Linux
The operating system underneath most servers and cloud infrastructure.
CurrentintermediateFull course available
Overview
Linux is the operating system running the vast majority of servers, cloud infrastructure, and containers. Comfort with its filesystem layout, permissions model, and process management is assumed by nearly every deployment, DevOps, or backend-operations task.
- What it is
- An open-source Unix-like operating system, dominant on servers and cloud infrastructure.
- Why it's used
- It's free, stable, and the near-universal choice for servers -- most cloud VMs and containers run some Linux distribution.
- Where it fits
- The operating system underneath servers, Docker containers, and most cloud infrastructure -- Bash is typically the interface to it. The Linux and Shell Fundamentals course covers user-space Linux literacy in depth: the filesystem model, permissions and ownership, processes and signals, and safe, automation-oriented command-line workflows -- explicitly not a system-administration certification course.
Core concepts
- The filesystem hierarchy
- File permissions (chmod, chown)
- Processes and signals
- Package managers (apt, yum)
Example
File permissions (chmod 644) and process inspection (ps) are basic but essential Linux literacy for anyone deploying or debugging a server-side application.
chmod 644 config.json # owner: read/write, others: read-only
ps aux | grep node # find running node processesCommon use cases
- Server administration
- Deploying and debugging containerized applications
- General cloud/DevOps work
Project ideas
- Set up a small Linux VM (or WSL/container) and practice navigating, setting permissions, and running a simple server