First installation advice (from another novice)
 

Hoping this post can save someone 100s of hours in lost productivity and downtime.

If I could make just 3 suggestions to someone starting out with linux they would be

1-Stick with a novice friendly distro such as Ubuntu LTS(latest version would be 16.04, NOT 16.10). Choice of actual shell and or DE is less important

2- After your setup is complete and everything works as it should do NOT install anything via command line UNLESS YOU ARE 1000% SURE IT WON'T BRICK YOUR SETUP!
Rely if at all possible on Software & Updates in Ubuntu. This especially applies to nVidia drivers.

3- Always make backups BEFORE doing any major installs.

i wholeheartedly and 100% agree with all 3 points!
i wish more people would read & consider this!