So, uh.....Linux

Mugsley

I've been wanting to learn Linux for about 2-3 years, now, and I've always found excuses not to do it myself. Work has offered two 1-week classes (Beginner and Advanced), so I've jumped on it.

I do have a "Beginner's Guide" that I found for free on Kindle, but I haven't read it yet. Is it worth working ahead of the class, or is it better to just let things progress? For perspective, I was able to set up RetroPie on a RaspPi a few years ago thanks to a video guide, but that's as far as I've been into Linux. I also have no idea what flavor of Linux we're going to learn.

So, any high level tips or other suggestions? Do I need to take really thorough notes?

a5ehren

I didn't really *learn* it until I had to use it as my primary dev and production environment.

I would guess your class is going to use Ubuntu or CentOS, but thankfully (?) the cross-distro differences these days aren't too bad. If you want to be a little bit ahead of the class, I'd throw Xubuntu LTS into Virtualbox (Unity/Gnome3 runs like ass in a VM in my experience) and play around with it. If you can think of a goal to work towards (say, build a "hello world" program or mount a network drive) that would be even better.

Unknown

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Mugsley

Yeah, I was trying to think of something I can put it on at home. I think I have a spare small SSD kicking around that I may be able to install in my home computer and set up as a secondary boot device. I'll have to look into it.

Otherwise, I have (yet another) reason to buy another RPi.

Mugsley

I forgot to add this. It's only tangentially related, but I think I'm going to use these classes as motivation to look into - and sign up for - a cybersecurity certificate program. My wife works for a University, so there's a decent chance I can get into a program for free or cheap.

I know work is starting to offer some cyber related training, but I don't think it's as "rigorous" as a certificate program.

Darkewolfe

If you want to do "cybers" and learn some linux... Just put virtualbox on your home machine and download kali. Spend time figuring out how to configure kali correctly, how to manage your package repos, how to not do shit in root. Then find some metasploitable boxes and familiarize yourself with metasploit. Pick very specific, targeted, next step goals. "I want to learn to IT and cyber" is too broad and you're going to spin your wheels for a long time like that.

Descendant X

If you've got a spare laptop and a weekend free to bugger about, my recommendation is to install ArchLinux. Make sure you're not doing this on your primary system and that you can follow the Arch Beginner's Wiki, because you'll need it. I found that installing Arch really helped me understand the ins and outs of Linux, and I learned even more when I immediately had to blow away my first install and do it all over again because I had fucked it up.

Mugsley

I think I may be able to dig up a spare laptop. We have an old Macbook I was planning to eventually load Windows and give to my kids. I could install Linux in the meantime and have some fun.

I'm starting to think of some other minor projects I could try, for more focused learning. I've considered adding a VPN server a novel idea (with the idea I could eventually figure out how to SSH into my desktop from the road, for whatever reason). I know a few enthusiasts use light Linux builds to convert older/unused computers into overpowered routers.

Darkewolfe

Descendant X wrote: »

If you've got a spare laptop and a weekend free to bugger about, my recommendation is to install ArchLinux. Make sure you're not doing this on your primary system and that you can follow the Arch Beginner's Wiki, because you'll need it. I found that installing Arch really helped me understand the ins and outs of Linux, and I learned even more when I immediately had to blow away my first install and do it all over again because I had fucked it up.

Yesss, yesss, just throw him in.

a5ehren

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Descendant X wrote: »

If you've got a spare laptop and a weekend free to bugger about, my recommendation is to install ArchLinux. Make sure you're not doing this on your primary system and that you can follow the Arch Beginner's Wiki, because you'll need it. I found that installing Arch really helped me understand the ins and outs of Linux, and I learned even more when I immediately had to blow away my first install and do it all over again because I had fucked it up.

Yesss, yesss, just throw him in.

You may as well tell him to install Gentoo :P

thatassemblyguy

a5ehren wrote: »

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Descendant X wrote: »

If you've got a spare laptop and a weekend free to bugger about, my recommendation is to install ArchLinux. Make sure you're not doing this on your primary system and that you can follow the Arch Beginner's Wiki, because you'll need it. I found that installing Arch really helped me understand the ins and outs of Linux, and I learned even more when I immediately had to blow away my first install and do it all over again because I had fucked it up.

Yesss, yesss, just throw him in.

You may as well tell him to install Gentoo :P

Gentoo has gotten soft. They have prebuilts for stage 2.

Descendant X

Pfft, Arch isn't that bad. With the beginner's wiki it's difficult to go wrong as long as you follow everything to the letter.

Mugsley

Descendant X wrote: »

Pfft, Arch isn't that bad. With the beginner's wiki it's difficult to go wrong as long as you follow everything to the letter.

This is setting itself up to be a SGDQ run gone wrong.

GnomeTank

Arch isn't really throwing him in. Gentoo stage-1 bootstrap (which isn't even technically supported for non-developers anymore) is throwing him in.

thatassemblyguy wrote: »

Gentoo has gotten soft. They have prebuilts for stage 2.

Is this even supported anymore? I thought a stage-3 tarball was the only "official" way to install Gentoo now (e.g. they've gone soft for sure).

jothki

I really should set up a Linux dual boot on my own system at some point. What's the best Windows alternative, is it still Mint?

GnomeTank

Mint or Ubuntu, pick your flavor. If you want something a touch more custom Debian. Being the root of the distro tree it's not always as sexy as Mint or Ubuntu out of the box, but it's a perfect foundation to build a more customized system from. I really don't know much about the Arch and Fedora sides of Linux. I'm pretty squarely in the Debian tree. I know Arch's package manager is called pacman, which I approve of.

Seidkona

Arch is good stuff and a source distro.

You can start it from stage 1 like Gentoo and you probably shouldn't make blanket statements about distros you don't use.

vagrant_winds

I'd go Manjaro (AUR) or Solus (Snaps, Flatpacks, and Appimages) personally if wanting something working out of the box with a good community while supporting every program under the sun. Both are rolling releases meaning they're more up to date and secure then your Debian based systems like Ubuntu/Mint.

Or you could just install Arch or Gentoo and dive into the full-personal-control deep end. Arch being more sane choice of the two, while Gentoo too being even more customizable but requiring you compile everything yourself and who has time for that?

Mugsley

I'm expecting the classes to use Ubuntu, but I have 3 weeks before I find out.

AkimboEG

Ubuntu is easy, and LTS (long term support) releases are a good idea for a work machine.

GnomeTank

Entaru wrote: »

Arch is good stuff and a source distro.

You can start it from stage 1 like Gentoo and you probably shouldn't make blanket statements about distros you don't use.

You should probably not get so worked up about a joke that was far more about Gentoo than it was about Arch. It's not a competition, we don't need to fight with our nerd swords.

In short, install FreeBSD, Make Unix Great Again.

Mugsley

I demand you all fight for my entertainment, until such time that I can fashion my own sword!

vagrant_winds

I mean, Linix is supposed to be about choice, right? As long as someone finds something that works for them, cool. Distros/package managers, window managers, and desktop environments are all changeable.

Darkewolfe

GnomeTank wrote: »

Entaru wrote: »

Arch is good stuff and a source distro.

You can start it from stage 1 like Gentoo and you probably shouldn't make blanket statements about distros you don't use.

You should probably not get so worked up about a joke that was far more about Gentoo than it was about Arch. It's not a competition, we don't need to fight with our nerd swords.

In short, install FreeBSD, Make Unix Great Again.

Distros is holy wars turf. We'll get our trebuchets and VIM and burn down your walls and emacs.

dporowski

vagrant_winds wrote: »

I mean, Linix is supposed to be about choice, right? As long as someone finds something that works for them, cool. Distros/package managers, window managers, and desktop environments are all changeable.

It's totally about choice.


It's about everyone else's choice BEING WRONG, SO WRONG.

Mugsley

Update: we are learning Red Hat 6 via IBM's learning/training platform. The "Basics" class ended up being a hot mess because we lost network connectivity for 4.5 days last week; so we couldn't do the labs. I ended up doing most of the labs from home.

This week is "System Admin 1.0," so we're learning the basics regarding administering users, configuring and reading log files, downloading and installing/deploying packages, SSHing into other systems, etc. I'm actually really enjoying this.

One comment: vi is a piece of hot garbage. Luckily, nano comes with RHEL, so I've been using that for file editing.

Drovek

Nah, Ubuntu's vi is garbage, the version in RHEL is quite enough for most use cases.

Baron Dirigible

Is next week about how to start a religious war online?

Because that's how you start a religious war online.

TheSmacker

Obligatory linux discussion video:

https://youtu.be/aJX4ytfqw6k

a5ehren

Mugsley wrote: »

Update: we are learning Red Hat 6 via IBM's learning/training platform. The "Basics" class ended up being a hot mess because we lost network connectivity for 4.5 days last week; so we couldn't do the labs. I ended up doing most of the labs from home.

This week is "System Admin 1.0," so we're learning the basics regarding administering users, configuring and reading log files, downloading and installing/deploying packages, SSHing into other systems, etc. I'm actually really enjoying this.

One comment: vi is a piece of hot garbage. Luckily, nano comes with RHEL, so I've been using that for file editing.

Oh, so you're learning Linux, or at least what Linux was in 2010. Cool.

Be glad that you don't have to learn about systemd yet.

Mugsley

This is only looking into the rabbit hole. I'm still trying to keep from jumping.

spool32

Mugsley wrote: »

Update: we are learning Red Hat 6 via IBM's learning/training platform. The "Basics" class ended up being a hot mess because we lost network connectivity for 4.5 days last week; so we couldn't do the labs. I ended up doing most of the labs from home.

This week is "System Admin 1.0," so we're learning the basics regarding administering users, configuring and reading log files, downloading and installing/deploying packages, SSHing into other systems, etc. I'm actually really enjoying this.

One comment: vi is a piece of hot garbage. Luckily, nano comes with RHEL, so I've been using that for file editing.

What the fuck is this heresy

vi is the way and the light, emacs users should rm -rf themselves, nano is even worse

Mugsley

At least nano has the commands at the bottom of the screen.

spool32

sorry Mugs, vi vs emacs is like the original nerd war. Before Mac vs PC, it set the bar for ridiculous overwrought opinions on the internet.

Baron Dirigible

sed or gtfo

Thawmus

Mugsley wrote: »

Update: we are learning Red Hat 6 via IBM's learning/training platform. The "Basics" class ended up being a hot mess because we lost network connectivity for 4.5 days last week; so we couldn't do the labs. I ended up doing most of the labs from home.

This week is "System Admin 1.0," so we're learning the basics regarding administering users, configuring and reading log files, downloading and installing/deploying packages, SSHing into other systems, etc. I'm actually really enjoying this.

One comment: vi is a piece of hot garbage. Luckily, nano comes with RHEL, so I've been using that for file editing.

sudo apt-get install vim

-- or --

yum install vim

Then use vi or vim, it doesn't matter. For whatever reason, the pre-packaged vi super sucks and doesn't work properly until I install vim. Doesn't notify me of which mode I'm in, doesn't do replace mode like I'm used to, irritating as hell.

If you use vim you get nice color coding, and I'm not ashamed of my crutches.

Mugsley

ooh! I'll have to look into that.

I suspect my first personal experience with Linux will be if/when I mess around with raspbian. I think they shut down the VMs we were using for class.

vagrant_winds

I'm currently teaching myself how to install Arch Linux on LVM partitions. Holy <insert deity here> the amount of command line stuff and options. At least the documentation out there is outstanding.

Manjaro, Solus, and Debian installs that I played with earlier were so easy.

vagrant_winds

Any good tips for LVM naming?

Also hah, Grub doesn't like NVMe drives. To systemd-boot I guess?

Edit: Huzzah. LVM, LUKS, and Systemd-boot combination success. To the DEs tomorrow.

Nosf

Curious, anyone use Porteus / Porteus kiosk?

Anon the Felon

vagrant_winds wrote: »

I'm currently teaching myself how to install Arch Linux on LVM partitions. Holy <insert deity here> the amount of command line stuff and options. At least the documentation out there is outstanding.

Manjaro, Solus, and Debian installs that I played with earlier were so easy.

I got burned twice with Arch. I'd get everything running, then an update would cripple my system and I'd have to spend a day fixing everything again. Eventually I just threw up my hands and said "fuck it, I don't even know why I'm bothering!" and went back to Lubuntu. This was back in '15, though. When the tutorial was mostly just links to other hyper dense or super sparse pages. So, odds are high it was my fault and not Arch's.

All I want is lightweight and cut down to the essentials, which this distro is.