Most Linux advice targeted at newcomers starts and ends with “just pick Ubuntu or Linux Mint,” but I find that to be an oversimplification. However, at the same time, I do understand that it’s not helpful to overwhelm someone with the hundreds of distros out there. So, we’ve developed a quick cheat sheet that walks you through a dozen beginner-friendly distros and shows how they compare across the four key areas that matter for a Linux newcomer. This should help you decide for yourself instead of simply listening to someone else’s opinions.

If you're new to Linux, or you've happily existed in Mint's easygoing ecosystem for years, you might want to hear what its downsides are. That comfortable feeling may cost you dearly.

I've used PuTTY for years. It's a great program that has lasted this long because it does one thing really well. When I need to connect to another computer over SSH, PuTTY gets the job done without a lot of extra stuff getting in the way. I know how it works, I trust it, and I've never had much reason to replace it.

If you're new to Linux and switching from Windows to Linux, there are some mistakes you want to avoid. Avoiding common beginner mistakes in Linux will put you ahead of the other Linux newbies.

I’ve been using Linux for many, many years now, but I still keep learning new things all the time. It seems like, no matter what task you’re running, there’s a faster way to do it. So I decided to start focusing on these speed gains to see just how fast my terminal life can be.

I've been an Arch user for five years, and it's been a love-hate relationship. I love having access to the AUR (Arch User Repository) and the hundreds of thousands of packages it brings with it, along with access to bleeding-edge updates as soon as they drop. But at the same time, I hate it when a buggy update just wrecks my system, not to mention the current malware mess with the AUR and all the headaches that come with it.

One reason that Linux has struggled to gain desktop users is the perception that the Linux desktop is a mess. Apps look too different from each other, and command-line elitists rule the system. The way the Linux desktop is the way it is largely stems from Linux's predecessor, Unix, and some design choices made in the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

I've been in the Windows camp for decades, and for years I thought Linux was simply harder to use. That was a pretty common view among Windows and Mac users, and for a long time, it was fair.

JSON has become a near-ubiquitous data format, used in API responses, save game files, and configuration. But many people feel it can be better, and various attempts have been made to expand or improve it. JSONC is one of those attempts.

Have you ever wondered why Arch Linux users can’t stop mentioning that they use Arch, by the way? Did you want to try Arch Linux yourself, but then saw the technically demanding installation process and told yourself, “Oh, that’s why”? Well, I’m happy to tell you that Arch Linux is no longer as hard to install as it used to be — and hasn’t been for some time now. Even if you don’t come from a technical background, you can install and set up Arch in an afternoon.

Arch Linux has a reputation for being an operating system you build for yourself rather than one that comes built for you. That’s genuinely its biggest strength, since you get to build a hyper-personalized system where every component is there because you chose it. At the same time, it’s also its biggest weakness, because you need to know how to build and manage the thing. That said, not all Arch distros are the same, and some require more babysitting than others. As such, here’s my list of the top 5 Arch options and Arch-based distros, ranked from the neediest to the least needy.

When I first switched to Linux from Windows, I was intimidated by the terminal. The black screen with its blinking cursor seemed archaic compared to Windows' polished GUI. Why would anyone choose to type commands when you could just click buttons? Oh, how wrong I was.

The cd command, short for “change directory,” is one of the most fundamental commands on Linux. It’s how you navigate the Linux terminal — moving between different working directories. That said, cd is an old-school way to navigate the Linux file system, and several modern alternatives have emerged that make the process faster and easier. Here’s a modern cd replacement that can help you navigate your file system with less typing and less guesswork.

A popular project is to install Linux on an old PC. While it's useful for keeping an old machine from the recycler, Linux isn't magic. It's a result of how Linux is designed.

You may have been using Windows for years. You might love it, hate it, or just wonder if there's a real alternative. Here are the reasons to tell if you've outgrown Windows and should consider checking out Linux.

For most people, a 25-year-old video patent expiring sounds like a piece of legal housekeeping that has nothing to do with their computers. But for Linux users, it removes one more obstacle that has historically made something as basic as playing a video more complicated than it should be. Here’s everything you need to know and what this means about your media usage.

Open-source software is wonderful: it's free, diverse, and surprisingly accessible. You might feel that software development is a secret world of privilege and insider knowledge, but OSS has made great strides to overturn this misunderstanding.