Comment on Should I or should I not use/bother with using Linux? (READ THE WHOLE POST)
lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 month ago
The reason why people talk so much about the terminal is:
- It’s easier to tell newbies “input this command” than to guide them through a GUI.
- The terminal gives you a lot of flexibility to customise stuff.
You’ll probably want to learn the terminal for any serious customisation. However, you don’t need to deal with it in your everyday usage.
I’d suggest you to use a Live USB, like other users recommended. Linux Mint, plus plenty other distros, can run straight from the USB. It’ll be better for you to judge if you could/should be using Linux this way.
About the thousand distros, most of them don’t matter. And if you’re a newbie, stick to Mint and you’ll probably not regret it.
Mesophar@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I will add onto this, that you don’t need to be a programmer or understand how everything works to use the terminal. At first, it’s fine to copy the commands directly into the terminal without really knowing how it all works.
I would very highly suggest to be careful about doing this blindly, you can and will compromise or Bork your system doing this too haphazardly. But it’s fine to learn it piece by piece, looking at what commands do as you go to use them. Treat every command you copy paste into the terminal the same way you would treat a .exe file you download from the internet on Windows.
As you use the terminal more frequently, you’ll being to recognize different commands and what they do. You’ll even start figuring out shortcuts or variations of commands and variables that align more with how you use the computer and what you’re hoping the output to give you.
Linux Mint is a great place to play with this, because most everything has a GUI counterpart so you can see the difference between doing the same task with a GUI vs using the terminal. It is also able to live-boot from a USB, as others have pointed out, so you don’t need to worry about ruining your primary computer experience. I’d suggest trying this out before you build your new computer, just to see what it’s like.