Well. ACTUALLY, it's very simple you see every time you spin up a new linux box a little piece of Linus Torvold's soul get's imprinted in the CPU registers and then that fragment handles everything from there.

It’s just files, how hard could it be 🤷

20 years this year and I still am not sure how it is supposed to be pronounced (in english)

24 years exclusively running it.

Short answer: magic.

Long answer: a stressful full week trying to get everything right, followed by a long, blissful period forgetting how hard it was to get it up and running like magic.

When Linux is working, one does not tempt fate by asking why.

The more you know, the more you know that you don't know a damn thing.

Everything's a file.

I don't know shit about Linux. I just know it's fast and not Microsoft.

As someone who uses Linux every day for work, I don't know how to fix shit. I'm not paid to troubleshoot

🙋‍♂️: "How does Linux work?"

👨‍💻: "...does it?"

I just say "everything's a file" until they stop asking questions

But seriously - if you do want to see the inner workings, perform a Gentoo stage 2 to dip your toes in. LFS after if you’re feeling dangerous. Then things will start to come together. But maybe do it on a spare machine… You can/will break things and you will need a fallback to do research. Don’t bother if you don’t care to read manuals, it’s not easy and can be frustrating.

It takes the raw code, bakes it at 450°F for 90 minutes, then does some magic.

Communist nerds decided that computer programs should be free, so they made free computer programs for you. It's better than corpo slop because all the most passionate nerds are sharing their code with each other, and judging every other nerd's code.

I compiled Linux last week and I don’t even know how it works

The more you know about computers the more you realize its just magic rocks, and that magic, rocks.

What I tell people: "When you get used to using an operating system that respects your rights, you don't wanna go back."

Under the hood there is this thing in there called "systemd" that does a pretty good job making Linux work, and has made some people happy and some other people unhappy.

Before systemd there was something called "init" or maybe "system v" that wasn't as good at systemd, especially not at restarting things if there was a problem, but it was real fast and less complicated.

This is not part of the Linux kernel though, i have no idea how that works.

Can i be dewey, but with the glasses?

... And there are a lot more of those random guys around now.

I was unaware ifconfig was no longer a thing a little while back. boy oh boy did it take a long time to troubleshoot.

We don't ask that question here

It's like asking "How does toilet paper work?" Meaning to say you don't have to know all the details about how it comes to be but can just use it and appreciate it does work. And you also know it would be really messy and with poor hygiene without.

I took an operating system class in college that involved basicly creating a baby OS. Lot of fun.

I'm at the point where I struggle to explain to newbies how to do things, so I'm always glad that other newbies do it. 🥴