I'm new and don't know what to do

Support and Help
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Hello! everyone its very nice to be here and be able to finally be getting on the right track lol any and or all first timers advice welcome plz lol thank you and have great day everyone

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Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse :slight_smile:

Please tell us what you need help with.

We also need to know what Ubuntu version you are using and computer specs.

The more you tell us, the easier it will be to help.

You can hopefully find answers to some of your questions here:

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Most new linux users need to make a list of what Windows programs they are using and then google for the best linux based program to do the same task. The question “what do I do now” has to start with “what did I do then”. One of the great benefits of linux is all of the free software. Decide what you were doing with Windows and in most cases you can use the Ubuntu App Store to install an appropriate linux based substitute. What version of linux you are using is not very important. The software runs on them all (in most cases). If you can solve your software choices you should be on the right path. How to use the terminal will be the second challenge, but get your software worked out first.

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Hello and welcome.

Not sure if you have a specific problem or just want general help.

Some things that helped me when I was just switching over from Windows:

https://explainshell.com/
Helps explain commands. It’s nice to use instead of running random commands given by the internet when you’re not sure exactly what they do.

The “man” command
Gives you lots of good information on commands. You can use it like:

man <command>

you can even:

man man

There’s a book called The Linux Command Line by William Shotts available at:
https://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php
It’s available as a PDF for free and really helped me de-mystify the Linux command line.

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Rather than dropping you in the deepend I looked at your profile 
 “been able to spend a lot of time at home with kids now”. Rather than getting entwined in command language start on tools for children.
There is a version of Ubuntu call Edubuntu for education. And if you just use your browser take a look at WolframAlpha for education. There is also a site I refer to to gain experience in Linux apps 
 it is rollapp.com. But there is a subscription after playing with one app at a time. Get some experience with your kids then install on your Ubuntu. Just some ideas.

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Ubuntu is designed to be easily discoverable.
Most new folks don’t really need much advice.
You can ignore all the clickbait about “what to do next.”

Ubuntu is designed to be safe.
Anything dangerous will generally ask you for your password.
So if something asks for your password, you know what that means.

Ubuntu is designed to be secure.
You can ignore all the clickbait about how to “harden” it.
Ubuntu is famous for its frequent, automatic, seamless security updates – already enabled.

Simply use it the way it seems designed to be used.
You will be fine.
Just use it.

We’re here if you have questions.

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I need help to start a question/topic. I’ve found my way to logs of everything I’ve done (very little so far) but not to anywhere to ask a question. I joined in order to learn what to do having been alerted to an internal error in Ubuntu 24. 04 (on macbook air). The report describes the ‘unreportable reason’ for the error as outdated apt, apt-utils, & lib-apt-pkg6.0t64. So I updated and upgraded and was told that these 3 items & others were not upgraded - their upgrade was deferred due to phasing error. What to do now? Should I worry?

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Upgrade deferred due to phasing