I have been using Windows my entire life, but since I got my Steam Deck I’ve been considering trying to get into Linux.
I obviously don’t have much of an idea where to begin, other than that I’m currently also trying to learn Javascript. I’d like a basic workstation I can code on and mess with, that doesn’t run more than a couple hundred. Could use some recommendations for hardware plus where to begin.
You don’t even need any hardware to get started. Fire up a virtual machine in VirtualBox or VMWare or use WSL. Start playing around, find a distro/DE you like and start learning.
After some time, look into dual booting your existing machine. You can try this in a virtual machine first before making any changes to you hardware.
You don’t get the same experience installing on low end hardware or in a VM though
I didn’t properly get hooked until I bit the bullet and just installed it bare metal on a higher end laptop and gaming PC
I should add that I’ve been interested in getting a small, portable notebook for coding separate of this, and making it Linux seemed a good idea at the same time.
If your budget stretches to a new laptop, framework make laptops (light weight or serious game machines) that come with Linux installed.
If you have no budget some second hand high end Chromebooks can be converted to mainstream Linux (video)
The other comments suggesting old ThinkPads are fine, but they’re heavier than I like to carry
You should really edit your post with what your budget is and what your requirements are if you want anything other than brand recommendations.
Pinebook Pro is rather nice, though it is low powered and some tasks will feel slow on it.
I’d say don’t use debian because GNOME environment feels restrictive. No window snapping was my biggest turn off.
I use Fedora - KDE which is really comfortable to me. Others have said Mint Cinnamon is a good one to start with.
Whichever OS you choose, when you install it, for the love of God, plug in a network cable so you can use internet on the thing as it installs. This will save you much trouble during set up.
Ebay, T470, T480, T490. $200-300. Good laptops with great Linux compatibility. Cheap and reliable.
For your distro, Linux Mint. The stock, normal edition right on the website. Cinnamon desktop edition.
Simple and reliable, and very windows-like.
https://etcher.balena.io/ is good and simple software to create a bootable USB.
Use the Mint .iso as the file, burn to the USB stick of your choice.
Welcome to the club :)
haven’t heard much good things about the t490
Only issues I’ve heard with the T490 is with models that have the Nvidia MX mobile gpu.
Most of that is old news. TLP for power management, and just don’t get the Nvidia model honestly, integrated Intel graphics are plenty for basic uses like coding and light browsing.
I see
Something thing to keep in mind when getting started is to manage your expectations. You’ve spent all this time using Windows so you already know where everything is – for Windows. In a lot of respects you are going to be starting over from scratch, learning new ways to install software, get around the desktop, and doing simple things like changing your settings. Don’t get discouraged, you’ve done this before, you can do it again.
One way to cope with the initial frustration is to start out loading up something like VirtualBox on your Windows desktop, and installing a linux distribution there. Then you can play around, take your time to find a desktop that’s right for you, and learn how to actually DO things in linux that you already do daily in Windows. That way you eliminate the pressure of trying to figure out how to do everything at once.
Another reason to start with a virtual machine is that there are a LOT of possible linux distributions to choose from. There are also quite a number of different desktop environments to choose from. It pays to take a bit of time and play around with different options to find out what you like. You also need to decide if you want something running the cutting-edge releases, or if you prefer stability with slightly older software. For example, Ubuntu is a good choice for the absolute latest releases but can introduce bugs that the devs refuse to fix. On the other hand, Debian (which is actually the base system that Ubuntu is built on) only releases slightly older software that has been tested over the past few months. However in all cases, you will always get immediate patches for security issues.
As already mentioned, any old computer laying around is a viable candidate for Linux. Until last year I was running internet-facing web servers on 1GB of memory and a single core. If you have something built in the last 20 years it will work for your purposes. Hell my desktop is someone else’s throw-away because under Windows they considered it “too slow to get email or browse the internet”. I use it for writing arduino code and building models for my 3D printer.
… there are a LOT of possible linux distributions to choose from. There are also quite a number of different desktop environments to choose from.
I never considered the backend could have different frontends. So is Ubuntu just a different desktop environment for Debian? Or is it like I could just install a different desktop environment on top of my old PC’s Ubuntu installation?
The core of Ubuntu is built on Debian, but the maintainers create a lot of their own packages based on the latest versions of software available. So for example both distributions have a version of Python available, but the one in Ubuntu might be the very latest release while the one in Debian may be several months old because it goes through more testing. I like to compare their usage to the difference between using Ubuntu for a desktop computer (where it’s not the end of the world if something breaks) to using Debian for a server (where you absolutely need rock-solid services that will never fail you). And of course Ubuntu and Debian are not your only choices, there are even other distributions which are based on Debian or Ubuntu, several distributions based on Redhat, and plenty of others which are completely built in other ways. If you really want to learn the nuts and bolts of it, check into the Linux-from-scratch project which walks you through building your own system completely from compiled source code.
Now the desktop environment is a whole different thing, and Linux gives you a lot of choices there too, from very lightweight desktops that could run on a twenty year old computer to much heavier desktops with a ton on features which require more modern hardware. The nice thing about desktop environments is you’re not stuck with just one. You can actually load up several and choose which one to load when you log in to the desktop, then later on dump the ones you don’t like. So the important thing is finding a base OS you like first, then everything on top of that can be changed as you learn more about Linux.
Slackware, Ubuntu, Mint , Debian… They’re called distributions and they’re well… Distrubutors of software. Imagine they’re like different app stores.
Not all software is present in all distros, but the most used ones are. And for everything else, there’s Flatpak, which is sort of a distro-agnostic app store.
So there are several desktop environments (DE) out there, the big ones being GNOME and KDE. And distros will usually pick one as the default but will also offer others.
As an example, Debian doesn’t lean much on its default DE, you’re very much free to pick whatever you want. Mint, on the other hand, will only truly support Cinnamon, even though it packages other DEs.
Another thing is that not all software will be at its latest version on all distros. The stable branch of Debian is favored by server usage because they take a very deliberate approach to updates, making sure what they distribute is rock solid before shipping. The side effect is that packages are often quite a few versions behind the bleeding edge. Rolling releases like OpenSUSE Tumbleweed are always updating, so you’re close to the latest software, but also closer to bugs.
Hope I helped.
Welcome to the community!
Seconding all the previous comments recommending Linux Mint: since you come from Windows, you’ll probably feel most at home there. It is also possible to do all common tasks without ever opening the terminal.
Mint should run fine on any hardware, but to be most safe, try to use something that is at least 1-2 years old and stay clear from dedicated GPU as first (in particular Nvidia).
I’d also advise that the packaging situation for distributing software in Linux rn is somewhat messy. Thankfully, multiple format (apt, Flatpak) are directly available in the Linux Mint Software Center. In case you need to use some proprietary software (Chrome, Spotify, idk), you’d probably want to go with Flatpaks.
Another Mint + Thinkpad vote here. I’m a lifelong Windows user who has occasionally dabbled in Linux, and Mint is the first distro that I’ve stuck with enough to consider it my daily driver. I have it running on a used Thinkpad T14 Gen 2 with an AMD Ryzen 7 in it. I still have a separate Windows desktop for gaming and Adobe Lightroom, but the Thinkpad is my everyday couch PC now. Everything worked out of the box except for the infrared camera used for face unlock type stuff, and the fingerprint reader. I got the camera set up to use the Linux equivalent of Windows Hello, Howdy, and while it does work now it’s not as fast and reliable as it was under Windows. I haven’t even tried to set up the fingerprint reader yet. I’m very happy with how well everything works in general under Linux Mint.
I’ll also add: There’s a base distribution and then a variety of “Window Managers” (WM) or “Desktop Environments” (DE) to choose from. These determine the layout of your desktop, “control panel” analog, what settings can be tweaked, and stuff like the network/volume controls accessible him the tray etc.
Mate/Cinnamon are good, but I recommend KDE/Plasma Desktop. I’ve had good luck with that one for people who I’ve helped migrate from Windows.
Your can actually install multiple DE’s and will be able to choose which one you use at the graphical login screen.
As for Chrome, I think Google still has a repository for that or one can use Chromium which is the base experience for that anyhow.
For code editors, there’s a bunch of choices. I tend to use Pluma for basic text stuff, Bluefish for a lot of web stuff, and CodeBlocks for C++'ish stuff. You can also install VSCode on Linux if you so desire and a lot of people seem to quite like it.
Hardware I lean more towards **AMD - though not bleeding edge - as the drivers come with the OS kernel and tend to get updated with such. I’ve generally not had issues since about the RX480 days, except for some weirdness with APU’s not liking certain TVs (usually scaling issues). Nvidia generally works too, but requires a proprietary driver stub be installed for accelerated graphics and that can sometimes break on updates. Most Intel (graphics) is ok, but there have been a few issues with less-common chips in smaller fiorm-factor or tablety devices.
** I have heard people complain about some AMD stuff, but honestly I’ve run an RX480, Vega56, 6900XT, and 3-4 generations of APU’s without major issues except when those chips were fairly new (first 6mo of release can be dicey).
Yes to KDE for windows users. There’s nothing wrong with cinnamon. But kde is much more impressive in a “wow! This is all free?” Sort of way. Just today I used both k3b and ktorrent!
Let’s not overwhelm the newcomer with options and preferences right from the start, shall we? They’ll figure it out soon enough, and probably spend a year distro hopping like all of us.
If you have PC that can run virtual machines I recommend starting there so you can see how Linux works. Use it for a longer period of time and try doing some stuff there that you would normally do on Windows.
You should be aware that fur suits are pretty expensive.
You can make your own for just moderately expensive
Recommendations for hardware: A relatively normal computer. I would avoid exotic hardware. If you’ve got an old computer kicking around, give it a try on that. Or, eBay is full of used corporate Dells that will do the job for pocket change.
I’m a fan of Linux Mint; I’ve been daily driving it for a decade now, but really don’t worry that much about distro or DE, if you’re really looking to get into programming and such you’ll probably spend a lot of time in the terminal anyway.
Oh I almost forgot: Welcome to the Linux community!
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Or OpenSUSE since nvidia hosts a their own repo for OpenSUSE drivers. Add the nvidia repo and install all the nvidia gfx /cuda drivers
If you want to go low budget and play around there’s lots of SBCs that can run Linux. Check here for example : https://www.armbian.com There’s also ones that come as light weight keyboard, for example the pi400 Easy to carry around and put into a HDMI monitor. A drawback is that when using ARM there is sometimes software which only runs on amd64 family though that does not happen very often. Other option is to look at refurbished laptops. If you skip the chromebook ones (Which can be cumbersome to run plain Linux on unless you want to play with Linux and Android on top of ChromeOS) you can find them for 90 Euros or more.
It wasn’t that hard for me to flash a Chromebook with Linux using this guide
Sure, but just like with flashing custom ROMs on phones, people may break their Chromebook and not get help with it and be stuck. For a Linux beginner a good first and smooth experience may be the best start.
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Linux Mint and any computer of your choice.
Second this. I only still have Windows on dual boot because of game pass and I need office for work. Mint just works.
trying to learn JavaScript
Your first hurdle will be to figure out how to install VS Code. Double clicking the downloaded .deb file often doesn’t work. You’ll need to follow the instructions on the official page under “Debian and Ubuntu”: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux
Specifically the part about ‘sudo apt install {distro}.deb’. The other parts are not needed.
VS Code
It’s the Church of Emacs or Cult of vi (or Neovim) in these parts! You don’t need a Microsoft text editor with proprietary plugins to write JavaScript. When your display manager inevitably breaks while you learn Linux or administer a remote system, having skills with an editor that works in the terminal will prove invaluable.
Linux mint, if there is any problem try popOS.
Also would recommend trying out the distros before you install them in a virtual machine since it’s easier to try multiple distros without the hassle of setting them up. Since you are in windows at the moment, you probably should try virtualbox
Edit: ventoy is a pretty cool project for when you want to setup a pen with the installation isos to the baremetal.
You can essentially use any hardware. If you already have an old pc or laptop, you can (probably) use that. If you get a new one, the only major recommendation for usage with linux is: don’t get something with a nvidia graphics card.
And where to begin: Probably some linux distro like Linux Mint or Pop_OS. They‘re reasonably beginner friendly. But, if you have some more specific questions (or need more help finding hardware or don‘t know what a distro is), feel free to ask.
