Picture this: You’re downloading Linux after your friend recommended it to you; you listened to their arguments, you heard how much more privacy you’re gonna acquire, you heard how much more secure Linux is, you heard how much potential for customisation there is! Wow, you’re enamoured and totally sold on this suggestion that your friend has made.

You excitedly pick one of the suggestions your friend made (Ubuntu, Pop! OS, Mint), and wipe Windows forever, gone with that garbage! You now have this ultra private, secure, customisable beast of an OS loaded onto your hard drive.

Step 1: Denial

Your heart drops, when you realise you have no idea what is going on. Where’s Chrome? Where’s Microsoft Word? Can I use photoshop? What? You’re telling me I have to use the… gulp… command line? It can’t be! I’ve been duped. DUPED!

You’ve lost your familiarity, something you knew how to use for many years. You pressed familiar button, familiar thing happened. It’s uncomfortable and painful even to lose that. It’s even harder when you find out that something you’ve never used, is the very tool that is at the heart of Linux: the terminal.

I could begin by telling you how to use the terminal and why you need to use it, for example I could tell you that the terminal is one of the most powerful applications you’ll ever learn, and that once you’ve learned to use it, you’ll love it! I could tell you that it’s not that hard to change directory (cd Documents), that it’s easy to list (ls) files in the directory you’re currently in, and on and on…

But that would be endless. What I will tell you is that when you have learned these things, and some other useful terminal utilities like copy (cp filename.txt filename-copy.txt), move (mv file1.txt file1_renamed.txt), or steam locomotive (sl), you’ll have learned the basic building blocks of navigating through the terminal.

The terminal is not actually that hard, you just have to get used to it. It’s really just a bunch of keywords you need to memorise. They are not right in front of your eyes like they are in a gui, but once you know, you know, and once you know a lot, you have a single app open that can configure your entire system in a few keystrokes.

And btw, to download Chrome (just use Chromium, it’s the same but open source) you just need to type sudo apt install chromium-browser (on Ubuntu/Mint/Pop! OS), or sudo dnf install chromium (on Fedora).

Step 2: Anger

But WHY! Why do I have do lose this comfort? Why do I have to lose everything I’ve ever learned. I spent time learning Windows, or MacOS. I spent time learning Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Visual Studio, League of Legends, etc.

Why did my friend do this to me?

You’ve used Windows for what, 10 years? More? or MacOS for an equivalent amount of time? You’ve been conditioned into expecting certain things to work a certain way, and that’s okay - but just because certain things are implemented differently than in Windows, it doesn’t mean that the Linux way is worse!

Everybody when starting out at anything new or unfamiliar to them is bad at it. A Japanese ramen master not being able to make Pad Thai on their first try doesn’t call Pad Thai “impossible to make”, or “badly designed”. You’re a Windows/MacOS chef trying to make Pad Linux, of course you’re gonna fail a good few times.

Explore through the settings menus, look up “Linux file system” to see that every user has a home, and every system has a /, look through Linux discord servers, forums, learn the memes and terminology. Google what Arch is to know why so many people use it.

Step 3: Bargaining

“Maybe I can install Wine, and get my Photoshop back!”, “Maybe there’s a way around the anti-cheat that has been implemented to detect if you’re playing on Linux and not let you play League”.

No, there isn’t. You can go back to Windows, if you want. Many people do, and there’s no reason you can’t just reinstall, but then why would you be reading this post? If you’re not a professional, give GIMP a try, or give Dota 2 a try! Try out Libreoffice, it’s not bad at all. Even Google Docs is available on Linux, if you need something corporate.

Step 4: Depression

When we’re new at something, it can often feel like it weighs on us. Why keep going? Why not just quit and go back to our comforts? Many people are seemingly much better at Linux than I am, and I really just feel better when “it just works”, yknow? When I’m using Windows, I can just easily navigate through things without hassle, and even though I’ve learned some stuff on Linux, it’s just not the same :(

Step 5: Acceptance

I’m feeling good now, actually, about using Linux! It’s been quite a few good months, Googling around, getting comfortable. Hey, I even use Arch now btw!

I feel like I’m getting really comfortable flying through the terminal, I learned Vim, I don’t even use Chromium anymore, and I’ve found a desktop environment that I’m really enjoying. In fact, if I went back to Windows, I’m unsure if I would want to stay on Windows.

You go back to your friend and say, and say “thanks, I really enjoy Linux now. And although it was hard for me to learn, even painful at times, it really helped me broaden my perspective.” Your friend replies “Yeah but have you heard of NixOS?”