this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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If you really want the deep dive, look into LFS (Linux from scratch), besides that I've always been the learning by doing kind of guy. Got a problem? Search a solution and read up on the intricacies of the problem
I can also suggest installing gentoo if LFS is a bit much, which is understandable. It won't have as much direct information as LFS but if you look up everything you don't understand and follow all the links you'll get a fairly good concept of the thing
Hey, I will try to ubderstand LFS and build it myself. If it's much harder than I expected it to be, i will install gentoo. What about arch? Why install gentoo instead of arch? The installation process of gentoo will teach me about linux, the same could be said about arch?
Absolutely, arch will teach you quite a bit. Not nearly as much as Gentoo though. If you're going for learning how things work at a core level Gentoo is a fantastic place, though of course LFS will be better though more involved. I'm glad you're willing to take the harder path though!
As for arch, it'll teach you about mounting, user management, partitioning and partition management, an overview of how to set up a system and a few of the options available, and make you more comfortable with the command-line. With a few exceptions, that's about it. you can understand what makes arch arch in less than a day.
As for Gentoo, it's a guided experience that will teach you all of that but much, much more than arch will. With arch you could look more into it, and arch will be very well documented on what to do, but Gentoo will lay out the choices clearer with an explanation as to why. What is SystemD and why would you use something else (or, why you need so much to replace one thing?) How is networking built up? how do package managers work? What different kernels are available and why would you use them? What file system should you use? How does networking work on Linux? How do you install a tarball? What are firmware and microcode?
Just look at the index (legend?) on this page Gentoo Wiki and then this page Arch Wiki (on the left.) You'll see how much more Gentoo goes over
To be clear, I use arch on my main system, it's a fantastic OS and I'll likely use it until the heat death of the universe, but installing Gentoo, following the links, and searching up what I don't understand has taught me much more. LFS will, of course, teach you essentially everything though. It's a great option, and you're in for a fantastic journey. Once you're done you'll be the most impressive person in the room, if that room is full of us linux nerds
New life goal unlocked.
To make the learning process much more enjoyable, I'am going to try one of the OS'es either arch or gentoo. Which one will best for as a beginner? As gentoo has much more wiki than arch, which one will best suit for beginners(like me) to trying to understand things? Are there some resources, where I can learn some very basic stuff like about package manager, linux kernel, etc(if there, please share it here) and then it would be good if I go onto the installation and then onto the LFS thing. Learning linux would be a fantastic journey!
As a beginner I installed Arch manually to learn things and was kind of disappointed. The only hard thing was to understand the partition system, so it's more or less the only thing I learnt. Sure there were pieces of other things learnable, but it was small things.
Now I want to try to install Gentoo.
I'd argue gentoo isn't the worst thing to do even as a beginner, but installing arch would likely be the best first step as it's shorter and you're more likely to get it running first try. You also don't have to compile.
As for other resources, though I prefer reading and doing, youtube might help. Specifically, chris tituss tech's linux basics playlist or learn linux TV playlist on the subject. Another great resource is to just read the
manpage for and specific commandOther than that, install in a virtual machine and start breaking things. Finding the solution will likely teach you quite a bit
Hey, thanks for the great suggestion. Looked onto it and it's great to build your own linux. I think that's really the essence of linux, the freedom to build it on your own.
no joke it's how I learned linux, bootstrapping a gentoo install from the toolchain on up, with a printed manual. it's surprisingly effective, if time-consuming (took me about 2 weeks to get to a booted system, though most of that was compilation time - took ages back then).
One more tip, if you already have a Windows environment, spin up VMs with Hyper-V and start from there. Anytime you mess up, just nuke the VM and spin up another one. I must have burnt through hundreds of VMs (hyperbole) while testing out distros that I like.
Another vote for LFS. I like that it is really at the right level of depth (assuming that you already have a basic grasp of computing in general). Even if you end up going with a distro, reading through LFS gave me insights as to why certain things were done in certain ways. Alot of "quick-start" style guides tell you what command to type in, but for brevity reasons, they don't explain what the command does. For example, you may come across many guides tell you to type
sudoorsedorechoor|or>>. It may seem daunting at first, but gradually as you become more at ease with the CLI, all these will start to make sense.