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Comment by markus_zhang | Hacker News Reader

Question for Linux gurus: if I use Ubuntu as Windows(i.e. only run software and some cli experience without touching anything else), what's my next stepstone to LTS? I don't really know much about Linux and frankly Googled my way out if I had to, say run a bash script without typing "bash", or to find where a piece of software is installed.

I do write programs in Python and SQL but never touch compiling things, except in hobby projects which involves VSCode and some gcc.

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I'd advise to try to install a Linux to a VM, and if you have a bit of experience with VMs, try LFS in a VM. Try VirtualBox if you have no prior experience. With a VM you're in complete control, you can try anything, fuck up like nothing matters and restart, pause, make snapshots and use them as checkpoints. Googling commands is not a problematic thing at all, and if you run a VM then you have the safety of the host OS to listen to your favorite music and google anything you come across.

You could start out with LFS in a VM, and would likely manage if you kept up.. Most is copy paste anyways... A youtuber called Ncommander did a livestream a few months ago.

If you want a gentler slope, maybe something like (in this order, and keep doing stuff on a "earlier level" on the list):

1) Install packages via your packagemanager from the cli and other sysadm tasks

2) Change settings for stuff by files and not by gui

3) Install things not packaged by your package manager

4) Try arch (no compiling but a lot of setup)

5) Try gentoo (lots of setup and lots of compiling)

6) Try LFS in a VM (NEVER on a system, that you actually need)

NCommander had a multi-part stream of building LFS up to Firefox. He's gotten up to building Xorg and the Firefox prereqs so far. I don't know when he plans on doing the final push to building Firefox.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCh0XjyIAKU

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egzyIFsQ3Nw

He also managed to dig up a copy of the proto LiveCD of Yggdrasil Linux and get it working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cynd0guSUvM

Some time ago, I've automated the build process with docker: https://github.com/reinterpretcat/lfs It is for old version, but all old dependencies are attached as assets for release: https://github.com/reinterpretcat/lfs/releases/tag/v8.1.0

I recommend this to newcomers: http://www.linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php/

Spin up a VM and dive in.

I'd say get more used to Linux first. I tried LTS with very little prior Linux experience 10 years ago and failed miserably. Small documentation issues like a wrong version or an incomplete command line argument took me hours to find and fix.

Maybe using Arch or even Gentoo would be a sane next step.

Thanks, I'll try out Arch. Actually I dubbed into Arch many years without any Linux experience and failed before the 10th step. Now that I have more Linux experience maybe I'd fair better.

To get the full benefit of Arch you should try it the whole way: not just installing packages, or installing pacman to get stuff from AUR, but also making your own PKGBUILD to understand the different steps involved in getting a "foreign" source code to turn into a usable software in an automated, reproducible way.

I'm a noob. Just wanna mention 'The Missing Semester of Your CS Education by MIT.

https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

Try it.

Thanks, knew that and looking into it.

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