I tried prelude and a few other starter kits, but still had trouble because the starter kits change the default behaviors, which can be confusing when trying to troubleshoot or find answers. I personally feel its better to start "vanilla" and understand the various Emacs concepts.
The built-in tutorial is good. It gets you through the basics of navigating.
Even after having used it for a few years, I enjoyed Mastering Emacs [1]. There are several "getting started" articles on the website and if you find them helpful, the book is also good, in my opinion.
Print out one of the many reference cards available (the official one is available on the Gnu website [2]).
Try org-mode [3], which is built in. It's extremely useful and a gateway to emacs.
[1]:https://www.masteringemacs.org/
[2]:https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/refcards/pdf/refcard.pdf
EDIT: Oh, and for remote hosts, I find it easiest to connect with Emacs, rather than connect and try to run Emacs from the remote host.