Summary Of Post:
Hello all, I’m new to the forum although I’ve been watching Wendell since, idk how long, his days back at Tek Syndicate, but more importantly I’m new to Linux (just installed last night), and I was wondering if the good people of Level1Techs could spot me some information, guides, video’s, personal advice or whatever on what to do / where to go from here.
Background:
I just installed Manjaro XFCE 20.0.1 on a new PC build that I’m going to use as my main PC at home. I got a windows virtual machine installed as well, so I can find sanctuary in the familiar if I have to (this is literally all I’ve done so far). But I want to try and use linux as much as possible so that I can learn to use it well. But currently I have basically no idea what I’m doing. I still have my old machine (Windows 10) to do everything on as well, but eventually I want to a file transfer and totally switch to the new PC (hopefully soon).
Request:
Therefore, if you are familiar with linux (particularly Manjaro) and can find it within your heart to help but a poor wee lost lamb in the vast world of linux such as I, I would appreciate it. Just referring some great resources for a noob would be fabulous (I don’t mind reading). Right now I’m in the stage of, “Okay, now what.” and I don’t even know where to look.
Use Case:
I’m going to be using this for gaming, working in unreal engine (hobby), some coding in visual studio / code, other software like world creator, blender, maya, and then typical stuff like youtube, web browsing, watching movies, etc. Just to be clear, I have a computer supplied by my work for work and I will not be doing “work” on this linux build, and I plan to setup back ups as soon as I figure out what I’m doing (so it’s okay if you recommend something not totally polished).
Thank you for your time
Chris Titus Techs is a good channel. He does a lot of stuff with Linux customization. Linux is nice because if there is something you don’t like, you can generally change it to something you do.
Setting up keyboard shortcuts can be good too. For example on my system if I hit Super (the windows key) + End it will activate the terminal command “shutdown now”. If I hit Super+Left Arrow is will activate “shutdown now -r” and restart.
Since Manjaro is an Arch fork, you should keep an eye on your updates. If you go too long between them there is a high chance something will break.
Thanks for the tips, I found Chris on youtube yesterday, but I haven’t watched to much of is stuff yet. I’ll watch the video’s you posted. Today I also started watching this guy called Average Linux User, and he seems pretty good too.
Hey, Welcome!
I’d say check out Learn Linux tv, and look around for a vid that strikes your fancy, to see if you gain from it.
The main advice I’d have, is decide a backup strategy, use the backup strategy, and test it.
As your install is pretty new, consider breaking it down, and re-installing, so you know you can do it from backups any time
If there were any steps the caused you to stumble, you know what you need to google.
either make up a notebook, or a text document, and plop in the little commands you come across into it.
You might even make a notes page on your mobile?
“Man pages” are your friend, use them often.
Also the Arch wiki; the guys there make the guides as agnostic / platform independent as they can.
Google has your back, once you work out the google-fu for summoning useful fixes for the errors you will come across.
Go break stuff. And before that, make backups (and test them too as the post above mentions). I find that breaking stuff forces me to learn ways to fix things.
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Thanks for the advice guys, but I’ll be honest figuring all this stuff out is enough work without breaking anything, so I’m gonna try real hard not to break it, lol. I’ll try to get backups going soon though.
Also maybe I should start a new topic for this, but I just spent my whole evening trying to figure out why the windows virtual machine doesn’t recognize my nvidia gpu. Only to find out virtualbox removed pci pass through support last year in December. Now I’ll do some more googling and reading and tinkering tomorrow evening but if someone knows of a work around or a different VM software that allows me to use my gpu in the VM. You might just save me five more hours, and I would be very grateful.
Hello fellow Manjaro user, great choice on distro by the way. I spent many years since the Redhat 2 days distro hopping until I found Manjaro.
Check out the Manjaro forums for sure, it was instrumental when I was starting out with Manjaro, they are the most friendly group of people I have encountered online.
I use timeshift on Manjaro for backups works well can be setup to backup on an local drive, removable storage and even over network. Has a nice UI and I’ve had to use it to rescue my ass a few times.
Defiinatly keep on top of updates with an Arch based distro as mentioned above, also check out the Manjaro update notes on the forum before updating as any issues are posted there and usually have already been fixed.
Definitely cheak out the AUR for anything you can’t find in the Distro packages.
Mostly read lots and have fun, if you have any issues I’m happy to help out where I can or at least point you in the right direction.
I’d be slightly hesitant recommending AUR to a new guy. There have been nasty things lurking there. And while they have been removed, consuming premade stuff will make you learn less rather than doing it yourself. Yes it is more steps but it adds to the learning process.
This is a good point, there is risks with AUR. I’ve never had any issues but defiinatly be cautious, reading the build files is a good way to learn what the packages are doing if you have the time to learn what’s happening.
