Hey, I'm really interested in getting to know the insides of Linux and especially how to use the Terminal. I have beside me one of my father's ~25 year old UNIX manuals, plus all of the available resources online. I want to have the full experience, so I was wondering if there was a Linux distribution with the command line interface exclusively, without a graphical interface and all of the applications that depend on it. It would be nice if it was bootable from a thumbdrive and lightweight.

BTW, has the UNIX standard evolved a lot in the last 23 years? Or should I expect the manual to be accurate enough?

Cheers

I would not use any documentation that is 23 years old...it will have almost zero relevance with today's *nix systems. The spirit and general layout are the same as the original UNIX systems, but that is about it.

As for Linux without a GUI, that is really no problem; simply don't install one. Use a distribution like Slackware, Debian, Arch, or even Gentoo; all of which will give you plenty of control over what is installed and how everything is setup. If you don't want a GUI, just don't select it for install.

And even is a distro comes with a GUI, you can uninstall it or just not start it.

if you REALLY want to know the inside outs of linux and have quite a bit of time on your hands, try Linux From Scratch, you download a livecd and the source code for a base linux system and compile everything from SOURCE.

not for the faint of heart, mind you and a bit advanced for a novice, but if you are willing to take a giant leap well, good luck.

Well, I have a book about Unix which is about 20 years old. Since the book is written very well one can learn a lot from it. I think what you call the "general layout" and the "spirit" are very important to get a deeper insight.

I would also recommend to install Slackware without a GUI, or one of the BSDs.

Markus

I probably have that book ...

Try pressing Ctrl + Alt + F2 on the system you now have. If the computer drops to a terminal screen, "you're there." You will find that there are several of these, and that when you get around to F6 or some-such you'll be back into familiar GUI territory.

It is certainly commonplace for Linux systems not to have GUI software installed. (However, also note that the XWindows/XOrg system is a very interesting "client/server GUI" which allows you to run a graphic session on a computer that doesn't even have a graphics card!) It is definitely a good exercise to become familiar with how to use a Linux/Unix system with nothing more than a 24x80 "green screen." (Brings back the old times ...)

Wow, that Ctrl+Alt+F2 command is nice! Any particular difference between pressing F2 through F6? The 'tty' number is different.

I am in the process of reading LFS, as well as various other online documentation on the Linux filesystem and terminal commands. I just finished the 'vimtutor' tutorial, for the vi and vim editors I'm also reading up on Python, to have some base knowledge on programming. I'm glad I installed Linux, it has opened up a whole new world I wasn't previously familiar with.

For the curious of you out there, the book is called 'UNIX: The Complete Reference', by Stephen Coffin.

I will read up on Arch, Slackware and Gentoo

There are several ways to get a GUI-less environment.

You can install Slackware without installing X or a window manager, or you can install the whole thing and just never enter "startx." Slackware boots the command line, not to a display manager, by default.

CentOS offers the option of installing without a GUI; it's been a while, but I think that even if you select "Server" during the install, that is still GUI-less. Then there is Arch.

yes, each one behaves as a separate 'terminal' and you can log in to each one and run a distinct command line session on each.
good luck

Zipslack is a neat one to start with.

Still quite a lot are offered on floppies but going by the wayside each day.

Try this one. http://jpc.sourceforge.net/home_home.html That link offers a browser based command line so you can use it almost anywhere.


As far as the manuals go, I think they are still relevant to the basis of all *nix's.

If you want to additionally explore some alternatives (descended from BSD UNIX), try FreeBSD and/or NetBSD. While much of the userland "feels" about the same as GNU/Linux, there are a lot of differences under the hood. Both are lightweight, and a default install of either does not include X or a DE.

Not sure what you're (specifically) asking here. Has the terrain changed? In some ways, massively. In other ways, not so much.

Anecdote time: I recently finished reading The Unix Programming Environment, by Kernighan and Pike. It was published in 1984. Most of the principles in the book are still applicable today!

Thank you very much for your help

I downloaded some 'Micro OSs' and have tried some using VirtualBox. I wanted to put them in a USB flash drive and boot from the pen, but is it possible to put more than one OS in a single pen? Maybe with some sort of menu to select between the various OSs?

Maybe you're looking for this: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-mu...t-usb-creator/

Markus

Most of those micro OS's are old kernels. It might be possible to boot them with grub4dos on a usb.

Pendrivelinux isn't always perfect but it is one of the best places to start.

What do you mean with grub4dos?