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Linux··2 min

Learning Linux from Scratch — After a Full IT Apprenticeship

I completed a 4-year IT apprenticeship and thought I knew Linux. A few weeks into college proved me wrong. This is why I am starting over from scratch.

Series: Learning Linux from Scratch

  1. 1. Learning Linux from Scratch — After a Full IT Apprenticeship
  2. 2. What is Linux?
  3. 3. The Filesystem
  4. 4. Users and Permissions
  5. 5. Installing and Managing Software
  6. 6. Text Editors
  7. 7. Shell Scripting Basics
  8. 8. Process Management
  9. 9. Networking Fundamentals
  10. 10. SSH
  11. 11. systemd and Services
  12. 12. Disk Management
  13. 13. Users and Groups — In Depth
  14. 14. Cron and Scheduled Tasks
  15. 15. Firewall — iptables and ufw
  16. 16. Environment Variables and the Shell
  17. 17. Log Management
  18. 18. Kernel Module Management
  19. 19. The /proc Filesystem — In Depth
  20. 20. The /sys Filesystem and udev
  21. 21. Kernel Parameters and sysctl
  22. 22. Compiling and Installing a Custom Kernel

Why am I doing this?

I successfully completed a 4-year apprenticeship as a Certified IT Professional in 2024 in Switzerland. This included very wide knowledge in general IT and some deep dives into different specific topics.

In those 4 years, one of the bigger topics was Linux. With its wide adoption in general IT, it is a very important skill to have when working in this field. Linux was introduced in the first of those 4 years and was part of almost all of the modules in the apprenticeship.

On the 13th of April I started a course at a technical college focusing on IT and cybersecurity.

In the first semester, one of the modules is Linux basics. In the first few classes I thought to myself, "I know Linux, why do we have this module?" A few classes later, I noticed that we had skipped essential parts of Linux in the apprenticeship and had really only learned the OS from a user perspective — not as a system administrator.

This is why I decided to create this series about learning Linux from scratch, after a full apprenticeship in this exact field.

What this series covers

This is not a series about clicking around a desktop. It is about understanding how Linux actually works — from the filesystem to the terminal to writing your own scripts.

The series will cover:

  • What Linux actually is
  • The filesystem and how to navigate it
  • Users and permissions
  • Installing and managing software
  • Text editors
  • Shell scripting basics

Each post builds on the previous one. If you are also coming from a Windows background or a surface-level Linux experience, this series is for you.

Next up: what Linux actually is, and why "it's just a kernel" is both correct and completely unhelpful.

#linux
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