Any good tutorials for learning linux internals out there? I'm baffled by what are /etc, /opt, and so forth...

Seriously swimming in murky waters for now.

Also, what are your launchers of choice? I am contemplating should I dig into unity / dash, or try smth else?

@linuxxx

"launchers" it's called desktop environments :)
I personally like KDE Plasma and Deepin but those can be quite heavy. I'm having some screen tearing on gnome :/

To understand them try to mess around with it (in a vm so you don't fuck yourself over). I don't think there's a better way unfortunately

@dontPanic I have mixed feelings about this.

@olezhka you'll eventually get there 8)
How about trying out arch linux? I learned a whole lot by just installing and then setting it up

@olezhka
BTW. Tags only work in comments. There you go.

@linuxxx

I'm mostly into Cinnamon myself but just search around for which DE suits you!

@linuxxx every time I see your name I want to make sex puns. But I will refrain because I need those sweet Linux brains. Trying to figure out if I wanna make a kodi box and how.

@olezhka @linuxxx

I'd vote for cinnamon as well, it's probably the most familiar when starting out in Linux.

For directories, the most important ones are probably:

/home/username (aliased with ~),
/etc (configurations),
/mnt (mounted storage)
/bin, /usr/bin, /usr/share/bin (apps)
/var/log (log files).

A lot of stuff happens in "dotfiles" as well, your home directory contains hidden files and folders starting with a period. This is how a lot of configs are stored, from your terminal settings to your browser profile.

Just set this as a wallpaper for a week:
https://i.imgur.com/1EJLOqd.png

@bittersweet brilliant, thanks man!!!

@projektaquarius Yes, you want to make a Kodi box. The answer to that is always yes.

How? Take a Raspberry Pi, a decade old iMac, a freshly built HTPC, or a Toaster, and install Kodi.

If you have multiple rooms you like to be entertained in, build a home server (or NAS), and connect all Kodi machines to it.

I have no cable sub anymore, every room has a large display with a Chromecast for Netflix, and a small Kodi box connecting to a home server which stores everything from my VHS/DvD/etc collections.

You can use a tool like Tinymediamanager or Filebot to manage metadata on your media. They can automatically rename & organize files, tell you which episodes you're missing, and sync banners, posters, trailers and subs.

Cinnamon, especially with a bit of tweaks