Getting Started With Linux : Part-1 (Choosing a Distribution)

Ubuntu
Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distribution today. It is quite suitable for beginners
as well as developers. Ubuntu is based on Debian and the default desktop environment is
Unity. Software and hardware support is also quite good in Ubuntu, so you wont find any
difficulty in connecting your handset or Camera or editing your excel sheets.

Ubuntu 15.04
One can choose from various official flavors of Ubuntu if they dont like Unity interface.
Ubuntu Gnome, Kubuntu are most popular among them. The only difference between these
flavors is the default Desktop Environment.

Mint
Mint is also one of the most popular Linux distribution. It is based on Ubuntu with Cinnamon
Desktop Environment on top of it. It comes with most of the necessary software and libraries
right out of the box. So no need to download extra software to get it working with your files.
Just install it and you are good to go. Cinnamon Desktop is very simple and easy to work
with.

Linux Mint 17 (Rebecca)

Elementary
Elementary OS is one of the most beautiful and rapidly growing Linux distribution. It is also
based on Ubuntu and hence is compatible with Ubuntus repositories and software. One
major point in its design philosophy is to reduce the need of using terminal. The user can
perform most of the tasks without using terminal. It includes a Web browser, File manager, a
dock (Plank) and most of necessary software with it.

Elementary OS Luna

Fedora
Fedora is the first one on the list that is not based on Ubuntu. A plus point for Fedora is that it
focuses more on innovation and thus integrates the latest technologies earlier. It features
Gnome Desktop Environment and rpm package manager. The software support is also very
good for Fedora. It also comes with necessary software pre-installed, so no need to worry
about getting started with it. As a matter of fact, Linus Torvalds (Founder of Linux kernel)
uses Fedora on all of his computers.

Fedora 22 Latest Fedora distribution

There are several other popular Linux distributions (Arch, Debian, Open Suse) too. They are
also worth trying. But, as for beginners, Ive found that the above-mentioned distributions are
more easy to get started with.
Getting Started with Linux: Part II (Installation and more)

After downloading a desired Linux distribution, you can try it out using these methods:

Install Linux virtually If you already have a machine running Windows, Mac or
another Linux distro, and you dont want to remove or dual boot with that, install
VirtualBox and run Linux on virtual system.

Trying on a USB Most Linux distributions give you the option to try them before
installing. You can access your files, surf web, install software and more without
making a change in your machine. But, the changes are generally not persistent. One
can also install a full fledged Linux on a USB drive by making it persistent.

Installing Linux on your hard drive There are several benefits of this. Speed and
less hassle are two of them. A Linux distribution can be the only primary OS (like
mine), or it can be dual booted with other OS.

Linux installation is very easy nowadays. Most distribution automatically detect system
configuration, plus they also give you the freedom to modify any setting you want. You dont
have to worry about partitions, hardware and other configuration. You can skip the manual
configuration if you want, but you should understand each part of the installation process, as
it will give you more insight on what actually is happening to your system. You can read
more about installation process in your distributions wiki page. For example, read this for
Ubuntu installation.
Most Linux variants ship with necessary software (Office, Music Player, Display server etc)
with their installation disk. If you want more control on what to install and what not to, I

recommend trying Arch Linux. It is an amazing distribution that gives the user complete
control of their system (it can scare off some beginners).
Read their beginners guide for further info.
I am not going to write about the complete installation process. You wont even need one if
you are installing any distribution mentioned in part-1 of this tutorial. But still, if you need
more help on that, you should go through this in-depth tutorial on dual/multi booting Linux.

Post Installation:
There are few things that you should know/do to get comfortable with your newly installed
Linux distro. Various distributions ship with a Software Center (or something like that) to
find and install applications with a few mouse clicks. But I find installing them from terminal
more clean and simple.
Following are some things to do post installing the distribution. Following commands work
for Ubuntu and its derivatives but you can find similar terminal commands for your
distribution depending on its package manager.
Updating your system:

System can be updated by the following command

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get upgrade

The update command only updates the list of available packages whereas the upgrade
command actually installs them. The sudo in the above commands gives normal user (non
root) the permission to modify system for that command.
Installing extra software and libraries:

Ubuntu does not ships with non free codecs and plugins due to copyrights restrictions and
their free software policy. However, they do provide these codecs freely from their
repositories. You can install the set of restricted formats via the Ubuntu-restricted-extra
package. It includes media codecs, flash player and much more.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restr

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extra

In fact, you can install any package you want by typing

sudo apt-get install <package na

sudo apt-get install <package name>

Replace package name with VLC, Chromium (free and open source alternative of Google
Chrome, you can install Google Chrome too), Clementine (one of the best music players for
Linux), Vim (a must have text editor for programmers), Wine (to run native windows
applications) etc. You can also download .deb (.rpm for Fedora) packages from external
sources and install them directly.
Now you have a complete Linux distribution to cater your needs. You can modify it
according to your needs. Change its desktop environment, install or remove something and
much more.

Getting Started With Linux: Part III (Command Line)

Some basic Linux terminology:

Shell: A shell is a program that takes text input from the keyboard and
gives it to the operating system. It acts as an interface between your
fingers and the operating system.

Terminal: The terminal (precisely terminal emulator) is a program that

lets you interact with the shell. This program comes pre-installed with
almost every distribution (although it can have variants like gnometerminal, konsole, terminology etc).

Kernel: Kernel, simply put, acts as an interface between the software and
hardware. Linux is basically just the kernel. The complete operating
system includes a kernel and a bunch of other software. As the term Linux
is being used more commonly than the actual GNU Linux, Ill be using that.

Some commands in Command Line:

Heres a list of some most commonly used commands for performing some most common
tasks. A good practice would be to have these commands on hand whenever you need. So,
either take the printout of this page, or write them down somewhere.

ls: This command displays the list of files and folders present in the
current directory. Whenever you open up your terminal, it is in your home
directory. Type ls and you should see the contents of your home
directory. To verify, check your home folder in a file manager.

cd: This command changes your working directory. Choose a folder name
you saw in the previous command. Lets say Downloads. Type cd
Downloads, and you are in Downloads. You can also use the autocomplete feature. Like typing cd Dow and press <tab>, but thats extra
stuff. To verify, open up your file manager. Open Downloads folder. Right
click and create an empty document. When youve cded into Downloads,
type ls and you can see the documents name there. Type cd .. to get
to the previous directory.

rm: This commands removes files or directories. First close your terminal
(type exit) and re-open it. Type cd Downloads and then ls. Now type
rm <documents name>. You can see in your file manager the document
youve just created is gone. Remember that rm deletes the file
permanently. There is no recycle bin or trash. To remove directories, type
rm -r <directory name>. Another helpful thing is rm *, it removes all
the files present in the current directory. * is a wildcard. Or type rm
*.jpg which removes all the files with extension .jpg.

cp: This commands copies files or directories from one directory to other.
Create a folder in your home directory. Type cp -r <folder name>
Downloads/ and the folder would be copied to Downloads. The r'(recursive) option tells the cp command that following is a directory and
not a file, else, youll get an error.

mv: This command moves the file or folder between directories. Create a
new file in your home folder. Type in your terminal mv <file name>
Documents/. The file has been moved to the Documents folder. You can
check that by typing cd Documents and then ls.

mkdir: This commands creates a new folder in your present working

directory. Type mkdir stuff in your terminal. Type ls and youll see the
stuff folder there.

clear: This commands clears your terminal screen. Just type some random
stuff in your terminal. And then type clear. The buffer would clear up.

Some more command line tools:

cal: This command displays the calendar on your terminal screen.

nano: It is a command line text editor. Just type nano <any random file
name> and it will open up a window. Here you can type some random
stuff and press ctrl-x (Hold ctrl key and press x) to close the window.
Now, if you ls here, you can see your newly created file.

cat: cat displays the files contents on your terminal window. Type cat
<previous file name> and youll see the contents of the file.

man: Using this tool, you can see the manual page of all the commands
Ive written before. To try, type man cal and youll see the manual page
of cal and how to use that.

sudo: sudo is a tool that gives you the super user privileges for a
particular command. This can be helpful when using some privileged tool
or file. Like for updating your system.

There are a hundreds of more commands and tools that can make your work easier, but these
are some of the most used ones. The best way to get better at these commands is to use them
again and again, even if you dont feel like it.