On Thu, Apr 09, 2015 at 08:30:25PM -0400, JeremyBekka C wrote:
> I would like to say thanks to:
> Robert Story, Shraptor, Nate Bargmann, KatolaZ, and Jude for your very
> helpful advice. You gave me a lot to do and I look forward to start digging
> in to the inner workings of the Linux OS.
>
> I plan on doing the following:
>
> 1) Read through the PDF version of the Debian Reference Guide that I
> downloaded in order to get a good over view of the whole OS.
>
> 2) I also plan on starting to learn the C language instead of Python, since
> that seems to be more necessary in order to really understanding the nuts
> and bolds of the system.
>
> 3) While I am reading the Debian Reference Guide, I am going to be looking
> for any part of the system (eg. the init system, x11, etc.) that peaks my
> interest and then try to understand all I can about that system before
> starting on to the next.
>
> 4) Install Devuan when it is first released and try and do what I can to
> help identify bugs and maybe give help in resolving them.

Some other things that you may find helpful:
-To get a better understanding of the init system, read some of the
scripts in /etc/init.d/*; /etc/inittab; the manpages init(8), rcS(5)
inittab(5), init-d-script(5), update-rc.d(8), insserv(8), and
service(8); and /etc/init.d/rcS if you're really curious.

-Try writing an init script or two, preferably for something that
doesn't have one. Examples would include these busybox applets:
acpid crond httpd rdate
(Note-I wouldn't recommend keeping busybox httpd enabled.)
Make sure to figure out the proper dependencies.

-Learn to use debootstrap/chroot for installing Devuan/Debian.
If you do this, you may want to read up on bind mounts and fstab first,
as well as being sure you know how to set up networking and so on.
Do this into an EMPTY partition, unless you're fine with losing data.

If I were to guess, reading up on init and related things might take
anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days; writing an initscript
for the first time might be a couple hours; and a debootstrap install
will probably take you at least a day the first time through.

I'm not sure where to point you if you want to learn about openrc.

HTH,
Isaac Dunham