[Carry_Okie]

5. You'll find help everywhere

Like anything these days, help is just a google search away. And you'll find plenty of sites dedicated to helping people with Linux (such as ZDNET).

I have trust issues. When looking for help, I don't know which sites are sufficiently trustworthy that I won't be whelmed with spyware. It costs a lot of time making that determination. Is there a resource that lists trustworthy sources of Linux information?

[fretzer]

>I don’t know which sites are sufficiently trustworthy that I won’t be whelmed with spyware.

Stick with a major distro and use their package manager to install applications and updates. If you choose to install software which is not managed by your distro’s package manager, then you assume the risk involved.

Major distros include:

Ubuntu
Centos
Debian
Gentoo
Arch
Redhat

[ShadowAce]

When looking for help, I don't know which sites are sufficiently trustworthy that I won't be whelmed with spyware.

I use NoScript and AdBlock plus on my browser. That prevents anything from being DL'ed that I didn't asked for.

[Openurmind]

Look at this thread... Linux users are Clan and Tribe, they jump in to help each other at the drop of a hat.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Here is someone on Telegram who has Linux help and courses.

https://t.me/jeffrey_peterson

[Pollard]

That's why I chose Ubtuntu based OSes because it's the biggest. Do a web search for "How to _______ in Ubuntu" using duckduckgo and you're likely to have the top answer/result be from stackexchange or the Ubuntu docs/forums.

Stackexchange/stackoverflow are both good because they're vote ranked answers. askubuntu.com is an extension of that and half the time it will show on that special instant answer box to the right of the results, just like the wikipedia info box below. Ubuntu.com is the official ubuntu site of course.

380,000 questions means your question has likely been asked/answered.

Spyware? I remember that. I quit Windows when I saw the Win 8 desktop. It looked like something designed for a child. I had been running both Win XP and Ubuntu for a while at the time. Of course now I use a computer at work and have had to learn my way around Win 10. Having to have patience too but I guess it's ok to be paid to wait on an operating system? Doesn't help that most programs they use are online. I'd say 7% of my computer time is spent watching a progress bar/spinner graphic.

So nice to get home to Kubuntu and have everything near instantaneous. When I shut down my PC to head to work in the morning, I have to make sure I have everything in hand because I'm going to lose the light of the PC in under 5 seconds from clicking Shutdown.

I will say webcam support in Ubuntu sucks. There is no place in Settings to choose your webcam hardware. The built in webcam on this laptop is junk and I can't choose my Logitech USB webcam as default instead. Sometimes I get lucky and the web app will prompt me for permission to access the webcam and give me a choice as to which one I want to use.