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Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
For those who are interested in learning the basics of Linux with a view to trying it, there is an easy to follow website explaining basic/ intermediate aspects with good information which can be found here:
Well worth a bookmark IMHO
Thanks for the link, it looks really useful.
I’ve been on dual boot for a short while now (Win7 64/Linux Mint Cinnamon) and been using Linux for day to day stuff and haven’t found it particularly difficult to use, once I became familiar with where things were. But the site looks really interesting for digging into it deeper.
This looks like a very useful site. In fact, if I go all the way through it and learn everything that is there, I’ll bet I could get a job as a Linux administrator!
I’ve begun going through linuxjourney.com, and it is excellent stuff. It is done in a way that makes it accessible to anyone who has even a basic level of computer expertise.
I appreciate Microfix giving the link to that site, which looks quite well-organized and full information for those who would like to learn to use Linux presented in a user-friendly way. However, that site is for learning to take Linux “straight”, or “neat” or “on the rocks without adding water”: how to do most things from the command line.
User-friendly distributions have graphic user interfaces (GUIs) that allow one to do most everyday things people do with their computers: email, streaming video, reading the news, shopping on line, etc., by using the menus, dialog boxes and icons of the GUI, same as in Windows.
What I would like to hear also is about books on the user-friendly interactive use of the user-friendlier distributions (such as Ubuntu, or as Mint, that MrJimPhelps has been recommending in other discussions of Linux as an alternative to Windows). I have found several such books offered for sale on line, several from Amazon, and I would like to have in addition to the books on running Linux (“The Linux Bible”, several O’Relly ones) that I use for my professional work from the command line.
And I really would like to hear about books: things that I can activate in seconds by stretching out an arm, grabbing them from their bookshelves and then go and crack open sitting on a comfortable chair, to find what I am looking for in the index and then read about it in the corresponding pages.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
I would think that having a book on the GUI side of Linux would be redundant if you were already familiar with Windows.
Due to the metaphor of running an application within a graphic “window”, there really is no difference in the user experience when running that “window” on a Linux, or Windows OS. So there is really nothing in-depth to be covered in that regard, as most of the GUI should be intuitive to anyone with computer experience.
There might be some helpful distro specific getting started notes, such as the “Official User Guide” provided by Mint (52 pages), https://linuxmint.com/documentation.php that describe the desktop menus, and included utilities for software management, system updates etc.
It concludes with this statement:
Conclusion
There’s a lot more to learn about Linux Mint and about Linux in general. This guide was just an overview of some of the aspects related to your desktop. By now you should feel more comfortable with using it and you should have a better understanding of some of its components. Where are you going to go next? Will you learn how to use the terminal? Will you give other desktops a try (KDE, XFCE, etc.)? It’s entirely up to you. Remember, Linux is about fun and the community is there to help. Take your time and learn a little bit every day. There’s always something new no matter how much you know already.Enjoy Linux and thank you for choosing Linux Mint
Windows 10 Pro 22H2
@JohnW – I agree that windows are windows whether they’re in Windows, Linux, MacOS, whatever. For me, though, it’s more a matter of getting used to an entirely different vocabulary and names of things, and also where to go look for things. After 20 + years of Windows use, I’m so engrained in Windows terminology that the other operating systems really make me change gears. And, even with that amount of experience I still don’t know where everything is. I admit to not being a techy but even now when somebody says “in P select Q, then go to R, click on S, …”, well, sometimes I’m scratching my head just knowing where P is.
When I got an iMAC a year ago, I got one of those 1000 page books that described/explained the Sierra OS. It was very helpful to look in the Table of Contents and/or index to see if what I wanted existed, and then a good idea of where to find it.
I should probably also say here that I haven’t looked much for Ubuntu books (too busy learning MacOS and staving off MS malware!) So far my Ubuntu laptop is for a rainy day when all else fails.
The thing is when you are dealing with Microsoft, or Apple, you are talking about one vendor and their flagship OS. So in theory one book, or maybe several (beginner, intermediate, advanced) should cover it all.
But with Linux, you have potentially 1000 vendors, and there are discrete differences among them.
So I would guess if you were to ask Woody about the economics of book publishing, he would probably say that a fragmented market would not be the best source of income for writing a technical book.
That being said, it seems that the two most commonly written about Linux distro families are the Red Hat and the Debian (Ubuntu) types.
Red Hat – The Red Hat family would encompass the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS (a free version of RHEL), and Fedora Linux, Red Hat’s community release edition, while Ubuntu docs would cover most of the Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint flavors.
Debian – Ubuntu probably has the largest Debian related user base and community support among its various distros, and most items written about it will probably apply in general to any of the variants.
So among the two of the biggest family trees, you would probably want to target one family to use and get some books relating to that family, either Red Hat or Debian (Ubuntu).
If you want to learn one of the many more obscure Linux distros, you will need to go poking around in the weeds of internet forums to pick up nuggets of wisdom because that is where things can become very fragmented, and even more techy. You are on your own there and will need to become a good self starter and self learner.
Windows 10 Pro 22H2
if you were to ask Woody about the economics of book publishing, he would probably say that a fragmented market would not be the best source of income for writing a technical book
Yes, it seems likely that you’ve correctly identified an elephant (named Distro Fragmentation) standing with you in your book publisher’s office. But perhaps, behind the first elephant, there stands a second elephant (named Desktop Penetration)?
Although, yes, linux powers much of the Internet along with massive numbers of corporate servers all over the world, desktop market share for linux systems remains quite small… roughly 2% according to NetMarketShare.
https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx
Yep, that desktop penetration factor is what is keeping the commercial developers at bay as well.
Hopefully that will shift in the future. I think that the Flatpak technology for building and distributing desktop applications on Linux may overcome some of the difficulties with fragmentation. It’s a start anyway!
Windows 10 Pro 22H2
Replying to another month and a half old post… but it’s still relevant, so here it is.
Yesterday, I replied to a message on The Reg, from a user who listed a long number of Linux stereotypes about why commercial developers don’t want to develop for Linux. They were almost universally wrong when it comes to Linux users like myself, refugees from the Windows world who are not on Linux because of Richard Stallman-esque ideas about how software should always be free, but because Windows has gotten so bad that there’s no other choice.
One of the things the individual wrote was that it was not appealing for a developer to write programs for an OS that has such a small percentage of the market (which s/he reported as 4%, which may be the number reported somewhere). Something dawned on me at that moment, and it had to do with Steam’s embrace of Linux (first in their attempts to create the Steam machine, then with their commitment to making the Steam client work seamlessly with a WINE fork). Valve/Steam make money by selling commercial software, and they’ve done more to promote gaming on Linux than any other entity I can think of.
Why would Steam do this if Linux has a small market share on the desktop (which it does), and if all of the other stereotypical reasons devs don’t want to touch Linux are true (fear of the GPL, fragmentation, the belief that Linux users are all Stallmans who are ideologically opposed to the idea of paying for software)? Steam makes its money selling Valve’s own software as well as that from their partners, after all.
Valve honcho Gabe Newell has explained in the past why this is important. He sees Microsoft’s efforts to promote UWP and the MS Store as steps toward a walled garden, one where there is no room for Steam to exist at all, and where all software developers must bow to the demands of Microsoft in terms of the content of their programs, and to pay them 30% tribute for the privilege. As with Apple and iOS, it would be a single company that has complete control of all of the software that runs on their platform.
I remember getting into a debate a few years ago with a particularly obnoxious Microsoft apologist who told me that my idea (and Newell’s) that MS would deprecate Win32 in terms of UWP was preposterous, but the idea that this is precisely what they are trying to do has now become mainstream. All they have to do is gradually remove bits and pieces of what make Win32 so powerful… an API here or there, requiring all kinds of rewriting and some loss of functionality, then the next, then the next. Writing for Win32 would be so tedious and risky (who knows if the API your program depends on will even exist next month?) that devs would be forced into UWP. From there, it’s only a short hop to closing the “sideloading” door, and you’ve got yourself a dandy walled garden. I don’t think any serious Microsoft watcher can doubt they would do this in an instant if they had the chance, given how many other ethical barriers they’ve smashed in the Windows 10 saga.
Linux, unlike Windows, can’t be locked down and made to serve the interests of one company, to the detriment of all others and all end users. The GPL that devs are (irrationally) afraid of “attaching to everything it touches like a cancer” (as Steve Ballmer said) is the very thing that prevents this. No one can contain Linux or force it to become a walled garden. This genie was never in a bottle, and it can’t be put into one.
As such, developing fully functional, Windows-equivalent Linux programs isn’t just about the sales revenue. It’s an investment in the future freedom of your company to continue to sell what it wants to sell at whatever price it wants to sell it. If there’s a viable alternative to Windows, Microsoft cannot create a walled garden. They are behaving as they are because there isn’t a viable alternative for many people! The biggest reason for this is that the programs people want or need to run do not have Linux versions. Ultimately, an OS is about running programs, and no matter how good the OS is, it’s not going to work if there is nothing to run on it.
If companies other than Microsoft can work to make Linux a viable alternative, Windows will have to compete rather than simply abusing their users because they can. The walled garden will never happen! They will have their MS store, but Windows is not a walled garden until MS shuts the door to programs that didn’t come from that MS store. If you want to keep selling Windows software and making money from it on your own terms, porting your Windows programs to Linux and offering them for the same price helps make sure that will remain possible. It doesn’t matter what the Linux desktop market share is! As long as Microsoft and their customers perceive Linux as a viable alternative to Windows, good things will happen (except in the eyes of MS). Even if you never sell a Linux copy of your program, it will have still been worth it if it prevents Microsoft from taking 30 percent of your revenue and dictating how you write your software. Linux being a viable alternative to Windows makes Windows a better product for end users and developers alike.
There can be no doubt that what I’ve described is the direction MS is moving in. Ignore Linux at your peril, devs! Linux is free and wild, owned by no one, and it will remain that way, no matter what MS or anyone else does. We can’t say the same for Windows, MacOS, Android, or iOS. Any of them could be closed to your software any time the OS devs want it to. iOS is already that way, and Android is that way in the minds of most users (they wouldn’t venture outside of Google Play to buy an app, so if it doesn’t exist in Play, it doesn’t exist at all to them) even though it does have the option of allowing sideloading (for as long as Google wants there to be such an option).
Of course, the market share of Linux will certainly increase if the programs people want or need have Linux versions. The point is that it is not necessary to wait and see if that happens before knowing that investing time and money in making Linux versions will be worthwhile. Firefox never achieved majority share, but it was enough to spell the beginning of the end of the MSIE monopoly. When people began to realize there was a viable alternative to IE, the whole thing came tumbling down. It was Chrome that stuck the killing blow, but at the time Chrome was introduced, Firefox’s market share was increasing and IE’s was decreasing. All it took was planting the little bug of an idea in the back of people’s consciousnesses… the idea that you don’t have to take this from MS because you have other choices.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
Well said!
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
Very, very well said. BRAVO!!!
Good points. I have seen a few developers moving in the Linux cross-platform direction, so we can hope the momentum eventually builds to a tipping point, like it did with MSIE. 
Windows 10 Pro 22H2
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