Linux lives in thousands of different places across the globe and on the web. It is used by scientists, engineers, medical professionals, academics, and stay at home parents across the world. If you want to learn about the operating system which runs the majority of the internet, you have to start somewhere. These are the places where Linux is celebrated, and where you can learn to be a Linux expert yourself.
Why learn Linux at all? Doesn’t everything run on Windows and iPhones? No, not at all. Creating instant apps or a small website may be getting easier and easier, but the underlying technologies mostly still run Linux. And we can’t forget, your Android phone is Linux, too!
So don’t be daunted by the amount of information available about Linux and computers in general. All the experts started by starting small and building upon that knowledge. It’s worth it to learn about a system that carries the backbone of so much current and future tech.
An easy place to start is Linux.com’s Complete Beginners Guide to Linux.
There are so many Linux websites out there, it is hard to track them all! I will keep adding websites as I vet them.
News
OMG! Ubuntu! is one of the most beginner friendly websites for Linux. This website focuses on the Ubuntu Linux distribution and related flavors like Linux Mint. Along with news, it features many how-to articles for Linux and many other open source applications.
Linux.com is run by The Linux Foundation, and features news about all things free & open source. This includes Linux operating systems, desktop environments, software development, networking & security, and tutorials from fixing wifi to running a blockchain.
“Distros,” or Distributions, are individual flavors of Linux. They are maintained by independent teams yet all are based on the Linux kernel. DistroWatch is a website which monitors releases, updates, and news about many different Linux Distros.
Linux Insider is slightly more advanced and geared more to the industry professional. If you are interested in learning about Linux for work or to upgrade your career, this is a good place to start.
Linux Today is more of an aggregate site than a standalone blog, but it also has many independent features as well. Linux Today pulls information from news sites all over the internet so you don’t have to.
Reddit is a huge mixed bag and you shouldn’t believe most of what is on that website, but its techie sections are full of breaking news.
Slashdot is a popular tech news website, even if its past its heyday and lost much of its traffic to Reddit. Its comforting green glow has lit multiple generations of late nights. It hosts news across many STEM related fields, including Linux.
Tutorials
Ubuntu is part of the Debian distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and more), and shares many operating system components, libraries, and applications with its sister distributions. Aside from some user interface changes, many tutorials for Ubuntu will carry over to these other distributions.
Linux Command.org is a beginner’s guide to the Linux command line interface. While many Linux distributions no longer rely on the CLI, it is an extremely efficient way to perform many tasks in Linux. Learning some simple commands will make Linux use much faster and more intuitive.
How-To Geek Linux Section
How-To Geek has beginner to advanced levels of Linux tutorials, news, and tips for Linux users. One of its best features is its deep dives into individual commands used in the command line interface. It is more informative than the Bash shell reference, but with a longer and more in depth read.
HowtoForge is a tutorial website dedicated to Linux, and tends to be more technical and software development inclined. Their tutorials are concise and laid out like science experiments – all requirements are laid out at the top so there’s no surprises in the middle! This site is great for well documented, exact directions.
Linux Config is a website geared towards Linux system administrators and other IT professionals. Linux Config includes tutorials for the Bash scripting language, the one most popular Linux programming language Python, professional and home user Linux distributions, and more.
Reference
An A-Z Index of the Linux command line: bash + utilities
The Bash shell is the default command language used in many Linux distributions. This list of bash commands is a reference I use regularly. Everything that you can do in Linux can in instantiated by a command line in the terminal. Many tutorials cover how to use the bash shell.
The Arch Wiki contains loads of technical information that may help other Linux distributions. While I don’t use Arch (BTW)*, this is one of the best sites to troubleshoot software installation problems. Most pages include instructions for multiple software managers (if apt doesn’t work, try yum).
The Debian Wiki is much like the Arch Linux wiki, only specific for the Debian family of distributions. Debian is known for its stable, tested yet slightly older software. Since my distribution relies on Debian, I use this website to find any missing dependencies and stable application versions.
Linux Knowledge Base and Tutorial
The Linux Tutorial is a deep dive into the internals of Linux. The information starts out basic and branches into more advanced topics. If you want to learn how Linux works, start here.
Forums:
The Ubuntu Forums is one of the most active Linux forums on the web. Because so many users start with the Debian distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and more), it finds itself in high on this list. This forum is where to go for technical support. The patrons can help you set up your gaming rig, secure server, development sandbox, or your social media surfing daily driver. Since this Linux family overlaps so much, many issues from Linux Mint and Debian find their fixes here. This is the first place I search when I am fixing an issue – and I don’t use Ubuntu!
The Linux Mint Forums mostly serve the same needs as the Ubuntu Forum, but is specific to Linux Mint. It is newer and less robust than the Ubuntu Forums but it is quickly catching up.
* I joke.
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