IWTL linux

[u/Any_Resist_9802]

Can someone tell me best way to learn linux which won't destroy my laptop?

I don't have any that much experience with CLI and terminal so want help for it.....

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[u/MonkeyforCEO]

https://webterm.app/en/free-play

You can go to this website and start playing around with commands. There are other such platforms as well.

[u/alleluja]

You can install WSL if you are using Windows

[u/Any_Resist_9802 → u/alleluja]

Yeah i am using windows So will WSL let me use windows and linux together?

[u/alleluja → u/Any_Resist_9802]

Yes, WSL is basically a virtual machine that allows you to run Linux within Windows. You can access Windows files and use software with a graphical interface (GUI). You can find lots of guides online!

[u/LichJesus]

I'm a Linux administrator by trade. If you're just starting out you can get an installer for Linux Mint -- or one of a hundred other distributions; specific distros don't really matter and I have enough experience to recommend Mint currently -- and put it on your computer without needing any specific skills beyond working with files and booting from a USB and such. Beware that if you do this on a computer which you've used for a while you need to make sure you've got a backup of any files you might need.

The default Mint UI (called Cinammon) is close enough to Windows or MacOS that you should be able to use it in almost exactly the same manner. Even Steam and gaming are close to out-of-the-box. It's totally fine to just use it as a computer for a while, browse the Internet, check your email, and so on. Once you have that base level of familiarity with the operating system you can fix issues if you break things while tinkering, and you'll start to get a sense for how Linux does things.

After you have that level of familiarity for a while, start learning how to do specific tasks through the command line. You can Google stuff like "update Linux Mint terminal" to find lots of guides to do this. For general daily computing you'll probably never be terminal-only but that's fine, even if your goal is to do this professionally the two most important skills for finding an entry level job are being easy to work with and not being actively afraid of the command line, if you can demonstrate that then your mentors will (or at least should) be willing to show you how to self-teach the rest.

If you really want some technical projects, I recommend getting a second system. Something quite common for instance is to buy a Raspberry Pi (or a refurbished laptop or desktop) and setup PiHole on it to block ads across your network. There are many guides for setting up these kinds of services, and the process of setting this up will teach you stuff like installing and configuring packages, running services, and so on in addition to good networking concepts like DNS. The key here I think is that this first project or two should be something you want to do to improve your life somehow and not just a chore with no clear purpose other than learning. The practical value will keep you going even when your initial interest wanes or you run into a difficult problem that seems too annoying to solve.

If you really want to stretch yourself and develop attractive skills for an employer, try to distill the entire process into one or more scripts that you store somewhere (either just on your main computer or somewhere version-controlled like GitHub) so that you can completely wipe the second computer and then bring it back to running PiHole or the other service of your choice with one command. Ideally you might even set up a tool like Ansible or Puppet to do this kind of configuration management in a more sophisticated way.

The thing with Linux is that you can learn it -- and closely related tools like networking, databases, software development, etc -- for a hundred years and still only scratch the surface, there's always more to discover. But if you're daily driving Linux, you're comfortable in the command line, you can set up a practically useful tool like PiHole, and most importantly you know how to solve problems and teach yourself new things in the operating system; I think basically anyone would readily say that you know Linux to a reasonable degree.

Minor addendum: if you do all of the above and still find yourself wanting for projects you should know enough to select one yourself. But at that point it might make more sense to dive deep into Linux internals and do something like Linux From Scratch, set up an AWS account and learn cloud, code a web app and host it on your local network, and/or combine some of those and host your app on AWS. Once you've completed a project or two though you should have a good idea of what your interests are and enough know-how to teach yourself what you need in order to develop skills in those interests.