I’ve got a Pop_OS system76 machine that runs well straight out of the box. I love it and it’s my daily driver. However I’d like to learn more about how it works, Linux internals and how to use it to the best of its capabilities. I want to learn about things like system-d Wayland, error logging (there seems to be a few of them) directory structure and drivers. For instance, how do I know that my and GPU is being leveraged to the fullest?
I DONT want to build a system from the ground up, which I expect to be a common suggestion.
I’d prefer to read literature, blogs, and articles relevant to me, my system and not dated.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance
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Start self hosting some web services.
Oh, I did that once.
suOne alternative option would be to get a Raspberry Pi (or similar SBC) and run it using command line only. You will quickly learn the basics of Linux internals (directory structure, systemd, common command line tools and approaches).
Raspi isn’t necessarily the best option for that, because it’s based on an ARM processor rather than the x86_64 that’s common on desktops and servers.
A cheap N100 “NUC” style Micro-PC is almost as inexpensive as a raspi and wouldn’t limit the user to ARM-compatible software or add complications like emulating the architecture via qemu.
An x86 NUC works too. That being said, for CLI/DIY home server stuff I didn’t really find any issues with software availability on Linux/ARM64.
- Start manually building and installing all your software instead of using packages
- Try writing a simple app with some tutorials
- Start reading Phoronix religiously and looking into each news item
- Build a distro from scratch on some old spare hardware
Just search or ask whatever questions you have about Linux (just like your question on GPU use). Overtime you will gain extensive knowledge of linux and before you know it you will be a linux power user.
I DONT want to build a system from the ground up, which I expect to be a common suggestion.
Arch kind of is building from the ground up, but without all the compiling and stuff. It’s really not as hard as it sounds especially if you use a̶r̴c̷h̴i̵n̵s̴t̷a̶l̷l̵ and you do get the experience of learning how it all fits together through the great ArchWiki.
That said one can learn a lot even on Debian/Ubuntu/Pop_OS. I graduated to Arch after I felt like
aptwas more in my way than convenient and kept breaking on me so I was itching for a more reliable distro. But for stuff like managing systemd services and messing with Wayland, definitely doable on a Debian/Ubuntu/Pop distro. Just use the terminal more really, and it’ll come slowly through exposure.hot take maybe but archinstall really takes out basically all the learning process of arch. I would recommend at least one non archinstall install before using it if you’re wanting to learn.
It does, I wrote it in corrupted text for a reason, but if you want something functional you can use it and then see how it set it up for you and still go set up the rest of the services yourself.
When I switched to Arch, it used the Arch Install Framework, that predates even
pacstrap, and I still learned a fair bit. Although the now normalpacstrapreally doesn’t hide how the bootstrapping works which is really nice especially for learning.Point is mostly if OP is too terried they can test the waters with archinstall (ideally in a VM).
