>>1446496I'd recommend trying out Mint or Ubuntu on a system you have to spare. Play around with it from time to time. Browse teh 4channel on it. Lurk on /g/. Check out Mental Outlaw's Linux tutorials.
>less bloated OSEvery 'Just werkz' distro comes with a little bloat. Not as much as Windows, but there are still some programs or utilities you don't really need, or won't be using because you'll choose to use something else. Minimal installs are pretty, well, minimal. Check out Arch's wiki once you feel ready and/or want to check it out.
>minimalist layout but that's optionalCheck out window managers once you've gotten comfortable using the command line and editing config files.
Don't feel like you need to go 100% libre software, that's what's so great about Linux--the freedom to choose what you want to do with your system. You can set up your system to be 100% libre and look like a nonce, or you can set up your system to be gigapozzed and have tonnes of spyware on it. The choice is entirely yours. That also means that you can fuck up your system--or at the very least your install and data--if you're not careful.
Here are some resources that aren't important:
https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Babbies_First_Linuxhttps://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/GNU/Linux_ricing 
