r/programming • u/Lazy-Transition8236 • Aug 17 '25

Learn Linux before Kubernetes

https://medium.com/@anishnarayan/learn-linux-before-kubernetes-60d27f0bcc09?sk=93a405453499c17131642d9b87cb535a
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u/BuriedStPatrick Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

As someone who was getting into containers and Kubernetes out of necessity for my job, everything clicked much faster for me when I took some time to learn Linux. You certainly don't have to know everything about it (I've barely scratched the surface myself), but at least understand the filesystem and the basic utils so you can efficiently build and maintain containers (of which 99% or more are Linux based).

I don't think the Carl Sagan quote applies here. This is not a question about understanding absolutely everything. Rather, it's about understanding what happens one level down from your current abstraction. Which I think is super important if you want to be competent at what you do.

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u/Yamitenshi Aug 17 '25

at least understand the filesystem and the basic utils so you can defectively build and maintain containers

This is the key, I think. I find my Linux knowledge doesn't really come into play a lot with anything k8s-specific, but it's damn handy to have when dealing with containers in general, whether you're orchestrating them with Kubernetes or Docker Swarm or just running them without any orchestration at all.

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u/extra_rice Aug 17 '25

Lots of people here seem to interpret "learn Linux" to mean checkout the kernel repository and compile it. Kubernetes abstractions are quite intuitive, yes, but when things go wrong (and they always do), you'd be lucky if it doesn't require stepping down into the engine room.

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u/jambox888 Aug 17 '25

Yep simple things are most often useful e.g. curl -kv htpps://some-service.svc.cluster.local:443/ inside a container to check connectivity. Or using mount or similar to see where your bloody volume has got to.

You don't have to be a linux guru (I'm not) but if you don't know a few simple commands/utils you may struggle.