This Linux training takes you from your first command to running a server in production, then on to the RHCSA and LFCS certifications. The full course has 25 modules and 213 lessons, of which 81 come with a lab you replay on a real machine and 190 with a quiz, for roughly 135 hours of work. It is free and needs no sign-up. It is written for junior and intermediate sysadmins, for developers who want to understand their production environment, and for anyone preparing an exam. Every procedure is tested on Debian 13, Ubuntu Server 26.04 and AlmaLinux 10.
The English edition is translated module by module, and 201 lessons are available in English so far. Pages that are not translated yet open in French, and each link to one says so.
If you start from scratch, the entry point is Discover Linux: what a kernel does, what a distribution is, and what the terminal you are about to spend the next 135 hours in is for.
What does the Linux training cover, and how long does it take?
The course has 25 modules and 213 lessons, for about 135 hours of actual work, reading, labs and quizzes included. That makes it the largest course on the site.
| What you follow | Volume |
|---|---|
| Learning modules | 25 |
| Lessons | 213 |
| Lessons with a hands-on lab | 81 |
| Lessons with a quiz | 190 |
| Estimated duration | about 135 hours |
| Reference distributions | Debian 13, Ubuntu Server 26.04, AlmaLinux 10 |
| Certifications prepared | RHCSA EX200 (RHEL 10) and LFCS |
| Cost | free, no sign-up |
These volumes are recomputed from the course programme on every release, and the hours are not reading time. They add up the guide, the lab when the lesson has one, and the quiz that closes it. A storage lesson with a lab on logical volumes therefore weighs more than a command sheet, and the total reflects the time you will really spend in front of a machine. Nothing forces you to follow everything: the References and Going further parts are occasional complements, not mandatory steps.
In which order should you follow the Linux training?
The recommended order is Fundamentals, Operate, Networking, Maintain, Storage, Secure, Troubleshoot, then Certifications. Each part groups modules of the course, with their lessons and labs, and can be followed on its own if you are after a specific skill.
| Part | What you learn | Lessons | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamentals | Discover Linux, navigate the filesystem, work with text, use the shell, manage permissions and processes, install software, first networking steps | 46 | ~28 h |
| Operate (in French) | Command-line text processing, SSH, Bash scripting, alternative shells, scheduling, processes, performance, systemd | 47 | ~27 h |
| Networking | Persistent interface configuration, Netplan and NetworkManager, link aggregation, diagnostics, file transfers | 11 | ~8 h |
| Maintain | APT, DNF and Flatpak packages, dependencies, security updates, system load, disk space | 14 | ~8 h |
| Storage | Partitions, filesystems, persistent mounts, LVM, RAID, LUKS encryption, quotas, Btrfs, disk performance | 24 | ~18 h |
| Secure | Users and groups, sudo, ACLs, LDAP with SSSD, sysctl and GRUB hardening, firewall, SELinux and AppArmor | 15 | ~15 h |
| Troubleshoot | Diagnostic method, a service that will not start, lost SSH access, a read-only filesystem, a stuck boot | 7 | ~5 h |
| Certifications | Choose between RHCSA and LFCS, prepare the exam, sit the mock exam | 5 | ~7 h |
| References | A-Z command sheets: awk, curl, find, grep, jq, sed, tar, xargs | 13 | ~6 h |
| Going further | Advanced editors, Nix, then the kernel mechanisms behind containers: cgroups, namespaces, capabilities | 19 | ~9 h |
There are two ways to read this table. If you are new to Linux, take the parts in order: the Fundamentals build the vocabulary and the reflexes without which the rest stays opaque, and Operate moves on to what a sysadmin does all day. If you already run servers, start with the part you are missing, usually Storage, Secure or Troubleshoot, and use the Fundamentals as a targeted refresher.
How do you track your progress in the Linux course?
Every lesson has a checkbox, and your progress is stored in your browser, with no account and no sign-up required. Without an account, no data leaves your machine.
The My course page shows the full programme, module by module, with your completion percentage. In each lesson, the course plan in the left column reminds you where you are; at the bottom, a button marks the lesson as read and takes you to the next one, another goes back to the previous one. On a course of about 135 hours, that marker matters: you can pick up where you left off, even several weeks later. A lesson read in English or in French counts once: both editions share the same progress.
How is a skill validated: labs, quizzes, drills and a mock exam?
Four validation layers stack up: 81 lessons with a lab, 190 quizzes, timed drills and a 20-task RHCSA mock exam. Reading is not enough, and even less so in a job that is judged on the state of a machine.
Every lab prepares a disposable environment, an isolated shell or a VM, runs a scenario, then checks the real state of the system and computes a score. You break nothing on your workstation. The dsoxlab CLI drives everything: start a lab, validate it, track your progress. One point matters as much for the certifications as for production: the check looks at the state of the machine after a reboot, and a configuration that does not survive a reboot does not count.
The quiz closes the lesson in a few questions. It does not replace the lab; it catches what you think you understood: the precedence of an option, the unit of a value, the order of two steps.
The page How to validate your skills (in French) details validation by evidence: unit labs, level capstones and the mock exam. That mock exam, the rhcsa-mock-exam capstone, runs 20 tasks on two VMs in about 180 minutes, under exam conditions; it is described on the RHCSA page.
Drills, under exam conditions
Between the guided labs, which teach, and the capstone, which simulates the full exam, the drills are an intermediate layer: short tasks, no hints and timed, done as on exam day. Most are dual-distribution: one content serves the RHCSA on RHEL and the LFCS on Ubuntu, and you pick the target with the --target option. Run them when you think you have mastered a domain: that is when the gap between "I can do it" and "I can do it in twenty minutes without documentation" becomes visible.
Where are the labs? The dsoxlab companion repository
The labs live in the linux-dsoxlab-training repository and run with the dsoxlab CLI. The site holds the guides, the repository holds the exercises and their grading, so you can replay a lab without going through the browser.
You install it once. The dsoxlab CLI installs with uv or pipx, then you clone the catalogue and list what you can play:
uv tool install dsoxlab # or: pipx install dsoxlabgit clone https://github.com/stephrobert/linux-dsoxlab-training.gitcd linux-dsoxlab-trainingdsoxlab list-labsThe output of dsoxlab list-labs shows the lab identifiers, the same ones you find on the lab card of each lesson. The repository follows the same logic as the course: guide, then lab, then capstone, then certification. Every lab is written in English, and the dsoxlab guide covers installation and scoring.
RHCSA or LFCS: which Linux certification should you choose?
The RHCSA (exam EX200) validates skills on RHEL 10 in an enterprise context; the LFCS from the Linux Foundation is vendor-neutral and taken on the distribution of your choice. Both are hands-on exams: you are put in front of a machine, not a questionnaire.
They are not an appendix to the course but a major validation path, and the whole content prepares for them. The RHCSA requires dnf, nmcli, firewalld and SELinux enforcing, which makes it demanding on persistent settings. The LFCS covers five cross-cutting domains and rewards method more than a distribution. If you are aiming for a job in a Red Hat environment, the RHCSA carries more weight on a CV; otherwise the LFCS proves the same foundation.
The page Choose between RHCSA and LFCS compares the two hands-on exams for your profile. Each one then has its own preparation page: the RHCSA EX200, Red Hat's exam on RHEL 10, and the LFCS, the Linux Foundation's vendor-neutral certification in five domains.
Which distribution should you learn Linux on in 2026?
The course holds whatever your distribution, but every major release brings changes that affect a production server and that you cannot guess. Debian 13 mounts /tmp in memory and stops reading /etc/sysctl.conf, Ubuntu Server 26.04 replaces the GNU coreutils with a Rust reimplementation, and AlmaLinux 10 boots with SELinux enforcing while refusing to boot on a processor that is too old. These pages treat each distribution on its own terms, from lab measurements, not from release notes.
The Debian, Ubuntu, AlmaLinux comparison (in French) answers the question that often decides the choice: how many years of free security updates, and on which packages, since all three have a gap, not in the same place. Each distribution then has its own page, all in French for now: Debian 13 “Trixie” for migrating from Debian 12 and its traps, Ubuntu Server 26.04 LTS for the universe security gap, the Rust coreutils and sudo-rs, and AlmaLinux 10 for its ten years of security updates, EPEL out of scope and the processor trap.
What I stand for
I have been running Linux servers for years, and this course has opinions. Here they are, so you know what you are signing up for.
You only remember what you broke and repaired yourself. Every topic therefore follows the same thread: a guide sets the mental model and the commands, a lab puts you in charge of a disposable VM where a mistake costs nothing, and a quiz checks that the essentials stuck. That is why 81 lessons come with a lab, and why I would rather add a lab than lengthen a text.
A configuration that does not survive a reboot does not count. The labs do not check the command you typed, they check the state of the machine after a reboot. That is the rule of the RHCSA exam, and above all the rule of production: a sysctl set by hand, a mount missing from /etc/fstab or a service never enabled with systemctl enable are outages waiting to happen.
You do not learn Linux at an AI prompt. An assistant gives you the command, but it does not diagnose your outage at three in the morning, does not know why your systemd unit stays failed after a reboot, and does not measure the real state of your disk. Learning Linux means building the mental model that makes you self-sufficient when the assistant is wrong, and it is wrong with confidence.
The why before the how. I refuse tutorials that chain commands without explaining what they do, and abstract examples cut off from reality. Here, every command ran on a real machine before it was written down, and the output shown is the output that machine produced.
One reference distribution at a time, not a blend. When behaviour diverges, the guide says which of the three systems it describes. Pretending that netplan is Linux networking or that ufw is the universal firewall produces sysadmins who are lost as soon as they change environments.
What I advise against
Three mistakes come up often enough to be named before you make them.
Learning Linux by reading. It is the most expensive one, because it gives the illusion of progress. A lesson read without its lab leaves nothing three weeks later. If you are short of time, do fewer lessons, but do their labs.
Disabling SELinux at the first denial. On AlmaLinux 10 as on RHEL, setenforce 0 makes the symptom and the skill disappear at the same time. The denial is information: ausearch -m avc -ts recent tells you which of your files carries the wrong context, and restorecon fixes it in one command.
Preparing a Red Hat exam on Ubuntu. The RHCSA is taken on RHEL, with dnf, firewalld and SELinux enforcing. Prepare on AlmaLinux 10 or Rocky Linux, otherwise you will discover the differences on exam day, with the clock running.
References and going further
The A-Z command sheets and the deeper topics such as Nix, advanced editors or the kernel internals are occasional resources, not steps on the learning path. You open them when a precise question comes up, not in order.
The difference is real: a course lesson builds a skill and is validated by a lab, a reference sheet answers a question and closes. Keep both within reach, but do not mistake the second for progress.
The A-Z command sheets cover awk, curl, find, grep, jq, sed, tar, xargs and more. The Going further part gathers the advanced editors, Nix, then the kernel mechanisms behind containers: cgroups, namespaces and capabilities.
Which courses complement the Linux training?
Three topics of the LFCS curriculum have a course of their own on the site: Git, containers with Podman, and networking. The Linux training does not copy them, it sends you there at the right time: once the foundation is in place, not before. They are full courses, with their own progression and their own labs.
The recommended order follows your needs. Git helps as soon as you version your scripts and configuration files, Podman directly extends the systemd module since it generates services, and the Networking course deepens the troubleshooting that the Linux Networking module only introduces, from ping to the firewall and TLS. For the LFCS, the first two cover exam objectives. All three are only available in French for now.
The Git course teaches you to version scripts and configurations, with branches, history and collaboration. Podman covers daemonless containers, rootless mode and systemd services generated by Quadlet. The Networking course (in French) covers troubleshooting in production, protocols and a two-machine homelab.
Key points
Five points sum up what to keep from this page before you open the first lesson:
- The entry point for a beginner is Discover Linux; a sysadmin already on the job starts with the part they are missing.
- The recommended order is Fundamentals, Operate, Networking, Maintain, Storage, Secure, Troubleshoot, then Certifications.
- A skill is validated by a lab graded on the state of the machine after a reboot, not by reading the guide.
- Your progress is stored in your browser, with no account and no sign-up required.
- The RHCSA targets RHEL and requires SELinux enforcing; the LFCS is taken on the distribution of your choice.
FAQ: frequently asked questions
These questions are about the training itself: its cost, the starting point for a beginner, how a skill is validated, what you need to install, and the choice between the two certifications.
- Fundamentals
- Operate
- Networking
- Maintain
- Storage
- Secure
- Troubleshoot
- Certifications
| Layer | What it checks |
|---|---|
| Lab | The real state of the machine, including after a reboot |
| Quiz | What you think you understood: an option, a unit, an order |
| Drill | A short task, with no hints and timed |
| RHCSA mock exam | 20 tasks on 2 VMs, under exam conditions |
dsoxlab CLI, installed once, and the lab catalogue:uv tool install dsoxlab # or: pipx install dsoxlab
git clone https://github.com/stephrobert/linux-dsoxlab-training.git
cd linux-dsoxlab-training
dsoxlab list-labs
- The RHCSA (EX200) is taken on RHEL 10 and requires
dnf,nmcli,firewalldand SELinux enforcing. It carries more weight for a job in a Red Hat environment. - The LFCS from the Linux Foundation is vendor-neutral: it covers five cross-cutting domains, on the distribution of your choice.