Anyone else using Reaper?

I started trying to use it and I found it really difficult. I know there are many many hours of tutorial videos I can watch but that will take many hours… I put some time into it this winter and got stuck on trying to understand how to use the routing matrix. I have a many-channel I/O DC sound card (ES-9) which presents itself to the OS as a 16-channel sound card where only some of the channels are used and all the channels have surprising numbers, and trying to set it up with Silent Way I needed to map channel 8 to channel 1. I spent a bunch of time trying to follow the directions and I just wound up making Autechre album covers.

So I guess this is kind of negative but what I'm saying is I'm still interested in using Reaper, and I'd be super interested in Reaper resources, communities etc so I could claw my way up into proficiency. I'd like a DAW I can use after I switch to Linux, I'd like to make full use of my audio interface and I need to learn how to use a "compressor" so my tracks can sound good :)