I am a Linux beginner/amateur and I have sort of had enough of copy and pasting commands I find on the internet without having a good understanding of how they actually work.
I guess my end goal is to be able to comfortably install and use arch Linux with my own customization’s and be able to fix it when things go wrong.
What tips/ideas do you have for getting better at navigating the terminal, and getting a better understanding of how the os works. What is a good roadmap to follow? And how did you, advanced Linux user, get to the stage your at now?
Edit: my current distro is bazzite just in case you were interested and thanks for all the replies you are all really helpful.
Just install Arch, when You follow wiki it’s not that hard. if You will make mistakes during the process, You will gain better understanding of how things works while fixing errors.
This. The arch wiki is a treasure trove of information. The more you do, the more you’ll learn.
Also, don’t blindly copy paste configs for editors or window managers. Just slowly build them up based on your own use. It’ll be painful initially but worthwhile in the long run
I think I will try something like manjaro first see what it’s like and then move onto arch.
That was exactly how I did it some years ago. After 4 or 5 times fixing the X-server after an update (thanks nVidia!) I switched over to Arch. Installed Arch following the Wiki for about 2 hours… failed and started the process of installation again (in about 1.5 hours :P) and succeeded. By failing and trying again I’ve learned a ton. My advise for less frustration: go with Team Red. In my experience AMD graphics cards are much more linux-friendly.
see this post for my experience with amd lol.
Read through it… strange.
Certainly a worthwhile endeavour. But I’d recommend doing it in a VM or a secondary machine before jumping right in on your main computer.
+1. and yes use the wiki not the install script.
I think theres value to anyone with a genuine interest if they just have a go at an archinstall - I think they can setup most things of interest in a Qemu(vm), or a spare partition, or even a usb or something. Theres nothing to lose but time. I’d recommend the user knows enough about their disk setup and their incumbent boot manager so as not to screw up their main os. Though i’m very tempted to say that’s a rite of passage.
Of course everyone already has a regular backup(s) which contains some sort of list or script for all the software, configs and tweaks they normally do. If not - well another rite of passage.
+1 for installing Arch. If you have enough knowledge of Linux to understand what Arch is and why it is, comparatively, a more involved installation. Then you’re probably ready to install it. As was mentioned in another content, long as you know the basics, it’s not as hard as you might think. Also as suggested in another comment installing in a VM or spare hardware is good practice.
As for learning, take the time to understand the commands you’re copy/pasting. Read the man page, see what the flags you’re pasting in to. That might sound daunting at first, and you might not always be able to completely wrap you’re head around it. But you’ll learn more and more over time.