

Ask HN: Recommendations of best resource to learn Linux - Debian dist. - smadam9

Since the variety of opinions here is so large, I'd like to ask the community for their opinion on the best resource/guide/reference for learning general topics within the Debian Linux distribution.&#60;p&#62;I have no specific requests of knowledge such as server, security or media, but just an overall "broad topic" resource to learn commands, OS architecture and configuration.&#60;p&#62;What resources did you use to gain the knowledge you have? For me, I usually refer to forums, articles or directly to the Ubuntu help site for example.  Is there a better resource for general knowledge than the way I am going about learning now? Do you recommend a book or another resource other than first hand trial and error?
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fractallyte
To _really_ learn about the OS architecture, set aside a partition on your
hard drive, and use debootstrap (within a chroot environment) to build a new
OS from scratch.

Build up, from kernel to init and the barest of coreutils (busybox is an
excellent substitute, with everything you need already built-in). Boot up from
this partition, check the console messages, and keep going until you can get
to the login prompt without any errors. You'll soon find out how the systems
hangs together.

(Of course, there's also Gentoo and Linux-From-Scratch, but you specifically
asked about Debian. Gentoo is far better suited to this, but also takes far
longer...)

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smadam9
Thanks for the suggestions. I looked at LFS and Gentoo as alternatives and
they seem like viable options as well. I'll be giving it a try.

