Babby's First Linux

Babby's First Linux

>See what Linux to use and where to download
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&origin=All&basedon=All&notbasedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=All

>Ubuntu
A distro with a HUGE community, suitable for beginners. They have a regular distro and LTS version distro that are released every 2 years in April. (Latest: 14.04, Next Release: 16.04)

It is recommended to try basically every *buntu (Ubuntu GNOME, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE etc.) but NOT Ubuntu with Unity.

>LinuxMint
Suitable for beginners. Stable, but the packages are older because they're based from Ubuntu LTS. Using Cinnamon by default.

>CentOS
A robust distro, aimed for servers. The packages maybe are really old. They have 10-year support.

>openSUSE
Another choice for people starting in Linux, easy to configure, and uses RPM package manager. For a more up-to-date (rolling release) packages use openSUSE Tumbleweed.

>Debian
An old player, it is the base for major distros (such as Ubuntu and Mint), and has a strict regulation for FOSS. There are three "branches" of Debian. Stable, Testing and Unstable (sid). Stable is basically frozen (but hence the name, stable). Both testing and unstable are rolling release (they got updates). Testing has packages that are newer than Stable, but older than Unstable. Unstable is basically the true rolling release with no bug checks.

PROTIP: Try them first on a virtual machine.



>How to Install Linux?

http://www.howtogeek.com/192462/linux-was-once-hard-to-install-and-use-now-its-easy
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer

>How do I determine if I have 64-bit vs. 32-bit CPU?
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001121.htm

>How to Choose a Partition Scheme for Your Linux PC
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35676/how-to-choose-a-partition-scheme-for-your-linux-pc

>The Beginner's Guide to Creating Virtual Machines with VirtualBox
http://lifehacker.com/5204434/the-beginners-guide-to-creating-virtual-machines-with-virtualbox

>Check Linux in wikibooks
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Linux_Guide

>General recommendations of software

>libreoffice
Office applications

>calibre
Read ebooks

>okular
Comicbook and pdf viewer

>xchm
Chm book viewer

>firefox
Browse the web

>thunderbird
Email, encrypted email, rss feed and podcast client ("enigma" and "inforss" plugins)

>vlc
Music and video player

>rhythmbox
Full-featured music player and online radio client

>deluge
Resilient torrent client

>liferea
Newsfeed and podcast client (why aren't you using one?)

>filezilla
FTP client

>hexchat
IRC Client

>mumble
Low-latency, high quality voice chat program for gaming

>linuxdcpp
File-sharing client for the Direct Connect network

>sabnzbdplus
Usenet clietnt

>hotot
Twitter desktop client

>krita
Digital painting program

>gimp
Fully featured image manipulation and paint program.

>inkscape
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) editing program.

>blender
3D modelling and rendering program

>openshot
Video editor

>audacity
Audio editor

>lmms
Professional music production environment

>digikam
Order your photos and images

>puddletag
Metadata editor for your music

>winff
Video and audio converter

>k3b
CD/DVD burning program

>gparted
Disk partitioning program

>rar
To unpack rar files

>acetoneiso
ISO and bin file mounting

>keypassx
Password manager

>virtualbox
For your virtual machines

>klavaro
Typing tutor

>anki
Flashcard program

>freemind
Mind mapping tool

>fontmatrix
Powerful open source font manager

>The best download manager
https://launchpad.net/~jd-team/+archive/ubuntu/jdownloader

>Professional non-linear audio & video authoring tool
https://askubuntu.com/questions/68142/how-do-i-install-cinelerra

>A torrent program like netflix
https://popcorntime.io/

>Other recommendations
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General_recommendations
(Seriously, ArchWiki is really useful to those who want to learn, it is basically distro-untied, although it has a specific guide for ArchLinux -pacman, etc.-, but usually every system with systemd can use the guide from ArchWiki)

>plm
>scratch
>laby
>robocode
Learn programming



>Windows software on Linux

>How To Run Windows Software on Ubuntu with Wine
http://www.howtogeek.com/105271/how-to-run-windows-software-on-ubuntu-with-wine

>Wine on the ArchWiki
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wine

>Run Windows Apps Seamlessly Inside Linux
http://lifehacker.com/367714/run-windows-apps-seamlessly-inside-linux

>Will my apps work?
http://appdb.winehq.org/

Most of the time, wine can run Windows apps, PlayOnLinux is a front-end UI for Wine, but as always you can use a VM to run Windows inside Linux.