As the title states, I'm revamping myself in many ways currently, breaking all ties with the past, and forging a very intentional future - starting now.

That said, I've learned that the best way to accomplish anything is to talk to people already doing it.

Let me try to get to the point: -I've always been sympathetic to the free software movement, but I'm still uninitiated. -I'm looking for a bit of a speed-run but I've got plenty of IT experience which should allow for some recklessness. -I'm soliciting advice, whatever anyone is willing to give.

In essence: Let's say you were given the authority to tell everyone how the ought to go about coding/programming or even just engaging with technology.

More precisely: What should my set-up be?

Browser: FF I presume?

Editor: Vim? Atom?

Hardware Set-up: ??

Open-source projects to become involved with: ??

OS: Linux I know, but any specific distro you'd recommend for a fledgling coder?

Etc: etc?

Basically: I've become passionate about the free/open-source movement but I need a crash course on how to practice it. If you could go back in time and speed-run to where you are now what would you do?

I don't mind posting updates on my progress weekly/monthly whatever if you guys want to engineer me into a poster-child of libre. I'm specifically asking here because I think I've heard that whether something is labeled "open-source" or not really isn't the end of the story in previous attempts to educate myself on this.

Also: are there any methods of learning I should strictly avoid or absolutely pursue? For example, something generic like codeAcademy worth my time or should I just jump into a skillshare account or is there some holy grail of opensource learning I'm not in the know on?