I’m going to replace my host os on my shitty laptop with Linux specifically puppy Linux or alpine Linux from scratch and I need to know how will I get started and make it easier for myself, I use a HP notebook 540
May I ask why you, as a beginner, specifically chose one of those distros instead of more “mainstream” ones?
Puppy Linux’s main use-case is to be a live ISO, that doesn’t need to be installed to run. It doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to install it, but I think if you want to use an Ubuntu derivative, there are better options for a beginner like Pop or Mint that would let you install a lightweight desktop environment like XFCE, LXDE, LXQt and so on.
Alpine Linux is specifically designed to avoid all the core system tools that are pretty much universal on most other distros like glibc, systemd or GNU tools and libraries, which will make your life hell as a beginner if you need to troubleshoot anything as most “universal” documentation like the Arch wiki would be at best partially relevant, at worst useless.
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Heck ya to Fedora, glad to see it recommended for a first time user. It’s not much more difficult than Mint, but you can also get into the weeds instead of having to find a new distro after Mint. Mint basically has permanent training wheels, while with Fedora you can pop em off whenever it’s convient.
Edit: Fedora is also a more up to date Alpine and it’s not directly controlled by Red Hat.
Fedora is also Wayland only, which I wouldn’t recommend to a newbie with an old laptop.
The KDE spin has x11, KDE is my go to DE everytime. So assumed that layer I guess.
https://repology.org/repositories/statistics says that Alpine Edge has a higher percentage of up-to-date packages.
I do agree that a new user should use something like Fedora first. But OP wants Alpine.
But Fedora is upstream of Alpine, right?