method? Do you like learning through reading, or do you prefer an online video tutorial where someone is simultaneously talking and demonstrating?
I tried watching courses for beginners on YouTube but most of them justshow how to install the OS andthe general overview of how to do basic things. While usingPopOss And Linux mint i tried unintalling softwares without internet and all it takes me to error page on their app store. I don't want to learn basic stuff by doing trial and error if i can learn it as a whole using a tutorial.
Well, if YouTube videos haven't been much help to you, then perhaps these books will give you what you want:
Thanks for the resources. I'll check them out.
I would get comfortable with the idea of breaking things. Make regular backups of your data. The best that I'm aware of for making it easy to work backwards from breaking things is NixOS, but I wouldn't consider it beginner friendly.
You learn a lot from trying to bring a system back online. But it depends if you're trying Linux to learn it more or just to take advance of privacy.
I don't want to break my system drastically if i were to learn along the way using it without any knowledge. I want a stable os while also doing stuff I'd normally do on Windows.
It shouldn't break if you just install packages from the main app installer. It's more of a concern if you're trying to install anything from source.
Also make sure to try a live cd or live USB to make sure the OS is compatible with your hardware. VM is not sufficient for this last one. This is usually only an issue if you have very new hardware.
Absolutely, Pop!_OS is literally made to just work™. I would recommend it in a heartbeat to anyone looking to get into Linux. The out-of-the-box experience is probably second-to-none.
Pop!_OS is definitely worth considering as it's one of the few distros that goes as far as providing a recovery partition and offers one of the best experiences for those with Nvidia GPUs. Furthermore, Pop!_OS' maintainers (read: System76) are actually financially incentivized to make their distro very polished and newbie-friendly as their distro is used on the hardware they sell.
On the flip side, Pop!_OS is currently in a major overhaul to replace GNOME with COSMIC; their own homebuilt Desktop Environment. As the Desktop Environment is arguably the most important contributor to how one experiences their Linux system, the eventual change might disrupt your workflow and you might even be too accustomed to GNOME to consider COSMIC at that point. The ongoing work on COSMIC has even meant that Pop!_OS has missed three major releases and are still clinging on their release from April 2022; thankfully it's based on Ubuntu's LTS (read: Long Term Support) release, so they aren't particularly in rush to get a new release out and can rely on Ubuntu for security updates.
Regardless, COSMIC's unsure future does leave a lot to be desired and does pose the question if perhaps other options should be considered more seriously instead.
Therefore, my personal recommendation would be either one of the following:
- If you just really like what you see from Pop!_OS, then just install its 22.04 release and you should be good until April 2027. As time goes on, you might be deprived from new developments and features; but at least updates etc will not be able to (potentially) corrupt/break your system in the meantime.
- Wait until April next year; when they're supposed to release a new version. If you like what you see and the update and the changes are well-received by the community, then consider installing that one instead. It should be supported for 5 years, which is plenty to not worry about your system in the mean time.
- Go look elsewhere. There are hundreds of actively maintained distros out there. While not all of them are worth considering, there are at least a dozen of them that are worthy contenders. In case you're interested to get the community's help in finding a distro, consider answering the following questions:
- Do you use an Nvidia GPU?
- How would you rate your tech savviness on other operating systems?
- How eager are you to learn and/or invest time to use your Linux system?
- Do you prefer to have up-to-date software at all times even if that means daily/weekly updates that might potentially break some functionality?
- Security or convenience?
- Opinionated or blank slate?
A shortlist of distros worth considering for a beginner (from easiest to hardest): Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian/Fedora/openSUSE and Arch.
just install its 22.04 release and you should be good until April 2027
I think this is a really great point. A lot of the Linux community really like distrohopping and running bleeding edge systems, but if you want to just use your machine to get stuff done you can't go wrong with the LTS versions of stable distros.
Pop 22.04 has been rock solid for me and I won't be switching to cosmic until the issues are ironed out, my work laptop will be staying on Ubuntu 22.04 (with pop-shell) until the next LTS has been out for a while.
Not having to worry about whether a rolling upgrade will bork your system is really nice. I think we should be suggesting LTS to all newbies as standard as it's a much smoother experience.
To OP: Pop is a great distro and the tiling window manager it comes with is absolutely fantastic. If you want a beginner friendly system which gets out of your way and let's you actually use your computer it's a fantastic choice. Getting used to the way gnome/pop-shell works and the workflows takes a little getting used to at first, but once it clicks it's really hard to think of using anything else.
Top tip: if you hit an issue with pop and googling for pop solutions isn't working, 99% of the time just search for Ubuntu and you'll find plenty of info about it.
Yes. I switched to PopOS a few months ago from Arch seeking a "just works" OS for gaming. It's been great for me.
PopOS is definitely a great first choice distribution. I would recommend Linux Mint over it for people coming from windows who wants something rock solid with a great community
After trying Linux repeatedly for some 20 years and always returning to Windows for various reasons, Pop! OS finally seems like a Linux distribution I can use as a daily driver. The amount of useful and concise documentation is great, my hardware is all supported and automatically configured, i.e. I don't have to mess around with obscure config files to get either audio or wifi working, it works on first boot.
I’m glad to hear it. Linux in general has gotten way better in that regard. I haven’t had to fix any driver issues in years just install and it works.
Pop is the distro that finally made me a Linux full-timer after 15 years. I don't use it anymore but I'll always be grateful to the devs at system76.
That's been my experience with it. Browse the web, do gaming via Steam and Lutris. Been pretty solid out of the box for me.
PopOS is generally fine, though I'd lean more towards Mint in terms of usability and low hassle
I was a Pop user since it first shipped until this year when I switched to Fedora. I still use the Pop Shell extension for GNOME as, IMO, it's the best tiling extension. Full stop. It's easy to install and use and is well organized. If you have Nvidia, choose the ISO with the drivers pre-installed. My switch to Fedora was predicated on the fact that I generally use enterprise laptops and 2in1 devices, which is one of Pop's blind spots when it comes to reliability. Fedora is just dead stable on whatever I put it on, whether its a Latitude 7200 2in1 i7 8th gen or a ThinkPad T400s Core 2 Duo.
I guess Fedora's an option, too 🤣
I like pop_os a lot, it's a high quality distro they've assembled. Even on fedora I'll use the pop shell extension, good QOL upgrade for gnome. So, yes. Great for browsing.
Yes. I just switched full time to Pop and I love it.
TL;DR yes, popOS is perfect for that
My personal getting started advice is as follows
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use kali Linux in a virtual machine because haha funny 1337 haxor
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install mint/popOS/ubuntu on either a virtual machin, a spare laptop, or dual boot if you have a spare drive
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I used mint for school and random tinkering and just gradually got more familiar with the random things I wanted to do or fix
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this was last year so I’m no where near qualified to talk like a guru of ancient wisdom, take all of this with a grain of salt or possibly just burn it
Personally I'd wait for their new desktop environment, but otherwise it's a good distro for less experienced users.
I’ve been using Pop!_OS for about a month now and it’s been great! I only had one issue (completely my fault) which caused me to have a black screen upon login after a reboot.
Yup, that and Mint are your best options for distros that just work out of the box.
I agree with the other comment.
I found KDE Neon and Ubuntu pretty easy to use out of box as well.
PopOS has, maybe, a benefit of Nvidia drivers? But Mint installed them for me during the intro Toot Oriole.
edit: Clarified KDE to add Neon
Not to be pedantic but KDE is a desktop environment not a an OS. Perhaps you were thinking of KDE Neon?
Ah, thank you. It was KDE Neon, sorry!
In addition to all the responses here, one thing you could also do when you have a question about a distro is to just fire up a VM using for example VirtualBox and try the distro to see for yourself. Or even better, make a live USB and boot from it.
I found Mint with Cinnamon to be a better out of the box experience, I can't stand Gnome anymore.
XFCE is more user-friendly. LXDE is really fast and responsive on older hardware. KDE is extremely buggy. You might get one stable release then the next update will usually introduce annoying breakages. Gnome is a memory hog and IMHO is only suitable for large touch interfaces. Cosmic desktop is experimental and I won't even bother with it if it is not in Debian stable repos.
Vanity distros with "improved" window managers or desktop environments usually have more bugs than upstream stock Debian. Even Debian, which is an excellent server OS, has annoying bugs in the popular desktop environments. Vanity distros tend to more bugs. They also tend to change default configurations and file locations so users have a tougher time troubleshooting.
You can configure XFCE to look any way you want it to. You can also get a zillion themes at https://www.xfce-look.org.
If you want a fast and stable desktop experience try Debian XFCE and install PekWM and lxappearance for theming. In my opinion PekWM it is the best-designed window manager in existence.
PekWM also eliminates the ugly and non-uniform custom title bars we've been seeing with gnome applications, enforcing a truly uniform look for all windows.
1st choice: Debian XFCE version.
2nd choice: Debian PekWM for resource efficiency and uniform look.
3rd choice: Debian LXDE version for old, slow computers.
4th choice: Debian OpenBox for ultimate resource efficiency.