Back in 2013 due to the policy changes at the place I used to work, we all shifted our PCs from Windows to Ubuntu. Initially it was a nightmare. I couldn’t do anything at all. I had to keep searching for tips and tricks for the problem that I encounter while Using ubuntu. Here I’m going to share some of the key tips for Linux beginners who is going to make the switch from either Windows or Mac to Ubuntu / Linux. Remember there are many Linux distros available but Ubuntu is one of the most used distros. But if you are coming from a big corporate then you would find Red Hat linux at your work place which is running the servers.

Please note that this is not a comprehensive end to end tutorial. These are some quick tips that is suppose to get you started with Ubuntu. Feel free to comment below if you need further explanation or if you have had any issues with Ubuntu.

Google+

Pinterest

Be determined

The skills you learn while using Ubuntu / Linux is going to help you out tremendously. For example you can execute most of the basic commands in Mac terminal too as Mac’s terminal commands and Linux terminal commands are almost identical.

Also if you are to set-up a cloud server or VPS server then the skills you learned by using Ubuntu is going to help you. Now I run my sites on VPS servers and I know how much it helped to figure it out things easily.

The transition from Windows / Mac to Ubuntu / Linux is not going to be seamless. You need to be determined and willingly invest time to learn Linux (You should do this even when switching from Windows to Mac).

Instead of learning the whole OS end to end, I suggest you take up the progressive approach. As you use, you will start to learn more and more new commands and tricks. This is what worked for me, and this is what worked for most of the people out there. I’m sure this will benefit you too.

Graphical User Interface Vs Terminal

Graphical user interface is what we are very much used to. We were using Windows and Mac with Graphical User interface. We hardly ever go to command prompt. Even if we go that is to check the internet connection (I suppose you do it with ping)

You can start with Graphic User Interface. It’s going to look very much similar to what you used in Windows and Mac. Sometimes you wouldn’t find where it was found in Windows or Mac, instead you would find it where it makes sense.

I prefer to do administration work (most) via terminal as it provides more control and visibility on what I’m doing. I suggest slowly get used to Terminal and start to memorize some of the key terminal commands.

Checkout some of the must know terminal commands

Know the alternative programs

Programs like Skype and Chrome has their own version for Linux distro. But it’s always good to know the alternative software incase you couldn’t find your favourite program in Ubuntu / Linux.

No. Category Windows Linux 1 Music Player Window media player Rhthymbox, Banshee 2 Video Player VLC, Window media player VLC,Totem 3 Chat Messenger Gtalk, Facebook messenger Empathy,pidgin 4 Browser Chrome, Firefox Chrome, Firefox (default) 5 Text Editor NotePad Gedit 6 Office Suite MS Office Libre Office (popular), Open office 7 PDF Reader Adobe PDF Reader Document Viewer 8 Photo Viewer Windows picture and fax viewer Shotwell 9 Image Editor Photoshop GIMP 10 Vector Editor Illustrator InkScape

Stop whining and start using wine

Suppose you still want to run one of your favourite programs from Windows? Don’t worry wine help you out.

Using wine you can emulate windows softwares in Ubuntu. Though it’s very much possible to run any software via wine, sometimes these programs may crash due to various compatibility issues.

Always trust Google when some issues occur.

Permissions and user roles

Just like windows Ubuntu / Linux has different user roles. Administrator or the root user is the one has end to end access in the system. Ordinary users will not be able to edit system files.

You can simply switch to an admin user by typing the command “su”. But alway make sure what you doing when messing up with admin user as it would crash up the whole system.

System files are properly protected. While you doing something, if the system asks for password then you should know that you are touching some sensitive part of the OS which might result in the failure of the system.

Do we have an app store?

The app store model made popular by Apple iPhone. Don’t worry Ubuntu and other Linux distros has their own app store too. They’ll usually cross check the compatibility and upload the latest version to the package manger (that’s how they call app store). The popular package manager you would find in Ubuntu is “Synaptic”

It’s recommended that you upgrade and download via package manager as you will get more stable version that matches your distro.

Community forums

Most of the time we can fix up the issues on our own by simply doing some Google searches. There are times you won’t be able to find any solutions. It may be unique to your hardware and system configuration. In that case obviously you will need some expert support.

Ubuntu has a wonderful community forums. Check out following forums and place your questions there. When you place your question be specific about the issue and elaborate the issue instead of posting a single line question.

There are many forums but most of the time I find answers in the following two forums.

http://ubuntuforums.org/

http://askubuntu.com/

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

More

LinkedIn

Reddit



Email

Tumblr





Like this: Like Loading...