this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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I would say that Arch is not the best distro to learn the ins and outs of Linux. Arch is comparable to Void in that both are rolling-release distributions and require comfort with the command line.
Gentoo goes a step further by allowing you to tweak CPU-specific and software compile-time options before building packages from source. Then you have PLD Linux, whose installation process demands a strong understanding of the system and its internals.
A step further down is CRUX, which leaves you with the bare essentials - essentially just the kernel. You need to manage repositories yourself to a significant extent.
Finally, we arrive at Linux From Scratch (LFS), which is somewhat similar to CRUX, but with an even more hands-on approach. With LFS, you must manually install virtually everything, including the toolchain, libraries, and basic utilities.
So, from Arch to LFS, there's still a huge gap in terms of how deeply you engage with the system.
Finally, what does it really mean to “learn Linux”? You can learn Linux with any distro, but when you are using a distro, you are mostly just learning that particular distro.