Learning Linux - Next Step After Ubuntu

[TheFrogKing]

Hello,

I would love your guys opinion on a good distribution for learning linux. Beyond the basic ones like mint, ubuntu and debian.

Ok so I have been using Ubuntu (main os) and Debian (Raspberry Pi) for a year and a bit, and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I want to move on to something else and was thinking of Arch Linux. I quite like the idea of starting with a minimal system and building it up. I just have a question for any Arch users. How often do you get upgrades or packages that break your system?

If you have any suggestions for a good os for learning they would be thoroughly appreciated.

Cheers

[Sitwon]

As attractive as it may seem, distro-hopping is not the answer.

Simply installing and using another distribution won't teach you Linux. It will teach you the narrow differences and idiosyncrasies of that particular distribution. Through the contrast you may be afforded a small glimpse at what you're actually seeking, but it's a sideways approach to the topic. It's like trying to learn about the physiology of human reproduction by listening to romantic music. It will never directly give you a clear picture of what you're trying to see.

IMHO, there are two good pathways you should follow.

You could take the top-down pathway: Pick a distribution you are already familiar with using and start dissecting it piece by piece until you understand each component piece in it's simplest meaningful form.
Or you could take the bottom-up pathway: Head over to http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ and build a complete distribution from the ground up one piece at a time.

Of course, these two pathways are not mutually exclusive, you could attack the problem from both ends at the same time. But the point is, learning to use a different installer and package management tool won't get you very much closer to understanding the core of what Linux is and how it works.

That's my $0.02 USD.

[TheFrogKing]

Thanks very much. That's given me some food for thought. I have read through some of the LFS content and it looks like it will teach me a lot.

[Foxtrot]

Getting Packages that break any of my Arch systems are rare. And almost 100% recoverable.

You have repos similiar to Debian/Ubuntu, if you choose the default ones, like core, community etc, you'll be good.

[bigthinker]

I sorta disagree. You can learn by just jumping in the deep end. Installing arch can be a learning experience, so can playing around with kali.

I would recommend the cli crash course if you are new to the terminal

http://cli.learncodethehardway.org/book/

learning "linux" is a little subjective, as linux is really just the kernel.

[Foxtrot]

I sorta disagree. You can learn by just jumping in the deep end. Installing arch can be a learning experience, so can playing around with kali.

I would recommend the cli crash course if you are new to the terminal

http://cli.learncodethehardway.org/book/

learning "linux" is a little subjective, as linux is really just the kernel.

This.

[Hibby]

I learned most of my commandfu by getting a free shell account over @ www.silenceisdeafeat.com - taught me ssh, mutt, screen, irssi, nano then vim.... all the useful basics.

Then I took a step further and got a headless vps, ran servers in my house. I learned logs, networking, vim all over again, security and all sorts.

That's what I did!

[TheFrogKing]

Ok thanks. I have realized that I was a little unclear about what I meant.

I want to learn what makes a linux system tick. What certain programs do and yeah basically how it works.

For this I think I will build my own linux system using LFS.

I also want to learn command line tools and become more prefficent in my use of them. I'm not too sure how to go about doing this. I took a look at the learn code the hard way. It looks good but I would like to learn, I suppose, more advanced commands.

I thought maybe that configuring an arch system would require me to use commands that I was not familiar with and therefore there would be an opportunity to learn more about what that command does.

Thanks for your help.

[vector]

Ok thanks. I have realized that I was a little unclear about what I meant.

I want to learn what makes a linux system tick. What certain programs do and yeah basically how it works.

For this I think I will build my own linux system using LFS.

I also want to learn command line tools and become more prefficent in my use of them. I'm not too sure how to go about doing this. I took a look at the learn code the hard way. It looks good but I would like to learn, I suppose, more advanced commands.

I thought maybe that configuring an arch system would require me to use commands that I was not familiar with and therefore there would be an opportunity to learn more about what that command does.

Thanks for your help.

just open a terminal while in ubuntu or debian etc and type help. then go from there. for each of the commands it lists you can then type help 'command name' for more details. there's also man pages that will offer a little more information on program args, settings, flags etc etc. you can do this by typing man 'the program name you want to know about' example -- man aircrack-ng or man iw, or you can type man 7 undocumented. there's no shortage of help documentation built right into your distro. you can also try switching back and forth between a tty and your xserver gui desktop session by hitting alt+ctrl+one of the F keys such as alt+ctrl+F1.