How to learn linux?

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

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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

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- I think they should try learning the basics with an easy to use and install distro (learning cmd like cd, lsblk, ls, ln...) then if they want more try to install arch Linux using the arch-install, then installing arch linux manually, and the diving into gentoo and then into LFS if they really want the time! (Also, for gentoo and lfs i'd recommend having a really good computer to make compilation time slower!)
  
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- 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?
  
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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.

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- 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).
  
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- 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 sudo or sed or echo or | 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.
  
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- 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.
  
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IMO running through a Gentoo installation is a great way to learn.

The handbook is well documented and walks you through all of the steps that an installer would traditionally do.

You can do it in a VM or bare metal if you're feeling adventurous!

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Yeah, Gentoo is a good way to get your hands dirty. Reading the guide and trying to dig in deeper as to what you're doing will give you a decent understanding of Linux.

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Even manually installing Arch is a good way to understand the parts of a Linux system, stuff like users, package management, etc. Without heating your house all summer compiling the kernel.

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Gentoo install keeps coming up - what does it do ? What does it offer ?

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- Gentoo itself is "just" a very solid distro with lots of flexibility due to being source-based (most distros just deliver the resulting binaries), so if you're the kind of person that would customize the things Gentoo exposes, Gentoo makes it easier than it would be on Debian or Arch. If not, it's an added complexity for not much benefit.
  
  The Gentoo installation guide famously doesn't shy away from explaining what needs to be done, it isn't just a series of step-by-step instructions. For this reason it's a great way to start learning this stuff. Even if it won't explain everything completely, it will surely point at the right direction.
  
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- The standout feature of Gentoo is its configurability; you can configure portage, the package manager, to enable and disable features of a package at build time.
  
  Say you don't have Bluetooth. You can just exclude Bluetooth from every package by setting the use flag globally:
  
  */* -bluetooth
  
  it can even manage dependencies, a good example is picking pipewire over pulse.
  
  It's also easy to package software that isn't in the official repos - here's a post where I did just that.
  
  The community is fantastic and supportive, and you can often get a near immediate response in IRC.
  
  Finally the documentation is excellent, especually the handbook.
  
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And for more in depth explanation of compilation, patches etc. consider LFS, or at least reading the 'book' on https://linuxfromscratch.org/

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I found that, at the cost of a few months of absolute suffering, using Gentoo as my first distro fasttracked my Linux learning.

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A good way is to build Linux from scratch. It gives you a totally new perspective of not just Linux but any operating system and is a lot of fun! https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

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Fun weekend project for the whole family !

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- Just type a bunch of stuff, then play with your kids as it compiles!
  
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Heres a tl;dr of some "must learn" things in order to use GNU/Linux in an acceptable fashion;

Package manager (how to install, remove, clean old packages)
The "know-hows" (Which package goes for audio, video card, webcam, etc)
How to make a minimal/baremetal installation (Which is a very simple process nowadays -- it takes only one package to do this)

Thats it.

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Yep, having stumbled around and learned many of this the hard way (guided by a knowledgeable friend) it was a big headache, however it's stuff I'm not going to forget anytime soon.

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How linux works is a nice read, tells a bit about what's going on under the hood.

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Hey, learning through book is great, but how is it better than installing gentoo, arch or through LFS. What would be the best way to actually understand how linux works

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- Well, the way I like to learn is: First read a book. And then get the actual thing and play around with it.
  
  This way around you're doing it a bit more methodical. And more effective than just fooling around. But the experience and exercise with the thing itself is also super important. You'll get practical experience and this is often the time you understand why things are a certain way and really start to understand details.
  
  In case of linux: Read the mentioned book. Install a distro without an automatic installer (arch, gentoo, ...). You'll need to read the documentation while doing this. Use Linux daily for a year. Install a webserver, fileserver, ... And if you want to dig down all the way, get through the Linux From Scratch process (but don't start with that, and I don't recommend it either. It's mostly hard work and boring details nobody needs to know.).
  
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What I did back in the day when I started Unix was mostly explore.

I looked at what was in /bin and read their manpages, or just browsed manpages to see what did what (your desktop manager will probably have a help browser nowadays that makes this much easier, in KDE it's the Help Center), and generally experimented with stuff.

Poking at things to see what they do is probably the best way, especially on a system that's not production. Also there will be a lot of reading involved, although it will mostly be to get a feel of things, as in the end, you'll essentially have to be proficient in finding information rather than memorising it for the most part.

And don't get too hung up on the whole distribution thing, in the end they all install the same stuff anyway.

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Wow, I've planned to learn linux by exploring and doing. Any suggestions on exploration?

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- Create a VM on your current machine, install it, install software on it, try use it as your daily driver. Don't forget to take snapshots of your vm incase you break something.
  
  But.. Then again, if it does break, nothing like reinstalling again to make sure you know what you're doing ;)
  
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The MANnly way is to use the man pages for things your curious on. The arch wiki is another fantastic tool

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Nothing will teach you the basics of Linux better than a good ol' Arch installation.

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Arch user sneering at Ubuntu user

Gentoo user sneering at Arch user

Linux from Scratch user sneering at Gentoo user
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- AmogOS user sneering at Linux from Scratch user
  
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Try setup arch or even gentoo with the help of the arch wiki or gentoo wiki

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Delete a bunch of files from /bin then try to get back to a working system (hard mode)

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- And then fix it from CDROM sources without internet. That's 90s hardmode.
  
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If you want to learn the terminal there's a game called Hack Net that teaches you command line. IMO if you pick a distro like Ubuntu, Pop, Zorin or Vanilla you don't need the terminal tho

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I would start with YT channels like Learn Linux TV, Distro Tube, and Lawrence Systems, they have a bunch of great Linux content especially for beginners and intermediate learners.

Freecodecamp.org YT channel has a free 6 hour intro to Linux course that is very good. you might want to check that out as well.

For using a distro hands on while learning, any basic distro will do. You might want to check out Arco Linux first though. It's an Arch based distro that is specifically meant for Beginner and Intermediate Linux users to dig in and learn the nuts and bolts of the Linux Operating System. They have their own resources and the majority of things you learn for one distro will carry over to any other.

If you're looking for a formal certification, Comp TIA has a Linux+ certification and there is also a Linux cert called the LPIC-1, both of these are beginner level certs. If you study on your own the earlier resources I listed, you could probably pass those certs pretty easily, but they are only useful if you are trying to get a formal job as a Linux Sys admin, and even then, most jobs want higher level certs than those.

Still, if getting a formal piece of paper is motivating for you, they might be worth looking into.

The most important thing though is to just pick a distro, open up the terminal, open up a YT vid and start pecking away. If you have a spare old computer you don't need, wipe the drive and install a distro on it. That compy becomes your dedicated learning machine for the next year. Make sure it's one you can destroy because...trust me...you will destroy your installation at least a few times if you're really trying to learn.

If you have no spare computer, fire up a distro as a VM in something like Virtual Box. This can be useful because you can save old VM states to recover if you blow something up, although learning to recover from disaster without having to literally start from scratch is a valuable skill in and of itself.

Good luck and have fun! I got started with Linux about 4 years ago and it's been an amazing ride so far!

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the whole OS, everything from kernel to installation to philosophy

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- I printed out a Gentoo manual in 2004 and compiled from scratch to a working os with x. I ruined it a week later and went back to Windows and learned nothing that stuck with me. Ive been messing around with free slackware cd's since the late 90's, whole smart home is running debian and ive been gaming on linux close to 10 years now, the synenergy with the deck is fantastic.
  
  I'm gonna try and start the course in the top comment :)
  
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if you really want to get into the details, there’s the Linux Upskill Challenge ( !linuxupskillchallenge@programming.dev and https://linuxupskillchallenge.org/ ) – runs through the nitty-gritty of running a Linux server – aimed at remoting in to a command line but it looks like the majority of the lessons would work just fine from a terminal or console on your own computer

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