Have a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63LIr5OAlDs
I love darktable but I am not a big fan of the importing function. It was the one thing I really liked about Lightroom and no other DAM works quite like how I’m used to doing it in Lightroom…so for now, even though I no longer subscribe, I still use LR as my DAM for importing photos into my folder structure because the Library mode still works (just the Develop mode no longer works).
Once I sort and cull in LR, I then open darktable, under “Import” open the folder I want to work on, do edits, and color code finished and exported ones, delete anything I no longer need, then under “Collect Images” I choose “folder” and remove the folder. I had a couple of crashes when I had a ton of images imported at once so now I only do it one folder at a time.
digikam looked like the best alternative but I found it took a long time to load. It also doesn’t do my most favourite feature of LR’s Library mode which is ability to color code a folder (not just the images within the folder).
And keep checking out pixls.us - great advice and support for newbies like us throughout the site from some very dedicated people.