Using Linux for the first time

Permanently Deleted

Like the others, I suggest you stick to a distro designed for desktop use (Ubuntu, Fedora etc), you'll have a much easier time.

If you really want to go with something closer to "scratch made" I'd recommend Arch. Its documentation is killer and you can build a system suited to your requirements.

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.

use linux mint or pop os

For starters, consider another distro if you want to make things easy on yourself. Alpine is probably a poor choice unless you have a reason to use it. I guess you could use it as a desktop if you really want to, but it’s more geared for containers and embedded devices. It uses musl instead of glibc so you will have problems running software that isn’t packaged for Alpine. The issue with Puppy is you will have a hard time getting help when you need it because it’s kind of a niche distro.

For your first time, you’re better off using something more mainstream. You are going to run into some issues and it’s a lot easier finding solutions for popular distros. Debian would be a fine choice because it’s widely used and runs great on older hardware. Beyond that, you could look at Ubuntu, Fedora, PopOS and Mint.

I'd recommend against any of those choices.

• Puppy Linux: It's a solid live boot environment but it's not really ideal in comparison to the major distros on a permanent install.
• Alpine Linux: Since it uses musl instead of glibc, you're likely to run into problems
• Linux from scratch: Going through LFS is a great way to get a solid understanding of Linux, but unless you want to spend more time maintaining your system than using it, it's going to be a frustrating experience.

Try one of the distros others have suggested.

Edit: I checked the specs on that hardware and yeah that's going to struggle. Maybe Alpine would be ok. It's fairly easy to spin up and might be fun to play with on that hardware. You'll probably want a fairly large swap if you're planning on using a desktop environment.

It seems your machine has 4GB of RAM, in which case you can run KDE (for example) quite comfortably and don't necessarily need a lightweight-focused desktop environment. So I'd say to go with a popular distro, as the other comment suggested, and not a niche one. Then pick the DE you like from videos/screenshots.

Permanently Deleted

You can install any general purpose distro (debian, opensuse or one of that others suggested) with a lighwwight DE (LXQT, Xfce, MATE) and it will work well. However when you run a browser and open several tabs with heavy websites it will become very slow. It does not matter what distro you use. You need 8G+ of RAM for comfortable web serfing nowadays.

My Linux knowledge isn't what it used to be, but I believe you can easily make a thumb drive with a bootable distro. I would recommend taking whatever you choose for a test drive before you wipe a working system. That way you can see if there's any weird stuff that doesn't want to work.

Since it’s your first time, my first suggestion is to try Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE desktop) or Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE desktop and generally more popular than Xubuntu). Both distributions are lighter on resources and they have an Ubuntu base which means there’s a ton of documentation online so if you run into problems, you will have plenty of resources.

Alpine is small for sure but it is more niche and it doesn’t use systemd which most major distributions use which means if you happen to run into weird issues, your pool of resources will be smaller. Don’t get me wrong, Alpine is great but I wouldn’t recommend it for new users. I don’t know anything about Puppy Linux; maybe it’s fine?

If your machine can’t run Xubuntu or Kubuntu, then worry about trying more niche distros like Alpine or Puppy.

If you run into issues, feel free to ask questions. The community is generally nice but you’ll want to try fixing it yourself first and then including what you tried in your post to get a better reception.

Embrace the terminal. It’s daunting at first but it’s such a powerful tool. Don’t use sudo with every command. Don’t paste random command in the terminal without doing a little research to understand what they do. Again, ask if you need help, you won’t learn everything overnight.

Good luck!

Edit: Linux Mint is also probably a good choice. Never used it myself but I’ve heard good things.

Different distros are better for different things. For example, some require give you more control over the OS but are more difficult to learn, or require learning more things at once. Others will be easier to try out but may make choices on your behalf that you don't like - or distribute software in ways you don't like.

Linux from Scratch will have a fairly steep learning curve. Nothing wrong with that, but you'd want to prepare yourself to be cool with things breaking or not making sense for a while.

Puppy Linux is minimalist, which is something people usually only want after they've tried out something else that's not minimalist. I would recommend trying out something more general-purpose and try out different desktop environments and applications first.

If you go with Alpine, the general setup instructions should be OK and similar to other distros.

Get the image on a USB, boot from USB, run setup-alpine and choose system-disk mode. Possibly encrypted if you think you need that.

After install you'll be dropped to the terminal again.

There are some post install notes here https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation#Post-Installation but you can run setup-desktop and get it to install a usable Xfce desktop, for example.

The LXQt DE is a good choice for older devices. The wiki has a guide for it but needs a slight update. It should still work but may require switching to edge.

Puppy Linux is a fine choice too if your computer is a little on the old side. Lite, Peppermint, Trisquel, antiX, and a slew of others are worth looking at.

Try Zorin OS, it has cool design, and is pretty stable because it has an outdated kernel and stuff.