What are some resources for learning Linux in a structured manner?
from alexdeathway@programming.dev to linux@lemmy.ml on 07 Aug 06:18
https://programming.dev/post/35237589
from alexdeathway@programming.dev to linux@lemmy.ml on 07 Aug 06:18
https://programming.dev/post/35237589
I have been using Linux as my daily driver for quite some time (around 5-6 years) and usually manage to get whatever needs to be done. However, I now wish to learn it in a more structured manner, which includes understanding utilities and the workings of Linux. What resources should I look out for?
threaded - newest
What do you consider a structured approach? Are you after something with video lessons and lesson plans or do you just want to be thrown ideas about what to research?
If the latter, here’s some ideas:
I want to cover a little bit of everything so that diving deeper later becomes much more efficient. For example, I want to understand the directory structure at a surface level before diving deep into installing and understanding the utilities and limitations of specific tools/packages.
Then I would look for linux sysadmin resources, f.e.
github.com/…/Practical_Linux_System_Administratio…
Or wait for a udemy offer (Should never have to buy for full price, offers at 13-15 euro comes more often than not) and grab an admin course there if you want video lectures, f.e.
www.udemy.com/…/master-linux-administration/
If by chance you understand German this is an excellent beginner course: www.math.uni-bielefeld.de/…/unix20.html otherwise I would grab a book; but I have no specific book to recommend. However, to name some I found interesting after a quick search:
Danke dir
The book that got me started was “friheden til at vælge Linux” (Freedom to choose Linux), at the time it was available in other languages, but I can only find the Danish version online:
linuxbog.dk (last updated in 2020)
When I started my LPIC I bought the “LPIC-1 in depth”., it’s a bit dry but very thorough.
You are probably approaching this from the wrong angle. Linux, and computers in general, are tools. Figure out what you want to use it for, and then do it. One example would be to build a homelab with jellyfin and nextcloud.
On the path to that goal, you’ll find problems and tasks for which there exists very nice structured resources. For example, you might want some security, a perfect opportunity to read a book on networking and firewalls.
I disagree. Sometime, a structured approach allows to discover things you don’t even know exist
Structured approach to what? You don’t take a structured approach to a hammer, you use it as a tool to accomplish something.
”The Linux Programming Interface” is an excellent book, if you are interested in interacting with the Linux kernel directly, but somehow I doubt that’s what OP wants to do. I doubt OP knows what he wants to do.
Besides, please note that I did encourage taking a structured approach to stuff discovered on the way. But taking a structured approach to ”Linux” is just a bad idea, it’s far to broad of a topic.
Edit: RedHat has their certification programs. These are certainly structured. You’ll get to know RedHat and the RedHat^{TM} certified way of doing things. That’s probably the closest thing to what OP wants. You even get a paper at the end if you pay up. This is not the most efficient way to get proficient.
I want to use this hammer to do my dishes, how do I do that?
If the plates are made of metal, leave them outside in the sun for an hour or so, and then beat them with a hammer.
They’re not though :(
Fine, take the structured approach to ”Linux”:
If that investment seems a bit steep, take only the last step, build a homelab and take a structured approach to any interesting subjects you encounter doing that.
And then my dishes will be done? ☜(°ヮﾟ☜)
You can probably pay for a dishwasher.
Oh so there are more steps. This is getting complicated, especially since I wouldn’t know where to put a dishwasher or what to feed them. When does the hammer come into play?
You can put it in the dishwasher to clean it. Just make sure to dry it and oil it a bit afterwards, otherwise it will rust. In most countries, this is covered by structured teaching in chemistry, contained within the concept of ”school”.
I’m not trying to clean the hammer, I’m trying to use the hammer to do my dishes. I’m starting to think you’re not being serious with me. What’s your qualification in terms of hammer-based daily chores?
Also, I failed every year of chemistry HAAAAARRRR-DDD.
Hello, I’ve been trying to reach you about our Online University where we Teach Hammer 4 You. Plz run this executable and click ok on all the popups.
Wow, if I’d known this would be a whole-ass university education, I wouldn’t have bought dishes OR that hammer. While that executable does its thing, can you tell me what degrees specifically I can earn with you and how long they take on average? Are you certified in EU countries? Will I be qualified to hammer dishes in Germany? Plates AND mugs? What about hammering windows? Those need a clean too, now that I look at them.
Edit: Speaking of windows, does your course teach how to use a hammer to switch from Windows to Linux?
Oh no, thank you for your intetest in our course, unfortunately we’re ransomware and not a University. Haha.
Plz send butcoin to 0x2fa4u8008 or i delete you computer
You’ll be pleased to hear that you can’t do that because I’m in the EU. So there.
Ahhh! Laws, my only weakness…
<img alt="Superman, only he’s very blue and also has a ring of stars on his chest because it’s not really Superman but totally real and not shopped at all Euroman." src="https://feddit.org/pictrs/image/4a65d564-21f0-4b04-aa3d-00f0768ba450.png">
Structured approach for hammer would be probably learning when not to use hammer I guess?
This is a perfect valid approach though ! My first few years in self-hosting I learned soooo many things: CLI, Shell, scripting, networking, containers…
Doing my own AV1 encodes I learned alot about audio/video processing, metadata, ffmpeg, av1an…
Maybe not as structured as OP asked for, but there’s way to much to learn in the OS world that a whole life is not sufficient to have it all ! However, following that said goal, you will learn alot arround other stuff and improve overall.
If your goal is to learn the Linux system and all the nitty gritty arround it, good luck :/ it takes more than 1 person to make an OS work, so understanding all the bells and whistle is just crazy IMO !
Honestly, this is the best way to learn almost anything: Start a project. When you don’t know how to do something, look it up. Repeat until you die.
Try your local library - one of the most underrated free resources.
Nearly every lib I’ve been to had at least a couple of decent linux books, so you can just snoop around and check out which ones you like.
Recommending the library when someone is asking for information on a specific topic is almost as helpful as pointing them to a search engine. “Just google it and use whichever result you like”.
Usually a library is curated, while the internet isn't. Idk I usually have a good time there. It's an amount of books on the shelf I can still manage. If it's multiple, I grab the 5-10 or so books, walk to a table and skim the table of content and a few pages, see which one has the info I was looking for and has a style of writing I like. (And isn't outdated.) I regularly find Linux or programming books that way. And they all have some minimum standard in the library so I'll find something within 5-10minutes.
What? No.
At least in all the libraries I’ve been to in my life there is a dedicated section for operating systems, which contains a subsection with just Linux books. You can ask the receptionist “Where is the Linux section?”, walk up to it and there it is. And you can grab a book and skim through it to see whether it suits you.
How is that not information on exactly that specific topic?
Genuine question:
Have you ever been to a library when looking for something specific? Was your experience vastly different from mine?
You can also go to google, ask “How linux works” and skim through the results.
I’m not saying libraries are bad, they’re obviously amazing (and yes, I’ve been to libraries lol). However, in these sort of questions OP is usually looking for personal recommendations, something that you already read, heard about or found interesting to share. Yes library has books, but which book would you personally recommend OP to read? Which one do you like the best and why?
I’ve read whats in libraries, it is usually way better than what you find on google and my personal recommendation is to look at the available selection and pick one that personally suits yourself instead of getting recommendations which suit other people. Thats what I personally like best and why.
Publishing a physical book is expensive, publishing a website is dirt cheap. For the publisher and author of a book it’s much more imperative to release good content that people will want to read, cover to cover. You can find more extensive, in-depth, and up-to-date content on the Internet but where exactly and is the info all in one place? Websites are also often made with the assumption you’ll jump around or that you know what you’re looking for. If you’re learning something new it’s often best to have a linear, paved path and not be your own guide.
Edit: Someone else said it first but I was trying to say library books are “curated” in a roundabout way.
doc.opensuse.org/…/book-startup_en.pdf
The best pdf imo
fr.linuxfromscratch.org/view/lfs-stable/
To know what the standard packages do
If you’re a near absolute beginner then Linux Journey is a good place to start.
When I switched to webdev, I dropped $20 on a system admin Linux course on Udemy. I highly recommended this approach.
I’d look into used textbooks.
www.linuxfromscratch.org
here’s latest generated document
linuxfromscratch.org/…/LFS-BOOK-r12.3-98-NOCHUNKS…
I would look for something interactive e.g LFS but in containers (or VM or WASM VM) with checkpoints with instructions, something risk free yet hands on.
Not for books.
I agree, nothing made this stick better to me and help me understand networking more than building my own homelab and configuring a bunch of different services together.
i will add that using something like arch linux is unironically good to get a feel for how it clicks together without doing it all from complete scratch.
despite the usual stability caveats (and please do backups), it is a daily-driveable system you can learn on.
I’m honestly kicking myself for using arch instead of something without systemd.
I used Arch to learn Linux and ended up just learning systemd really well.
As much as a very vocal subgroup hates to admit, systemd is a pretty core aspect of modern Linux.
That said if you really want to learn an alt init system gentoo lets you pick, and I think Slackware is still sans systemd.
I’m using FreeBSD as is, I’ve got a 20 year old PC I’m learning on and FreeBSD afict is my best bet on this system.
It really depends on what init system you want to learn.
Right now, you’re learning BSD init. Which is not the same as the non-sysd init systems in use on Linux. Perfectly fine system mind you and they share some overlap with their Linux cousins.
That’s what I’m finding, there’s some overlap but not enough that I can confidently administer the system yet. I’ve had the FreeBSD Handbook open in links for days 😅.
I’m starting to get the hang of things, there’s a few things I wish there were analogs for on FreeBSD that I’ve used on Linux for modifying swappiness and other minutiae but I suppose eventually I’ll know enough to be the change I wanna see in the world and just write the kernel extension to do it myself.
Now that I think about it, I believe Slackware actually uses a BSD style init if you want to try and bridge the gap. It’s been eons since I used it so not 100% sure
I have my reasona for using FreeBSD, the system I’m using is ancient, about 20 years old. Its a decommissioned corpo unit, HP/Compaq DC5700S with 2 gigs of RAM and a dog slow Celeron D processor. I’m actually compiling a custom kernel right now to match my hardware because I’m severely limited on RAM and in true UNIX fashion it needs to only be doing what I tell it to, and not a damn thing more.
Won’t hear me knocking it. Stellar OS. I just wish Linux compatibility was a smidge better. There’s still a handful of programs that don’t run well.
you can use many init systems on gentoo and its also good for the purpose!
I would agree, and IMO the most important aspect that makes arch good for learning is the amazing wiki
www.lpi.org/our-certifications/lpic-1-overview/
Free PDFs, touches on the topics and actually shows you the commands, gives you exercises + further info. It will never be an end-all-be-all but it’s a start if you’re looking to learn something. It really all depends on what you’re trying to get out of it I figure. If you’re trying to be a sysadmin, then everybody else will have a different answer.
tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/
Highly recommend this wargame challenge from over the wire. It makes you think and also feels like hacking. Youre just using linux commands to find passwords but the skills transfer to heaps of usage across systems. It can be a little beginner-ish though.
There is a great cheat sheet made by Ubuntu.