Another distro help

[theUnseen]

Hey everyone, newly registered but have definitely visited these forums over the years. I've been booting Ubuntu for the past couple of years since I was 16; now I'm a student learning more programming. I'm not a complete newbie when it comes to open source however I'm now looking for a more open source challenge!

I now possess two laptop one with my Ubuntu 10.04 the other still trying things out, I've booted Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Fedora 16 on it an realized I need something new.

My goal is to basically master linux. They say to learn slackware is to learn linux. Is their a stable, supported median between a simple no bull slackware distro and a cool fedora distro? Or is slackware the route I need to take

My knowledge thus far is from an application level programming, database management, and some web skills (not important). I've dabbled with some .config I have an understanding of the root filesystem. I'm currently reading Linux Network Security (iptables, firewalls, etc.), and have Hacking: The Art of Exploitation (primarily C Programming).

my command line skills are limited (I don't really know or use vi, cat, grep, etc..) For example if I wanted to install emacs on slackware and assumed i had the source or tar I wouldn't know how or where to put it all. /etc/?

I guess i'd like to learn the 'construction' of linux and then start with the implementations.

P.S. about my command line skills, after i finish this mod in school I'll take a unix fundamentals class and proceed to learn more linux. You could say I'm putting all my cards in linux I see growth and limitlessness on the brand.

Again I'd like to responses with programmer friendly distributions, tips, and guides. Is Slackware the best route for me to take? Since I have a spare laptop I don't mind completely diving into the world slackware slowly building a badass machine, with the help of a friendly community and some internet research, maybe a few books if i can find them.

Thanks in Advanced!

P.S. new laptop is an AMD powered Lenovo B575

[jayd512]

Hey there! Welcome, and Happy New Year to ya!

I see a few options in there for a good distro. Slackware is a great option.
I'm running it for now, and most everything is done via the CLI (Command Line Interface). Wonderful way to go.
I didn't use Slackware as a primary distro until a couple of months ago.
I started with Fedora Core... and the party began.
I've used Fedora, Ubuntu, a bunch of others... geez! The list is long.
You can really learn about Linux from any and all distros. Just use the terminal instead of the GUI tools.

FWIW, you can 'learn Linux' just by using it.

[jonyo]

I'm now looking for a more open source challenge!

no end to it

[drl]

Hi.

If you are interested in Slackware, but don't have the CLI skills yet, look at absolute linux home page ... cheers, drl

[masinick]

If you are still mainly using Linux as an application user, you can continue to use what you are using now and learn as you go. If you feel that you are already where you need to be as a user, then there are certainly other choices that would help you learn Linux.

I'll start with the EXTREME and work backward to the easier.
Linux From Scratch, also known as LFS, is truly the ultimate in learning, but that is a tough learn. You really have to build up quite a lot before you can even put a system together. There are countless hours of reading and study required, and then, when you are ready, it could actually take days or even a few weeks to actually put the system together. You'd pretty much have to know the system fairly well to do it, but once you conquered it, you'd truly be an "expert", probably more so than 98% of us here, when it comes to the specifics of putting a Linux system together!

That may be far too much to bite off and chew. The next option might be something like Gentoo Linux. The Gentoo Linux system is also, like LFS, built from scratch, but it includes a number of things to make it a lot easier than LFS, including some implementations that come with Live CDs or DVDs, so it's easier than it was in the early days of the project.

A step easier than that, based on Gentoo Linux, is Sabayon. The Sabayon distribution uses Gentoo-based packages, but it has a complete management toolset that greatly simplifies installation and configuration. You may not necessarily learn enough with this approach, though, so a step in between may be to go to a binary-based offshoot of Slackware, the binary equivalent (to use an analogy, though not 100% accurate) of Gentoo. It is called Arch Linux. You must learn configuration file setup with Arch, so that may be one way to go, because you will really learn some things about your system.

Arch and Gentoo projects each have excellent documentation, too, and that's great for learning. Arch also has a few derivatives that put you into a system pretty quickly; ArchBang Linux and Chakra are two of them worth taking a peek at.

Good old Slackware is much improved from the early days. Doing things like configuring your display server are pretty automatic feats these days, but a decade ago, it took quite a bit of reading about the X server, and it also took some detailed reading and understanding to set up disk partitions. Those things are well documented today and, in most cases, now automatic.

I am a Debian fan, though. For me, jumping into the Debian approach is also a great way to go. In one sense, using Ubuntu (or something like Mint), you are already using Debian-based derivatives. Installing the real Debian would bring you a step closer to the details, so that may be of some use.

Perhaps it warrants asking the question: Just what do you want or anticipate learning by going to another Linux derivative? Do you want to learn how to manage Linux systems? Each of the major "Linux camps" has distintive and different system administration methods, so choosing several of them merely causes you to learn different aspects of packaging.

Arch and Slackware, for example, use a BSD UNIX inspired system resource configuration setup, and you directly edit either /etc/rc or /etc/rc.local to tell the system what programs to load when you boot your system. Most other systems use what is known as the Linux Standard Base (LSB) configuration. Based on UNIX System V, this configuration has several different "run levels". Even Slackware has moved in this direction; Arch (and maybe Gentoo) have retained the BSD resource file architecture.

If you want to know about these differences, perhaps it would be worth installing many different systems, for instance, Arch, Slack, Fedora, and Debian, to begin to understand how they differ (and they do differ considerably).

I hope this gives you a few ideas to consider. The Linux Documentation Project may be a good resource to use to begin reading and learning more about various aspects of a Linux system. For example, Bash Guide for Beginners is a beginner's guide to using Bash, the Linux Bourne Again Shell (a play on words). Introduction to Linux provides a lot of background and help to someone starting out with Linux.

It would seem to me that perhaps starting with these resources and others on that site may be more helpful in getting started than actually tackling one of these distributions mentioned, but perhaps in time you can do both. In any case, I hope my comments give you something to think about and consider...

[masinick]

By the way, if you REALLY DO want to go all the way to Linux From Scratch, documentation is available at Linux From Scratch

[theUnseen]

Ah, Masinick thank you for the juicy response!
-To answer your questions, i want/anticipate to learn command line skills in terms of learning where and how to modify system elements/variables. Understanding how exactly the system runs using all those .config files. How file locations are referenced between different processes and how to manipulate said processes to run different files. I want to learn the true definition of hacking; specifically linux and all things that touch it (Well the interesting things anyways). I also want to start implementing some of my application programming skills to apply to the system.
-I want to learn how to manage and properly configure MY Linux system(s) from an employment aspect yes I'd like to learn to manage linux system.
-I'm not sure what you mean by "Linux camps" System administering, and System cracking hehe

My ideal system would have zero extras. Root directory would be comprised of only files needed to run my specific hardware. Some efficient file re routing to speed up processes. And a bunch of applications that I wrote that would be stored in /usr/bin/ right??

So would I see an difference comming from Ubuntu(GNU) to Arch(BSD) relating to the root filesystem

*Right before I posted this I clicked +Reply to thread loosing the content of this message. Thank you for autosave!*

[Mudgen]

If you're looking at building a skill set from an employment perspective, as you say, I'm going to risk the slings and arrows and suggest that you focus on Centos, or perhaps Fedora. Red Hat is the 500lb gorilla of the commercial marketplace, and managing Red Hat and Red Hat-like systems is where the bulk of the jobs are.

There's nothing wrong with being a Linux generalist, and if you learn to build systems from scratch you'll also be able to handle commercial Red Hat systems. But focusing there and then branching out to generalism will prepare you for employment faster.

Edit: If you have access to Red Hat entitlements, you could go with Red Hat itself, I suggested the others because they're free with respect to updates. Scientific Linux would also be a candidate.

[zrdc28]

If you want a system that is stable & can be built to be anything that you want it to be.

You should do a full install of slackware. There is the option of 9 different window managers KDE, XFCE, Fluxbox, Blackbox, Windowmaker along with a few more to choose from in the install.

I use KDE for one user Xfce for one and fluxbox for another. There is also about 6-8 different types of servers built in. The total install is on about 6 mg total.

There is some cmd line required but not a lot, to update "slackpkg update" does it, to upgrade "slackpkg upgrade-all" does it. You will be given a list of things to upgrade just mark or unmark.

To install packages just go to slackbuilds.org they have hundreds of packages to use. If you don't like slackbuilds there are several package managers SBOPKG, SLAP-GET, SPKG to name a few.

Stable Slackware is version 13.37 If you like cutting edge the current is what you would upgrade to.

[fratermus]

My goal is to basically master linux. They say to learn slackware is to learn linux. Is their a stable, supported median between a simple no bull slackware distro and a cool fedora distro? Or is slackware the route I need to take

I think slack is a great way to start doing this, maybe just a vanilla Debian install.

Then I'd consider using as many CLI tools as you can, writing bits of shell script to build up functionality you need. GUI apps are good but they are mainly useful for hiding complexity, when I think what you want is to see and understand the complexity.

You really will need to pick up vi and/or emacs to get work done at low levels (I recommend vi as it is found by default on many *nix systems, not because of any inherent superiority).

Building from source, as you point out, is a great way to learn. Most source packages include a "make install" stanza that stuffs the resulting bin in /usr/local/bin or whatever the default is, etc.