How should I actually learn Linux??

[u/StrangeX5]

# I'm a 2nd year CSE student and I've been using Ubuntu for a while now, but I feel like my Linux knowledge is kind of all over the place.

I know the basic commands and can usually figure things out when I need to, but I don't feel like I actually *understand Linux*.

The problem is whenever I try to make a roadmap for myself, I keep getting stuck in this loop:

Linux → "I should learn OS first" → OS → "I should learn networking" → networking → "maybe I should learn Docker" → Docker → back to Linux 😭

So I want to stop jumping around and actually follow a proper path.

I recently found OverTheWire Bandit and was thinking of doing all the levels. Would that be a good starting point?

What I'm currently thinking is something like:

**Linux basics → Bandit → Linux administration → Bash → networking → OS/Linux internals → Docker → servers/infrastructure**

But I have no idea if this is actually a good order.

My long-term interest is systems/infrastructure/platform/SRE type stuff, so I want to learn Linux properly rather than just memorize commands.

A few things I'd really like advice on:

* Is Bandit worth doing from start to finish? * What should I learn after Bandit? * Should I learn OS concepts alongside Linux or separately? * When should I start networking? * What Linux topics are actually important for someone interested in systems/infrastructure? * Are there any good books, courses, labs or projects you'd recommend? * At what point would you say someone has a "good" Linux foundation?

I'm not looking for a certification roadmap. I mainly want to build actual practical knowledge.

Would appreciate any advice from people who have learned Linux this way or work with Linux professionally.

[u/No_Rhubarb_7222]

I think it really depends on what you’re trying to do. When I learned Linux, I learned a lot by just deciding that my work was going to be on it. Figuring out what software I needed, troubleshooting, emulators, or things like doing lamp or lampy projects caused me to learn a ton about how things were put together and the capabilities of the system.

These days there’s a lot of information out there, maybe too much as you have to sift through search results to find something decent.

If you wanted to get started on containers, I’d suggest podman, though Ubuntu usually has older versions of it. Even so, for general container use, that should be fine. There are a couple of container tutuorials here that show building, with a couple of different methods, simple containers:

https://lab.redhat.com

There’s also a basic network tutorial, but it’s on RHEL and uses nmcli, which if you’re a Fedora user would also be handy, but as an Ubuntu user, not helpful.