New to Linux and need install direction

wolste99

wolste99

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Hello, all

I am new and this is my first post. I'm glad to be here!

I have been playing around, and reading/learning about, Linux the past several weeks. (I have a Raspberry Pi 400 I've been checking out and I have a small Lenovo laptop with Ubuntu).

I have an ASUS 17" gaming laptop and I would like to use the Fedora distro on it. I just picked up the book Linux Bible and it recommends using Fedora while going thru the book, which is why I want to work with it.

At this point I'm not necessarily wanting to do a full install (It runs Win10 and I use the laptop to work from home now and again so I don't want to get rid of Windows just yet).

From what I read there are several ways to install Linux: Complete install, VM install, or just running from a USB flash drive.

The VM option or running directly off of the USB flash drive seem to be my best options currently.

I guess what I would like to know is, could you direct me to detailed set up instructions for both options?

Note: If I go the flash drive direction, the flash drive I have has several different distros on it so I don't know if that makes a difference or not.

I appreciate and and all assistance you could give me on it.

Thanks a million,

Steven.
 


1. Choose the linux distro you want to play with (this actually takes some reading about them)

2. Hit "download _______", your download should begin.

3. Visit this page https://www.instructables.com/How-to-install-Linux-on-your-Windows/

That's everything you need to know to get started.

If you want to replace windows, then be sure you actually have a windows installation medium (flash drive, cd, .iso file), and back everything up that you want to keep. Maybe you don't want to keep anything...then great, erase windows and never come back! You probably will want to have a backup of windows though...
 
CrazedNerd said:
1. Choose the linux distro you want to play with (this actually takes some reading about them)

2. Hit "download _______", your download should begin.

3. Visit this page https://www.instructables.com/How-to-install-Linux-on-your-Windows/

That's everything you need to know to get started.

If you want to replace windows, then be sure you actually have a windows installation medium (flash drive, cd, .iso file), and back everything up that you want to keep. Maybe you don't want to keep anything...then great, erase windows and never come back! You probably will want to have a backup of windows though...
Click to expand...
Hello, CrazedNerd,

As I mentioned, I plan to use Fedora.

I don't want to wipe out Windows at this point. I want to either use Linux via a virtual machine, boot it from a USB flash drive, or maybe (now that I think about it) have a dual boot situation.
The dual boot situation looks appealing as I can utilize all of the computer's resources while using Linux.

I'm looking for direction as to how to do all of the above. I see that you provided a link for a virtual machine set up.
 
wolste99 said:
Hello, CrazedNerd,

As I mentioned, I plan to use Fedora.

I don't want to wipe out Windows at this point. I want to either use Linux via a virtual machine, boot it from a USB flash drive, or maybe (now that I think about it) have a dual boot situation.
The dual boot situation looks appealing as I can utilize all of the computer's resources while using Linux.

I'm looking for direction as to how to do all of the above. I see that you provided a link for a virtual machine set up.
Click to expand...
Dual boot is really easy:

1. write your the .iso file for Fedora onto a flash drive, this will erase everything on the flash drive.

2. Since windows is already installed, you can go ahead and launch the Fedora installation directly from the flash drive through the BIOS on your laptop (Jam whatever key launches into your BIOS, it's normally Delete or F2), THEN, Fedora will give you the option to install ALONGSIDE windows. I haven't done this in a long time, but i think it will automatically split your hard drive in half between Windows and Fedora. You can customize this with manual partitioning, but this might not be for you because it's pretty complicated. With manual partitioning, you have to choose the size of your filesystems in Fedora, i strongly advise against this if you're brand new to linux...but you can find out all this information through your search engine. There are plenty of guides on manual partitioning, i might even write one because i understand it so well.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Welcome to Linux, and to the forums!

wolste99 said:
I don't want to wipe out Windows at this point. I want to either use Linux via a virtual machine, boot it from a USB flash drive, or maybe (now that I think about it) have a dual boot situation.
The dual boot situation looks appealing as I can utilize all of the computer's resources while using Linux.

I'm looking for direction as to how to do all of the above. I see that you provided a link for a virtual machine set up.
Click to expand...
- I recommend the virtual machine route. You can play around with apps and test features to your heart's content, and mess with an number of distros. The big downside to virtualization is that often your desktop is software rendered, and the effect may be somewhat noticeable, impacting your initial experience. Just need to understand that when the OS is natively installed, that issue will disappear.

- You can boot a live USB and play around, but it has it's limits.

Those first two options would have a minimal affect on the existing OS and files, and are relatively safe.

- The dual boot route can be a bit more problematic if you aren't familiar with dual booting, and in particular, partitioning, and can render your PC unusable. Plan ahead and read up about it before you attempt it.
 
Agreed, with the virtual machine you can easily go back on your mistakes or system errors even though they don't tend to perform as well as a bare metal operating system.
 
SlowCoder said:
Welcome to Linux, and to the forums!


- I recommend the virtual machine route. You can play around with apps and test features to your heart's content, and mess with an number of distros. The big downside to virtualization is that often your desktop is software rendered, and the effect may be somewhat noticeable, impacting your initial experience. Just need to understand that when the OS is natively installed, that issue will disappear.

- You can boot a live USB and play around, but it has it's limits.

Those first two options would have a minimal affect on the existing OS and files, and are relatively safe.

- The dual boot route can be a bit more problematic if you aren't familiar with dual booting, and in particular, partitioning, and can render your PC unusable. Plan ahead and read up about it before you attempt it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the welcome!

So in using a VM can you pretty much do everything you could as if it were actually installed on the computer? As far as learning, working with command line, etc?
 
wolste99 said:
I just picked up the book Linux Bible
Click to expand...

Not really an answer:

Great book, and hopefully you've got the newest edition. You definitely want to use Fedora for it., as it's really written with the idea of you doing the work in Fedora. It's a great book. Well, the first edition was. I've only skimmed through the 2nd edition.
 
wolste99 said:
Thanks for the welcome!

So in using a VM can you pretty much do everything you could as if it were actually installed on the computer? As far as learning, working with command line, etc?
Click to expand...
Exactly right. A VM (virtual machine) runs on top of the host (in your case Windows?), and shares resources. So you can literally have 2 (or more) disparate OS running on the same hardware at the same time. The virtual machine will only see it's own virtual drive, have it's own connection to the network, etc. so you can goof around with the GUI and command line without risking your host OS.

I believe VirtualBox is available for Windows, and is very easy to use for beginners.
 
I'm also going to toss out a few other tidbits to help you get started:
Depending how you learn (reading gives me heartburn, but I learn from watching videos pretty well), here are a couple YouTube channels that contain good info for beginners:
LearnLinuxTV
TheLinuxExperiment
Joe Collins
They have good videos about beginner Bash commands, and their "commands of the week" type videos are pretty good. Though they still surprise me from time to time, I've outgrown them, but I gleamed good knowledge.

The Linux Bible is a good book. Chock full of both skimmed and in depth knowledge areas.
The Linux Command Line is a good resource for learning Bash commands. It's freely downloadable at https://www.linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php. The physical book is available on Amazon.
 
KGIII said:
Not really an answer:

Great book, and hopefully you've got the newest edition. You definitely want to use Fedora for it., as it's really written with the idea of you doing the work in Fedora. It's a great book. Well, the first edition was. I've only skimmed through the 2nd edition.
Click to expand...
It's the 10th Edition. I'm pretty sure it's the latest.
 
SlowCoder said:
I'm also going to toss out a few other tidbits to help you get started:
Depending how you learn (reading gives me heartburn, but I learn from watching videos pretty well), here are a couple YouTube channels that contain good info for beginners:
LearnLinuxTV
TheLinuxExperiment
Joe Collins
They have good videos about beginner Bash commands, and their "commands of the week" type videos are pretty good. Though they still surprise me from time to time, I've outgrown them, but I gleamed good knowledge.

The Linux Bible is a good book. Chock full of both skimmed and in depth knowledge areas.
The Linux Command Line is a good resource for learning Bash commands. It's freely downloadable at https://www.linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php. The physical book is available on Amazon.
Click to expand...
Excellent! Thanks for the Youtube info.

Actually, when I bought the Linux Bible I also got The Linux Command Line (and also, Linux Basics for Hackers, which will be read quite a bit further down the road, as I learn a lot more).
I got all three of them with a "buy three for the price of two" on Amazon ;-)
 
wolste99 said:
It's the 10th Edition.
Click to expand...

Yeah, 10th... I had it confused with another whose name escapes me at the moment (and I'm too lazy to go look), which is on its 2nd edition, just released a year ago. My bad... But, yeah, 10th is current and it's a lovely book. If you push yourself all the way through it, you'll be pretty adept. There's quite a bit you don't really need to know - unless you plan on becoming a systems administrator. Like there's a bunch of cloud and container stuff at the end of the book and you're probably not going to need to know any of that. The system admin section also has a bunch of stuff you won't likely need to know.
 
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