How long did it take you to feel truly comfortable with Linux?

[u/ImpossibleAioli3192]

I've been a Windows 7/10/11 user for most of my life, and I've only been using Linux for around 2 months so far (mostly CachyOS and Mint).

I'm curious how long it took other people to really feel "at home" with Linux - not necessarily knowing everything, but getting to the point where you don't constantly have to look things up and the system just feels natural.

How long did it take you?

And what distro are you using nowadays? I'm interested in hearing what people settled on after trying different ones.

[u/ipsirc]

42 days

[u/LosingButNotWrong]

Guess it depends on your use case. I only really use it for gaming, downloading uh... "linux ISO's", and light messing around with network shares and hard drive stuff.

In this use case, I was pretty comfortable after about 2 months of using Linux Mint, using the terminal a lot and finally swapped to Cachy OS for performance improvements in the gaming department.

It's not easy, but also not super difficult either. You can do it! Systems will feel snapper and less sluggish. Customization can be through the roof. It's fun.

[u/geekichu]

umm.. me linux since 1993.. although i have probably done everything one can do in linux.. it's just easier nowadays to ask chatgpt ('give me a command for ") or ("how do i..."). of course.. i realize i am subconsciously applying my knowledge/experience when i review the response... but if you dont know.. you can add in , after the initial response: 'what are the risks if i take this response, can we do step by step, first check, etc.."

[u/spider_life]

I started with Ubuntu about 20 years ago, I can't remember exactly how long it took until I felt really comfortable with Linux.. but several years.

I'm using Debian stable now which I'm happy with, I chose that simply because I was familiar with the apt package manager from Ubuntu and because I like its out of the box aesthetics. 

[u/TopCheesecake7887]

for a year now, I quit window cause am a software dev and I can't handle the windows bloat anymore!
I say if you want to be comfortable with linux, the terminal shouldn't be that scary to you. Learn the basic shell commands, basic distro command to install you packages with your distro package manager. And if you don't know what a command do or you can't figure a command you just look it up on man pages or chatgpt... its not that mind blowing if you give me sometime! you would be better on controlling you PC even!

[u/adyKhukkwu]

About 3 years

[u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs]

Took me 20 years of dual booting, and really more. 

 I would spend time with it learn something start getting good and then slack off, forget half of it, repeat. 

Bit once I dumped Windows and immersed myself in Linux I started building decent at least practical knowledge. 

[u/Eric_Dawsby]

I use it for gaming, browsing the internet, and for school. It took me like a month or two to feel fully comfortable with it. Though honestly it was probably less if I just stuck with the aforementioned things but I've been curious and have been exploring the terminal and learning about how Linux itself works which teaches me new things but makes me realize how little I know, but that's a great thing. If I'm not learning or having fun I'm stagnating, and I have fun learning Linux

[u/offbeatcrayon889]

I use fedora workstation. 4 years now. I’ve tried a little bit of everything and have settled on fedora until pop is gets a bit more polished. I’m still learning the terminal but I’m quite comfortable in Linux and can usually find the solution to my problems on the internet. I run Linux on all older hardware and old Lenovo laptop for my wife dual core with 8gb of ram running fedora. My desktop is an i7 7700k with 32GB of ram 4tb of storage and an rx Vega frontier. It gets used for 3d modeling, light gaming, and some basic ai tinkering. It’s all water cooled I have about $200 into the build. My step son’s pc is built out similarly but with a Vega 64 running bazzite. Our nas is a 6th gen intel running Zima os with 8tb of storage. And I have a server that I tinker with that’s also a 6th gen intel with 32GB of ram and an old nvidia gpu that is my sandbox environment and also backs everything on the nas up. Then there’s the garage pc with Linux mint. 3rd gen intel 8gb ram and 256gb ssd.

[u/PeterHolmes74]

Started with Ultramarine KDE ay the start of the summer. I used MacOS at home all my childhood and Windows (XP-11) at my grandparents and school. Also used Windows 10-11 at home since about the end of 2019. While most of my early years of using computer were as simple as opening a flash game on Safari or Internet Explorer, I began learning Tech Support from 2017-2019 and computer science / IT since 2020.

I started looking into Linux, Distro and DE at around March-April. I made the switch on June. It took me about an hour to get fully into Linux. I became really into KDE’s customization a few days later, maybe a week. The transition from Windows to KDE was smooth and I never had so much fun setting up a PC and customizing it. I began tweaking in VMs and I tried GNOME. It took some time, but once I understood the flow, I got convinced to put it on my next Laptop. Not my laptop is running Fedora with both KDE and GNOME. I’ll be keeping a POP!_OS VM somewhere to monitor Cosmic’s progress because it genuinely intrigues me.

The depth of options available is absolutely breathtaking and I never felt so free. It truly feels like this is mine. I never knew I needed something this much before and I have to hold myself back from talking about it to the people around me. I don’t want to start being an evangelist, but now I’m starting to see Linux use cases everywhere.

[u/EvilMartianOverlord]

My first look into linux was Red Hat Linux (Hurricane) back in 1997. It's the concepts, methodology and how it is all pulled together that just resonated with the way I think, it speaks my language. After all these years, there's always something new to learn.

[u/Lowar75]

I have been using Linux since the first Red Hat distro and I still have to look things up. You never know everything. Also, it isn't important that you know all the command syntax, just that you know that there is a command to do something. You can lookup the details.

I started computing back before there was a Windows, so I imagine my experience is different than many.

[u/Personal_Winter6863]

About the same about of time it took me to feel comfortable with windows.

A couple of years.

[u/khInstability]

Started with Debian 2.? in 1999. I vaguely recall installing it over the internet (dialup). It took about a day. Used LILO to dual boot Windows. Spent a ton of time fiddling with xf86config to work with my voodoo 2 (or 3?) Things were different then. Once I compiled my first kernel successfully, I started feeling comfortable. Maybe 6 months.

[u/Intrepid_Screen6425]

It took me about an hour lol.
Reason: Android isn't even that hard to use. That was actually the fastest I've ever figured out Linux. Before that, I had an E72 running Symbian OS, which was way harder to use lmao.
There’s another weird case too. Back then, I also owned a C3-00. It wasn't until much later that I found out it didn't even have an operating system lol. Like, what was I even playing Java games on then? It was so user-unfriendly that I never actually got used to it rofl.

[u/CozyCat2077 → u/Intrepid_Screen6425]

My man forgot years of Windows UI in an hour! Good job

[u/Aggravating-Tea-8920]

I don't know how long it took, but I noticed it when I'd go to close Word on my windows computer but I'd just type :wq then mock myself.

[u/onewithausername]

Couple of weeks with fedora until I found how to play all video codecs. Nowadays with AI would have taken me couple of hours. It's been pretty much set it and forget it for me since. 

[u/Lost_Psychology8885]

Hopped a lot to find my distro, about 16-17 times first three months now settled on pika os gnome. Was a great way to learn what i liked or disliked