What are your top tips for a Newbie?

[thom_A]

Considering there are tens and tens of Linux distros with all kinds of flavors, there's no need to discard your Windows partition and stick with one, two or three distros permanently. We all wish Linux developers would just join forces and develop the ultimate, mother of all OSes. But we know they never will. They'd rather do their own individual thing and introduce another distro. Then all kinds of problems evolve, rinse and repeat.

So my important tip is to learn the art of backing up your partitions and how to restore everything in its original state. It takes time and patience, but it's worth it.

[Hoser Rob]

Read this:

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

Yes, it's debian, but all mint releases are ubuntu or debian based, and ubuntu is debian based too.

[lyesqiz]

Learn a script language which will make the life much easier with Linux, especially for devs

[tvtaddy]

I don't think there is such rules, To use forum in the best way all you have to do is to help others with the stuff you are expert of and get help from other with which you are facing difficulty.

[BluuzMoBeeL]

Too much reading !

What I like to try to find, (if it has not already been done), is the simple basic stuff a "migrant" needs to see, a translation
of for example, C:\ is for MS, Linux's equivalent is ?
And not only what it is, but how to get to it, where is it, what to look for etc.
I think once one gets the hang of these simple abc-123"s and does some practical stuff, then the rest may be a breeze, that same experience a "old migrant" went through, passes it on to a "new migrant", and on it goes, it may then well evolve endlessly.

For me it's the Office 2010 VBA projects, I have to keep a duel boot XP on another PC till something happens in that area where Excel VBA can be instantly read by another "Office Suite's " Macro architecture.

Libre just does not cut it yet for what my Excel VBA projects do. ( I will be offering some examples though in the right forum, hopefully something may work)

But as far as MINT is concerned,
again,
Thank You,
Truth Prevails !

[JohnBobSmith]

-Back up often. Do so before any major system change (full upgrade, drivers, experiments, etc), and again at whatever time frame is needed for you, IE once every 3 months. I don't have a lot of my data backed up, but I can recover a non-booting/broken system if needed. You have to choose between safety and risk. It is up to you. I'm more on the risk side.
-Search the web before posting. Chances are your question has been answered many times before.
-You don't have to read absolutely everything to know how to use it! It would be much better to *apply* what you read, rather than reading for the sake of reading.
-Start off with a dual boot, progress to using the Linux partition more than the Windows one, and eventually wipe Windows. This may take several months, don't rush into any bad decisions. You may want to keep a dusty Windows around for the odd time you need it.
-Learn basic terminology. If you dont know what a /, root, /home, terminal, or sudo is then you may want to search for "Beginners Linux Terminology Guide" or similar.
-Show us that you've attempted to solve your problem before coming here demanding a solution. Use proper grammar, remain respectful, and remember that almost all of us are volunteers and are not being paid to fix your PC.
-Linux is designed to be logical. You will find most settings, icons, or whatever you need where you would expect them to be.
-If you copy and paste commands blindly, you can say goodbye to your system kindly. Use this rhyme to remind yourself never to copy/paste commands, or you could break your computer.
-Though in breaking stuff, you learn how to fix it, improve, and get better. So its not always bad to break things.
-If you are the user root, be careful not to make your system fail to boot. Use this rhyme to remind yourself that the root account can do ANYTHING with your system. Including destroy it. Remember that with great power comes great responsibility. Be careful when using sudo/root.

That's it. Hopefully someone finds my rhymes useful,

[Tuxon86]

It's an operating system... Don't worry about it.

If you install it and everything seems to work then you're A-OK.
Find some applications that you like and concentrate on learning how to get the most out of those. The OS (Linux) will do it's job in the background without any need for you to know how it really does its magic, just like you din't care about how windows did its stuff when you were using Word or Excel...

Life is too short to worry about an operating system...

[tsooinves]

Don't rush when you find a new thing. Search, read and be sure of what you are going to do, if you have any doubt then don't do it and finally, take other's opinion into consideration!

[Shrihan]

You should learn how to use the terminal as it helps when you can't access certain files or applications.

[klrman]

Considering there are tens and tens of Linux distros with all kinds of flavors, there's no need to discard your Windows partition and stick with one, two or three distros permanently. We all wish Linux developers would just join forces and develop the ultimate, mother of all OSes. But we know they never will. They'd rather do their own individual thing and introduce another distro. Then all kinds of problems evolve, rinse and repeat.

So my important tip is to learn the art of backing up your partitions and how to restore everything in its original state. It takes time and patience, but it's worth it.

That was my biggest problem as a newbie, trying to decide which distro and all the confusion that goes with Linux in general as it has so many flavors. I think that is the single one thing why most people stick with windows as they are confused about what Linux really is and how to go about installing it. I finally decided to give it some time and learn one distro, which has been mint cinnamon and wish I would have started this years ago. My advice, being a newbie, is too just do it and work through it until you realize it really is an amazing OS and that a lot of hard working people all over the world are making this happen for us.

[zman58]

Realize that with Linux and Mint, you have a system that is capable of many things the competition is unable to offer--this is provided in an easy to use package.
On the surface, it is easy to use for sure this ease of use is what will attract you at first. But don't stop there because that is only a tiny fraction of what it has to offer you.

The depth of ability and possibilities of Linux is truly staggering considering that Linux powers most of the Internet and major business. Don't look so much of it as a free alternative, but look at it as an alternative with unlimited freedom and capabilities. You can literally do anything computational with Linux because the license model of it and the underlying components grant you that possibility. The more you learn, the more you will want to learn, just because you will begin to see how incredibly flexible and powerful it is.

Good luck on your journey and know we are here to help.

[zman58]

Considering there are tens and tens of Linux distros with all kinds of flavors, there's no need to discard your Windows partition and stick with one, two or three distros permanently. We all wish Linux developers would just join forces and develop the ultimate, mother of all OSes. But we know they never will. They'd rather do their own individual thing and introduce another distro. Then all kinds of problems evolve, rinse and repeat.

So my important tip is to learn the art of backing up your partitions and how to restore everything in its original state. It takes time and patience, but it's worth it.

I agree. But also want to point out that backup of valuable data should be done on all systems, Linux or not.
I disagree that the distribution variations are a problem, they are a huge benefit of the ecosystem.

The variation of distributions is a great strength of the ecosystem. You have distributions that run well on older system, even very old system, such as puppy. You have distributions that are great for system recovery and security analysis, such as SystemRescueCD. You have distributions which excel for use in virtualization and enterprise servers, such as Cent OS and Scientific OS. You have distributions that excel at mutlimedia and music composition with a real-time kernel, such as Ubuntu Studio. You have distributions which excel at communications server, such as Elastix (asterisk). One single distribution could never cover the entire set of needs that the special distributions can collectively cover so very well. The list goes on and on...

Linux Mint excels at easy setup, general desktop use, and productivity. It installs in seconds and runs on just about anything you can toss at it. It includes most all applications any typical user would need and more. It is an incredible achievement for sure and a very good place to start for desktop use. Of course, like other distros, it stands upon and depends on the work of many others outside of the Mint community--which is a very good point. I have used multiple Linux distributions for many years, and continue to do so. As of the past few years, Linux Mint has been my absolute go-to specifically for desktop use. Clem and the gang have done an incredible job with attention to detail and delivering what users desire.

Once you have had the time to try, use, experience, and depend on these incredible solutions please consider helping some of the groups and people who make it happen.

[bodyeuh]

First: Back up your hard drives
Second: Find the most popular distro available and read the review, manuals, post installation lists, help page, forum topics, etc.
Third: Always connect to the Internet
Fourth: Google is your friend
Fifth: Have Fun, be feel at home, explore your OS.
Sixth: Enjoy your headache, no kidding I mean
Enjoy your new experience using GNU/Linux. cheers!

[Moem]

Fourth: Google is your friend

I beg to differ! Google is not my friend. I trust my friends.

[jackerbes]

Fourth: Google is your friend

I beg to differ! Google is not my friend. I trust my friends.

You must have some friends that are stupid and mean and not completely trustworthy, right? Treat google like one of those persons.

And if you know of a search engine that will produce good search results tell us what it is please.

I use google but I use ixquick also https://www.ixquick.com/. If you want to see something interesting, enter a search phrase in google on one tab and then do the same search on ixquick on another tab. It might make you wonder why you ever would want to use google...

Jack

[Moem]

You must have some friends that are stupid and mean and not completely trustworthy, right?

I would not call such people friends.

And if you know of a search engine that will produce good search results tell us what it is please.

Personally I really like Startpage. Maybe you'll like it, too!

[texbrew]

hello,
I bought a thinkpad laptop cheap just to learn how to use linux on, tried ubuntu on a dual boot on my pc, that was enough to convince me to learn how to use it 'properly' - don't dual boot would be my recommendation, put it solely on a machine to learn from if you can

That's a great suggestion. I bought a thinkpad r61 just last month on ebay for $50 shipped! and the thinkpad is running Mint now. I was already using linux on other machines, now I have another toy...

It's already been said, but if you don't want another machine to learn linux on, get a second hard drive, or even a USB stick. You'll have fun and linux isn't really hard to use. Mint is, in my opinion, the easiest for new users. Ready? Go.

tex

[jackerbes]

You're right, I like the Startpage too! Those pages are both from the same company, as near as I can tell the only difference is the names.

Jack

[Cosmo.]

Not really, Ixquick and Startpage use different "engines". Ixquick is a meta-search engine, whereas Startpage uses Google.

[zandak]

every suggestion I've read is good advice, also, once you have Mint installed try to familiarize yourself with system settings, learn as much as you can, then learn some more, but most of all(and this is very important)HAVE FUN.