<SOLVED> mastering the linux system, having. a solid foundation and best path to achieving this?????

smooth_buddha

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Hi, I'm fairly new to linux but have been diving right into the command line (bash) learning commands and is loving it and learning more and more about computer systems. I would like to know how does one go about learning the solid foundation of how this system works as a whole???? what im getting at is whats the syllabus or curriculum one needs to know in order to be a fairly decent advanced user of linux and to really have full control over ones computer system???

what are some of the cool, fun. things that one can do who wields the knowledge, power and mastery over the command line and workings of linux as a whole????

ive heard people talking about digging around into. the kernel! could somebody elaborate on what this means ??

are they're any good step by step courses that kind of cover all of mastering linux and leave no stone un turned???

I'm excited for this journey and I realise this is a huge topic with not a single answer but will appreciate any help and directions or insights that any of you linux pros have!
 


I could give you a motor cycle metaphor ; in the old days you could do timing using a strobe light and there was only one carburetor . In other words you got involved doing things manually to see what made things tick.

Slackware is the oldest linux disro and some say closest to unix. you still have to do a lot of things manually and it forces you to know where things are. One form of package management makes you build packages and forces you to know the deps. Certainly worth having a go , if you want to learn where things are in system.

At the core of linux is the kernel. kernel hackers are the ones that code and pla ywith the kernel. of old one such guy was Richard Stallman he of previous GNU fame . Linux Torvolds is by definition a "kernel hacker"
 
thanks for that! so would you say Slackware distro would be ok to being with or do you think I should get used to ubuntu or a more use friendly distro??? I have been running mint and ubuntu on a virtual machine on my Mac OS which is really fun-it lets me play around with the operating system and just incase I accidentally do the old rm -rf / I at least won't delete my main operating system, I can just recreate another virtual machine which is surprisingly painless and quick to do! im currently learning the linux commands and looking at some sysadmin commands
 
if you can manage to set up virtual hosts then i'm pretty sure your savy enough for slackware as a main install. Couple of things about it. last stable was 14.2 released about 3 years ago but have a look here: http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=x86_64 you will see there was activity for yesterday. Futher down :
Thu Feb 6 01:59:35 UTC 2020
a/hwdata-0.332-noarch-1.txz: Upgraded.
a/kernel-firmware-20200204_b791e15-noarch-1.txz: Upgraded.
a/kernel-generic-5.4.18-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded.
a/kernel-huge-5.4.18-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded.

So the kernel is pretty up to date. Thus if you do try slackware don't go for stable go for current. Thats what i'm on now





By the way you can play with slackware here : https://distrotest.net/
shimmy down the list and click the link . it will give you access to slackware on virtual.

the site give you a users and pass. Normally you would type

startx in termina lwindow, but i found on that site KDE window manager comes up which is resource hogging. So

at #

type: xwconfig

that will give you small gui choice of desktop/window managers
go for xfce.
 
thanks for that! that distort.net site is pretty cool! I take it you run Slackware????
after playing around with some of the distros, is the main difference just the graphical themes and the software packages????

can anybody easily make they're own distro of linux and release it????? is it as simple as personlalising the desktop and selecting which programs and services come pre installed on that system?? or are they're deeper kernel differences with some of the distress????
 
well I managed to somehow install Slackware on a virtual machine on macOS. I had to follow an installation guide which pretty much did all the work for me. I managed to install a KDE desktop.

is Slackware debian??? are the commands normal standard commands that would work on say ubuntu???


if you can manage to set up virtual hosts then i'm pretty sure your savy enough for slackware as a main install. Couple of things about it. last stable was 14.2 released about 3 years ago but have a look here: http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=x86_64 you will see there was activity for yesterday. Futher down :
Thu Feb 6 01:59:35 UTC 2020
a/hwdata-0.332-noarch-1.txz: Upgraded.
a/kernel-firmware-20200204_b791e15-noarch-1.txz: Upgraded.
a/kernel-generic-5.4.18-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded.
a/kernel-huge-5.4.18-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded.

So the kernel is pretty up to date. Thus if you do try slackware don't go for stable go for current. Thats what i'm on now

well I managed to somehow install Slackware on a virtual machine on macOS. I had to follow an installation guide which pretty much did all the work for me. I managed to install a KDE desktop.

is Slackware debian??? are the commands normal standard commands that would work on say ubuntu???



By the way you can play with slackware here : https://distrotest.net/
shimmy down the list and click the link . it will give you access to slackware on virtual.

the site give you a users and pass. Normally you would type

startx in termina lwindow, but i found on that site KDE window manager comes up which is resource hogging. So

at #

type: xwconfig

that will give you small gui choice of desktop/window managers
go for xfce.
 
ha! thanks! I get the feel Slackware is kind of retro!!! I was going to have a go at a arch linux install too!

I seen a. good youtube vid that warned of distro hopping and basically said to try the following 4:

opensuse
debian/ubuntu
arch linux
red hat

the video I watched spoke about all the distrobutions of linux are basically derivatives of the above 4 branch off's. for example mint distro , ubuntu and elementary are all basically debian with different skirts (desktops).

it also mentions that you can pretty much have any desktop from any distro by customising your own linux. which got me into thinking are a lot of these distributions basically just different desktop themes and have a few different default programs!!!! have I got this correct, broadly speaking???

I know some distributions like kali have very specific types of programs but even in that case all the programs that are available on any distro can be downloaded no matter what the version of linux you have anyways?????

so am I correct in saying it doesn't matter really what distribution u have as long as your willing to explore and customise your own linux system?????????
 
probably the situation is that apart from the kernel ; the core and approach of distro are different. They can however make use of KDE, XFCE etc desktops. Slackware is retro in some ways , yet i have access to more or less most recent kernel and all functional use of most packages. Timeshift doesn't seem to be one of them
 
Is there any linux books you recommend?????
I was after a huge volume that covers linux extensively. Ive seena a few on amazon but not sure which is best. Id rAther buy 1 decent well rounded voulme as opposed to many shorter introduction books.

Im currently trying to learn the file tree system and enlighten myself to how a linux system works
 
Hello!
There is a lot of content on the internet to learn about linux, from basic to advanced.

Some indications:

This site is awesome (and the book is great, with regular updates):
http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php


Edx also has a Linux Foundation course called Introduction to Linux. This course is interactive and self paced. It helped me a lot when I started using linux about eight years ago.


Welcome to the linux world!!
 

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