Although its just another OS, linux does have a major learning curve for the common GUI enjoyer like me.
When you all were first learning linux, did you have a specific resource you learned from? Was it more like doing projects and learning on the way through forums?
Probably the first time I used Linux for any period of time, I was about 10 and wasn’t able to get a copy of windows for my PC. So I installed Linux on it (probably Ubuntu) and played games on it, not a great time, especially then and at that age. Fast-forward to about 5 years ago, and I started using Linux again for my development work, everything was so much easier to do there.
Since then, I switched to Linux only about 4 years ago and couldn’t be happier. It also helped me push more left and here, with Linux, I took interest in FOSS community, which led me to lemmy → lemmygrad. Now I couldn’t live without the customizability and ease of use of my desktop, whenever I am forced to use anything else it is a painful experience.
With learning, at least for me, it was just about using it. If you choose some “easy” distribution you will have a pretty easy time, I would say it is no harder than using Windows. For example, with Mint I am pretty sure you can configure basically everything with GUI, so you don’t have to use terminal if you don’t want to. But if you want to do something more advanced terminal is really great, once you learn to use it, it is much faster and easier than using GUI. But if you really want to tinker and customize I would pick something more involved (probably arch), stuff will break, and you will have to fix it, but that is how you get better.
I would recommend same resources that were already mentioned, mainly ArchWiki and GentooWiki those are probably best sources even if you don’t use those distros.
If you’re shifting from a distro that you got bored with, like Ubuntu (libs are outdated on LTS releases, so compiling stuff on it can be a PITA), and just wanna try something that you can tinker a bit more, but not break often, I would actually recommend Void (and BTRFS with snapshots of course). This, plus the fact that it has amazing tools/scripts that automate most of the building process is why it’s my personal preference. Arch is too cutting edge, stuff break often. Void is kinda this sweet spot. It’s rolling release, but not as bleeding edge as Arch. They’d rather opt for stability instead of bleeding edge, that is what I also like.
I really enjoyed using Gentoo, it was my daily driver for about two years, but currently I am trying out NixOS and it is rather interesting. Both of those have been really stable (especially Gentoo) whilst still being rolling distros.