A guided tour of the Linux ecosystem

Linux.
Explained.

Not a distro wiki. Not a forum post. A real introduction to what Linux actually is — the layers, the ideas, the choices, and which ones are right for you.

Start the course → Lessons Appendices
7+
Lessons
4
Distributions
1
Quiz

The Course

Seven lessons, one destination.

Each lesson builds on the last. Start with Anatomy to understand the stack. End with Verdict to know where you're headed.

✓ No prior Linux experience required
Lesson 01
The Anatomy of Linux
Hardware, kernel, display server, window manager, desktop environment, package manager, shell. What each layer does and who controls it. The foundation everything else stands on.
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Lesson 02
How Linux Thinks
The Unix philosophy. FOSS. Rolling vs point release. Binary vs source. Why everything is a file. Dotfiles culture. The ideas that explain why Linux users make the choices they do.
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Lesson 03
Package Management
How software gets to your machine. Distribution packages, Flatpak, Snap, AppImage. The AUR. Nix and Portage. The difference between apt, pacman, and dnf is a symptom of something deeper.
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Lesson 04 · New
The Command Line
Navigation, files, search, permissions, processes. Pipes and redirection. The terminal is not a relic — it's the fastest, most precise interface that exists. This lesson shows you why.
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Lesson 05
Choosing a Distribution
Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian Testing, Arch Linux. An honest comparison table. Why gaming-first distros are a trap. Then: a quiz that finds your starting point.
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Lesson 06
Your Desktop
GNOME, KDE Plasma, XFCE. Tiling vs floating window managers. Fluxbox, i3, Sway, Hyprland, Ratpoison. X11 vs Wayland. The decision tree for your actual workflow.
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Lesson 07
The Recommendation
Where all of this leads. The curated paths: daily driver, minimal power user, performance builder. Ubuntu and Fedora honestly assessed. Your next steps.
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Appendices

How-to guides and deep dives.

Practical references you'll return to. Read them in order: partition planning before the install, then setup and configuration after.

Appendix C — Read First
Partitioning Your Disk
Read this before the install. One big partition or several? Swap file vs swap partition — full comparison. Every mount point explained. Size guidelines for desktop and server use.
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Appendix A
Installing Debian Testing
Stable or Testing directly? Official USB media methods (cp, dd). The netinst walkthrough. Why Testing is stable enough for a daily driver. Full codename history — Forky, Trixie, Bookworm, Sid — and the Toy Story connection.
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Appendix B
Debian + Fluxbox: A Real-World Setup
The opinionated post-install setup. APT guardrails against dependency drift, startx over a display manager, Fluxbox keybindings and startup script, PipeWire, the tray stack. Every decision explained.
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Case Study
The 2025 Refresh: Why These Choices
A companion to Appendix B — the real automation script that came later, and the reasoning behind every choice in it, connected back to how those same instincts show up outside of Linux too.
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Appendix D
Dotfiles
What dotfiles are, where they live, and what each important one does. Shell config, git aliases, SSH host shortcuts, Fluxbox keybindings and menu. The files that turn a default install into your machine.
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Appendix E
config-deb.sh
The post-install automation script. Profiles (workstation, full, minimal, guardrails), 17 components, dry-run mode, interactive wizard. Turns a fresh netinst into a full Fluxbox workstation without clicking through every step manually.
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Appendix F
Gaming on Linux
GPU drivers (AMD just works; NVIDIA how-to), Steam and Proton setup, Proton-GE, gamemode, MangoHUD overlay, CrossOver, Heroic and Lutris for non-Steam games. ProtonDB. The anti-cheat reality check.
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Appendix G
Installing Arch Linux
archinstall guided path and full manual install (10 steps: partition, format, mount, pacstrap, genfstab, chroot, configure, bootloader, reboot). pacman essentials, AUR with paru, and Arch Wiki orientation.
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Appendix H
Init Systems: SysV, Upstart, systemd
Runlevels vs. targets, init scripts vs. unit files, syslog vs. the journal. Why enable, disable, and mask are three different symlink mechanisms, not three strengths of one setting — plus presets, the policy layer that decides what's enabled before you ever log in. Upstart gets the one-paragraph footnote it deserves.
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