Need info source re: Linux
 

This is probably my eleventh-eleven post on this forum. As you can tell from my previous posts here, I've been running a dual boot Windows/Linux Mint computer for at least 11 years, but right now I feel like a total newbie. Installs with Linux Mint, Ubuntu, etc were all very simple, but I've never really "studied" Linux. I regarded my computer as a tool and preferred Linux to Windows using Linux about 99+% of the time.
I would like to "personalize" my own distro and am looking at a rolling one.

Therefore, I need to acquire the knowledge to install one (probably Arch Linux), but the basics of that install are still beyond my comprehension as the install instructions assume that i am more knowledgeable than I am. I figure that if I can learn to install Arch Linux, I can probably finally be "Linux literate."

Hence my questions: I would prefer not to go to a formal computer class, but would like a source (on-line, books, videos, etc) where I could really start from scratch including making a bootable dvd/cd & or USP stick and learn the complexities of a basic Linux distro from the ground up. I would appreciate some sources as to where to get this info.

FROM HERE ON, IS JUST INFO ABOUT ME so y'all know I'm not really a dummy.
I am an MD with an undergraduate degree in Chemistry, so in spite of being 78 & retired from active practice, I am current with my medical education and plan maintain an active medical license for a couple more years before ceasing my renewals. The grand kids and great grand kids always get sick the Friday evenings before a long holiday weekend, so I can usually keep hem out of the emergency clinics. As a kid, my family had only one car, so it was not until after I began my medical practice that I went to our local technical college and took 2 years of night classes on automobile repairs and maintenance followed by another 12 week course on lawn and garden maintenance since I do like to "strain my brain" as well as enjoying fresh tomatoes, okra, cukes, new potatoes, etc., and have successfully found ways to protect our small home garden from pest and diseases. As a physician, I recommend reading about aspirin and tomatoes and the use of wormwood (Artemesia Absynthium) to keep a garden safe and secure. We are also in the "territory" of a 6+ foot black snake and family who handle pests and allow us to keep their pest cafeteria up. Thank y'all for reading this and any suggestions as to how I can learn Linux from the ground up.
Harmmmoniously (I am also a barbershop singer and do sing in two local barbershop choruses),
tlcmd

For "From Scratch" starters, how's about http://www.linuxfromscratch.org

You download, build, & configure a basic system. Then there's BLFS, = Beyond LFS.

Then promote yourself to Slackware, with _No_ dependency tracking. Then install Freecad (25 dependencies:-)) And as the ultimate Masochist's challenges, install Gentoo, or network/encrypt everything. I was on a fairly public mailing list once as a virtual newbie and started getting 200 offers per day of medication to stretch my male organ :(. My isp was useless. The eventual solution was
Fetchmail --> postfix --> procmail --> Vipul's Razor --> Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse(DCC) --> SpamAssassin (with custom rule tweaks) --> me. That taught me LOADS.

Business kid,
Sincere thanks for your reply. You have adequately discovered my problem: Other than the website at the top of the post, I am totally confused and confounded by the abbreviations and terms used to describe what to do. Again, I am lost in the Linux lingo. I'll start with that site and see how far I get. This is like starting college out of high school and finding yourself in a graduate level physics course.
You may well be hearing from me again for further guidance.
Thanks,
tlcmd

Arch is a good distro to get your feet wet. Business_kid's point about LFS and BLFS is good: great learning but very time consuming. Hazel (another member) can probably tell you much more about LFS and BLFS.

Arch is a good binary distro to learn on because it is very simple. No installer, one command at a time, and it only takes a few minutes to get a running system. At least it only takes ME a few minutes to get a running system because I've done it a few times :) Source based distros may or may not teach you more, depends on what your goals are. Their install times are very long, depending on your computing power, sometimes days for installs.

Again, all about your goals.

I assume you always installed Mint/Ubuntu etc with a set up Desktop Environment.
One next step would be to start without a graphical environment at all, and only install the applications you need, not a full DE during installation. That is straight forward when using Debian (just de-select all environments during installation), but i am pretty sure it works for Ubuntu/Mint, etc, too (just i don't know how to do that).
You look a little bit deeper, but still use the tools you already know (say apt-get) and the files you needed to edit.
If you want bleeding edge, you might go for debian testing or unstable. As people say: you have been warned.

If you plan to install stuff from source, you really don't need to use linux from scratch. Just create a Build folder in your home directory and start with easy stuff. Perhaps do such in a chroot environment (the package debootstrap will help with that).
Sure on a test box though, chances are high things will break sooner or later.
Another, slightly more comfortable, way would be to install Slackware or Slackware-based (Salix or such) and get your head into slackbuilds.org to understand the basics of compiling from source.
Void Linux also has both options: install binaries and compile from source. Same for FreeBSD, and probably quite a few other distros or OS'es (point is: no need for linux from scratch).

Also do as much as possible from the command-line (say the stuff usually done by a file-manager). Get your head in the basics of bash scripting, etc.

If i misunderstand what you asked for, sorry.
I'd say if you simply want arch, then you have to try to figure out how it gets installed. For example by asking in a forum or IRC channel or mailing list about the exact part you don't understand. For what it's worth: in the years i used Gnu/Linux i often heard arch users claim they would have learned so much, but i've never seen it. You can learn as much as you want (and as little) on pretty much any distribution. I used Gentoo for more than a year, and i learned nothing more than on any other distro.

Good luck.

I would not recommend Linux from Scratch for someone who is trying to learn Linux. An LFS install is very granular and a certain amount of Linux knowledge is needed to deal with it.

If you are looking for a rolling release but don't feel ready for Arch, take a look at OpenSUSE.

As for general learning about Linux, Lifewire (was about.com) has a surprisingly good Linux section.

are you talking about https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginner's_Guide ???
i understand it's a lot of work and maybe intimidating, but it's all layed out very clearly imo.
what exactly is beyond your comprehension there?

Wow, creds to you for dealing with and handling your own computer! Brilliant.

While there is no "perfect" answer to your question, "trying, failing, succeeding" could be a good method to learn GNU/Linux. I would say "Linux from Scratch" is an overkill and something which require quite some skill and alot of time.

Personally I learned GNU/Linux by installing and using "Slackware" (almost 20 years ago). I can't say this method is perfect or would work for everyone or even still work today.. But the distro is as "raw" as it can get pretty much, and to manage it properly you do HAVE to learn how to do things the GNU/Linux way.. Ofcourse Slackware has developed alot over the years, so you can pretty much expect your first successfull installation to throw you into a perfectly working desktop. From there on you have to choose to be lazy or to really get into it..

Another method is "Gentoo" which forces you to deal with all the basics if you just follow the "Gentoo handbook".. If you manage to install Gentoo this way, you should learn alot in the process! And you can keep learning as well ofcourse. But it all comes down to attitude. Because Gentoo is also a polished distro in the end where you can choose "the easy way".

Then ofcourse there is also freeBSD as an option. It is not GNU/Linux, but it is kind of the same thing, and you can learn GNU things through BSD, and GNU ofcourse is a major component of GNU/Linux. Pretty much all the stuff you need to handle on a daily basis in GNU/Linux is GNU tools, not Linux.

That's pretty much a single page or two. I don't find that it seems very useful compared to the comprehensive manual that Gentoo offers for their installation.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handboo...l/Installation

I have to say that Arch Linux is a good shout. The Arch community is amongst the best around, and I have often found answers to my problems from them, rather than other Linux forums. TinyCore Linux is a very worthwhile project as well. As a base install, it has only FLWM window manager, and is almost unusable. I have had many a fun hour trying to get TinyCore to be useful on a very old laptop.

I would say that it depends what you want to achieve; It may be that finding specific things to do with a computer/computers might be the best way to go. Samba, for example can be a seriously in-depth project, by itself. Going through some of the threads on this forum can be a good learning experience, particularly the analysis of people's problems, in order to find the solutions. I said in another thread, that people shouldn't just follow 'code' examples, without finding out what they actually do. If someone says "Just go to a terminal and type "lsusb" and post the results", find out what it does; the next step would, of course, to be to find out what the results actually mean. Going through your own system logs can also teach you a lot about what is going on in the background.

One more thing; If you already have a working system, and want to play and learn, then Virtualbox, Qemu or VMWare are a very useful way to try out others.

Arch, Slackware, Gentoo, or LFS are good choices. I've spent most of my Linux experience using Slackware, but have recently moved to Gentoo, primarily because of being able to control my software through USE flags.

Nice to see another oldster! I am 73 so that makes two of us. And nice too to find someone who appreciates snakes. Does your black snake allow you to handle her?

I tried Arch for a short while and didn't much like it. It is bleeding edge software, so things get broken rather often, especially as it's a binary distro. Gentoo is bleeding edge too, but everything is downloaded as source and compiled locally, so you have a guarantee that applications and the libraries they use are always compatible. With Arch, they might not be, though problems like that get fixed very quickly. Also Arch has a very vocal community who insist on things being done "the Arch way" and I prefer to do things my way.

I like LFS because you can create a really minimalist distro containing only what you need. Also the LFS book is very detailed. If you follow it exactly, you can't go far wrong and you learn a lot on the way about how software is built and how a Linux system hangs together.

Another possibility you might like to consider is to do a Debian net-install and flesh it out with whatever else you need. Debian is about as mainstream as you can get, and you can choose the stable or unstable branch depending on whether you want the latest software or just software that's sure to work.

http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php
a great resource and a good starting point

If you use Debian, there's a user manual: https://www.debian.org/doc/ , which teaches you the whole thing.