Is Linux From Scratch still a viable learning method? I’ve dabbled with it before and have a working system.
I’d love to take it beyond and keep learning.
Recommendations appreciated. Looking to create a hobby platform for my own growth but maybe someday more serious use.
Linux from scratch will show you what goes into making "a" distro. And how that distro is constructed. That may or may not be the distro that you yourself would use, as an every-day driver.
But everybody should do the exercise once at least. And that is as far as probably 99.99% of us go with 'Linux From Scratch'. Some very rare few of us use 'Linux from Scratch' as a base for their own personal distro. But those rare people would either have lots of spare time or a huge inclination to go that route.
Then after you have done the exercise, play with several * (many??) distros until you find that distro that suits your personal needs. Who cares which distro that you eventually settle on is. The point is that it suits you and it suits you at that particular time.
A month or two ago, I discovered that I have been using LinuxMint MATE for over 10 years. I never made a conscious decision to do so, it just happened that way. My second preference distro is 'Debian', which is LinuxMint's grandfather anyway.
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* It can get messy to play with lots of distros. One way is to play with Live disks. A better way, that I have found, is to have three root-partitions on your boot disk. One of those root-partitions is for your default-boot daily driver. The second root-partition is your 'emergency boot' distro, which would probably be the same distro and version as your daily driver. Boot into that emergency root-partition when something catastrophic happens to your daily driver.
The third root-partition is for installing and 'playing' or experimenting with other distros without damaging or interfering with your two main and emergency systems.