Linux for Beginners

[@BaddBadger]

Any time i hear someone say that Linux looks complicated i have to tell them that i have been using various versions for many years now, and i have managed that without ever once having to use the command line. Lots of people just want to get some more life out of some old tech, and just use it to watch KZbin and check their social media and e-mail. Or maybe sometimes give it to young kids for for homework. So i love to point people towards the distros that are all about simplicity and ease of use, like Peppermint for instance. Whatever your needs and your level of skill, in among so many distros and forks there is probably something for everyone.

[@TheNewOil]

Right on!

[@macktheripper7454]

Glad you’re allowing comments now 👍 great channel btw

[@Brancliff]

I still don't get it though, why were they not allowed in the first place

[@macktheripper7454]

@@Brancliff no idea 🤷‍♂️ maybe he just had a tough month

[@TheNewOil]

I used to not allow comments in the early days because I felt weird about perpetuating KZbin's community. I don't like KZbin, I'm only here to reach the people that need to hear this stuff. I didn't want to encourage any more presence here than needed. But eventually that seemed like not the best course of action for many reasons.

[@macktheripper7454]

@@TheNewOil I really appreciate the confirmation. I thought it was maybe due to some bad experience and for whatever it’s worth I don’t feel you should do anything you don’t feel comfortable doing. I really enjoy your info and presentation. Thank you 🙏

[@ohillbilly]

Im kinda old and been using Mint ever since windows 7 quit getting updates. Luckily I have a linux friend that turned me onto Mint. There's still lots I don't know about it, So I'm glad to see you doing this series. I found ya by way of techlore. ... I tried Session on my phone but had zero contacts and took it off. Hard to get folks to switch up. I may install Element or some Matrix fork so I can be on the same page as my desk top.

[@TheNewOil]

The network effect is real, for sure.

[@somethingcoolgoeshere]

I recently installed Linux Mint and have been loving the journey. Got steam proton an nvidia stuff setup, learnt some bash and wrote a couple useful scripts

[@agustingomez1575]

Just want to say that I found that last part very wholesome. Keep up the great work!

[@saudfata6236]

I've been using pop os for about half a year now and am absolutely loving it. I recently tried switching to Windows 11 and absolutely despised it. All of the minor windows quirks really irritated me. (like the double OS ram usage) However I am a tinkerer and love getting my hands dirty when things go wrong. So I wouldn't yet recommend it for people who just want their computer to work.

[@Keyshooter]

Great video! for real! I want to provide feedback just to help you in the future to be better. First thing, Fedora is not based on Red Hat Linux, the other way around, Red Hat specialization is servers, and Fedora is a cutting-edge distro (not to be confuse with bleeding-edge, Arch is bleeding-edge), they pack the most stable up-to-date packages, Red Hat Linux is based on Fedora but is usually not cutting-edge, Red Hat does support and contribute to Fedora. About snap, flatpaks and appimages, let's start with flatpaks, this is more of a technical talk, and i am sorry i can't make it simpler. A TLDR trying to get rid of techinicallities: Flatpaks are fast, they share dependencies (making them lighter in the long run), and they are sandboxed, they also need permissions from the user to use the system resources. Appimages are convenient, they are less secure and they may not work on specific distributions. Snaps are slower on start up, they also are contain and share dependencies, but may not work on certain distributions. There is a misconception that flatpak apps are bigger, this is false, flatpaks share dependencies between applications, this make apps lighter in the long run. For example, say you have a calculator app and a word processor app, they both use the same graphics library to cut work, let's called libGraphics, when you install the calculator app as a flatpak, it will check if libGraphics is install, if not will install it (this is where the heavy misconception usually comes in), then, after the calculator is install, you install the word processor app, it will notice that libGraphics is already install and will not install it again. In my personal experience, flatpaks hasn't been any slow compare to traditional apps. All apps are contained and sandboxed, is not perfect, but is better than the default (letting apps run wild with root access), and flatpak can be install on any linux distro, regardless of the internal working, with this we are now stepping into the more technical side of things, but you could be running alpine linux or void linux or fedora and the same flatpak that you use to install "calculator" can be use in this 3 distributions. They are now aiming to have granular permission for apps (android style) iirc and a lot of good stuff is coming down the pipeline. In the topic of appimages, is a hit or miss, this is also technicallities territory, they will check an specific library in your system (libc) and will refuse to run if an specific version is not found, appimages will not run if libc is not present, this shouldn't be an issue as right now because usually the distros that don't work with those technical specifications are more "pro user" driven, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't happen in a near future. On top of that, they are build on fuse2, an old and depricated version of this library, the newest ubuntu release iirc can't run appimages because it uses fuse3. Appimages also bundle all the dependencies with them, going back to the flatpak example, this means that for the calculator app and the word processor app, you will have two copies of libGraphics since they come with it. Appimages afaik also have nasty permission management, if not permission management at all (access to everything), this can be harmful. Snaps is kinda of a little mess, is more of a technical mess if anything. They are slower on start up (compare to flatpaks in my personal experience) they are not that good with the containers nor with the dependencies, and the backend (the place you connect to download the apps) is close source, so, if canonical decides to shutdown the snapstore, snap is death, and everyone has to move to another place,. Forking the open source part of snap won't work either because snaps are literally hard coded to listen to the snapstore, so, a lot of work will have to be made to reverse engineering the backend to make it work, going even more technical, they also can only work with systemd (the init system, imagine that is the initiator of the car, it makes your system start), this means that people that uses other init systems (void for example) can't install snaps. Why I share you this? I feel that is of heavy importance to know how package managers (or apps in appimage case) actually work for people to do a better choice. The video is really great and a good way to introduce people to the basic stuff, in my personal life i use fedora silverblue (immutable OS, more reliable and robust, close to the SteamOS so to say) and the vast majority of my apps are run over flatpaks. Keep the great work going Nate!!! :D Edit: PD: I would also recommend the youtube channel "The Linux Experiment" the guy there is also a NOT linux expert, is a common user, and he makes great videos about how to use linux, show case apps and all other good stuff. In the topic of WINE, i would recommend using Bottles, is an app that allows you to use Wine to run Windows programs!! You can make multiple profiles and try multiple versions of wine, even try versions of Proton to run the programs!!! check it out!! Edit 2: A pal of mine corrected me with a couple of issues, like the Red Hat stuff, and breaking down sentences, so i came back to it, to make it more readable, and more friendly

[@TheNewOil]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Not sure if anyone else will understand it, but I got most of it and I will be sure to include this info when I come back to update this topic. That was very helpful. Also The Linux Experiment is currently in my RSS feed. I'm still vetting it, but so far I've seen nothing but great content. They will likely get listed soon as a recommended resource.

[@Keyshooter]

@@TheNewOil Glad to heard!! :D for real i wish i had the brain power to manage a way for a less technical explanation, but this is one of those things that sadly yes or yes has be technical, at least for now

[@lexshizumdot2115]

Great job, simple, clear, and honest (yes, you will run into problems - and it can be confusing to run a command without understanding it at first). Tried using Linux 15 years ago (Ubuntu), had it in dual boot with Windows (XP then 7) for a few years, and I am now using it solo on my desktop and laptop (Mint). I am absolutely not an expert, but it's more than enough for my daily usage. I just love it, and the philosophy behind it all. I wish I could convince friends or family to take that step, but it's not easy. People use devices (laptop/desktop/smartphone) but most of them are afraid of the technical aspect of it once it doesn't seem to work properly. They don't trust themselves to be able to understand it (and also, many others just don't care). Anyway, thanks a lot for your video.

[@FengLengshun]

I got into Linux thanks fo LTT video on Pop_OS, I've tried a bunch of different distro but Pop and Fedora are the two I keep coming back to - Pop now even has automatic updates and OS factory reset (while preserving user data) that would be useful for newbies. I disagree on the universal app, as IMHO Flatpak is the most user friendly with sane defaults, good performance, and has most apps. There's nothing wrong with mix and matching based on your needs though. WPS Office is the best MS Office we have unfortunately, unless you get Office via CrossOver or VM.

[@ayikart]

I recently installed EndeavourOS and I like it.

[@Sycophantichallenger]

FYI, I couldn't find that "how to harden linux" video linked which you said you'd put in the description.

[@TheNewOil]

Source 15.

[@Sycophantichallenger]

@@TheNewOil Tnx. :)

[@canabitter]

Windows guide would be great. Unfortunately Windows is still the most popular OS so if there is any way to improve my privacy I'd like to learn about it.

[@UnixOath]

I use manjaro and it's quite good as daily driver.

[@belos.2020]

well made vid bro

[@shawnbenn]

Great video. so informational and friendly for the beginner user. One question: Is the Windows installation removed if I install Linux on a Windows computer?

[@TheNewOil]

Unless you partition the disk, yes. If the disk has enough space, you can partition off some extra space and use that for Linux. This is easier done if your device has two drives, but it's also not terribly difficult. There's tons of guides out there, I may do one in the future, but for now you can look up "making multiple partitions in windows" or "dualbooting linux and windows" and you should find plenty of resources.

[@shawnbenn]

@@TheNewOil Thanks. I know how to partition the hard drive. But I think that I'll take your advice and install it on a different drive.

[@myfavouritecolorisgreen]

great introductory video! however i feel that giving literally 10s of options to download apps to new users intimidates them. so for first time users sticking to the software store and basic terminal commands that get software from official repositories is better. this way updates usually wont be overlooked and problems will be minimized. the users can later search for a specific piece of software for eg how do i install discord. one of the benefits of Linux is the command line and software store which take care of most of the common software and you don't have to go looking for apps on random websites. otherwise a great video keep it up :)

[@TheNewOil]

That's fair. I decided to include other options besides the software store because - for example - my partner was unable to find Brave in the software store for Pop. So I wanted to give people several options. But I see your point, perhaps I should've added a point about making sure they're getting things from official, trusted sources.

[@myfavouritecolorisgreen]

@@TheNewOil yeahh i see your point as well xD there is quite a lot of fragmentation right now when it comes to downloading software and brave is probably what many people will look for and not find in official repositories!

[@TheMafiaPanda334]

Is there any distros that are compatible with mac m1 chip? Thank you for all of your amazing videos. Love your personality.

[@TheNewOil]

I believe Asahi Linux is the flagship distro on that front. I would start your search there. I haven't used it myself so I can't speak how to how stable or polished it is, but they do seem to be putting in a lot of effort based on the headlines I've seen.

[@wendys_Note]

👏👏👏🎉

[@Zaptosis]

Lol of course linux is an operating systems, you install linux not kernel. Also like old computers like MSDOS which would probably be better. We should combine linux & msdos to make the best operating systems! Imagine everything good about windows 10 since its engine is dos & then replace windows with linux. Also since you gave both combined you could probably make it more than 32 bits. Like double that to 64 bits. Imagine how fast that would be, I know retro games were 8 bits & were slow. Imagine if they combined linux & dos & made it 64 bits. It would be a super computer. Sadly you probably have to be really smart to do that. Fow now I'll be happy with a 32 bit computer, but I have 16 GB or ram so I guess that is like 45 bits or whatever 32 + 16 is. So maybe 64 isn't a big upgrade, idk

[@Zaptosis]

Wait if computers are only 32 bits how do we have 256 bit military grade encryption? Do our files go to the cloud to get encrypted then come back & we can keep them locked? What is even "the cloud" like that makes no sense, how can my computer make encryption by sending it there. Whoever invented it is a genius, they should clouds for your phone so they can play cooler games.