First thing, every time you see someone mention Windows, you immediately reply with a smug, self-congratulary and utterly irrelevant comment about Linux

That's all you need, off you pop

Mastadon is to Twitter as Lemmy is to Reddit. So you don't really follow topics, but you can follow people if you want (I never have) and you can join communities on the topics you're interested in. Some of the things you've mentioned, like Linux, are very popular/prolific here.

My advice is to set your browsing by All (and whichever of the other one makes sense to you; I usually do New, but sometimes one of the Top ones), then when you see something posted in a community that you're interested in, instead of clicking on the post, click on the community name. In the sidebar, you can subscribe to the community. After you've been doing that a while, if you want you can change your browsing to Subscribed.

There's also a Lemmy Explorer, and you can set it to Communities at the top and find the ones that are the most active or are on the subjects you're looking for.

Having your posts seen is mostly a matter of posting to active communities with engaging topics.

Welcome and good luck!

Welcome! Lemmy is organized into topics called "communities" which have different moderators and rules, but overall share a lot of culture and the same users.

Within communities, people can create topical posts and comment on posts or other comments. You can also vote up good content and down poor content, and higher rated content will be shown more prominently. If you're familiar with Reddit, it's a similar organizing principle.

There are lots of great apps that are quite diverse, and on multiple platforms. Be sure to check them out here!

Unless your really into it turn on the nsfw filter

Welcome! So the way Lemmy works is similar to how Reddit works. There are communities where people make posts and discuss telated topics. These communities can be as specific as a fandom for a certain book, movie, or video game, or as general as any meme that gets a giggle out of you. Luckily I am on jerboa too, so in the bottom left of the page there should be a magnifying glass that will let you search for any community you want. The majority of users here are pretty tech savvy, so the Linux and programming related communities are pretty active. Join the ones you like, block the ones you don't like. You can also change the posts you are browsing to see only posts from communities you are Subscribed to, to Local which is only communities in the server you made your account on, and All which is anything and everything. Be prepared to see a lot of NSFW if you browse by all. Have fun and if you have any more questions, I'm sure anyone will be willing to help how they can and recommend new communities. I'm a big fan of Non-Credible Defence, but it is definitely not for everyone

Welcome! Have you installed Linux yet?

Welcome. I am pretty new myself but I am slowly learning how to navigate the site. Linux is very popular here so if you browse all I’m sure you’ll find some good communities.

If you want something specific go to the search and type c/ With the name of what you want to find. For example c/Linux. You won’t find anything if it isn’t exact but you’ll get some good ones.

Welcome to CCP propaganda... I mean Lemmy

Quality shit post.

Lemmy is a federated Reddit-style Social Media platform like Mastadon is to Twitter/X.

Your instance should be one focused on that which interests you, like Lemmy.ml for FOSS and Privacy, or programming.dev for programming, etc. Shop around and find one with a good community you like that is federated with instances you also like. This means your Local Feed will have your interests.

You want one that is federated with other instances you want to see, so you can browse All for general content.

Finally, you can manually create your own feed by subscribing to communities you want, and browsing by Subscribed.