My Devops Journey - Programming - Nairaland
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| My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 8:03pm On Sep 23, 2025 |
Hello, good day everyone. I am stepping into the world of technology. So I took the decision to get a tech skill and I decided to go for devops. Devops is a combination of the word development and operations. So what is DevOps? It is a way of working that brings together developers (who write code) and operations( those that automate the running of code on servers or in the cloud). The goal is to make building, testing and deploying software faster and smoother. It is all about automation. Researching about what skill to learn, the feed-backs I got were things like “don’t try DevOps oooo, it's not for the faint hearted” but not withstanding here I am. I am documenting my journey here, so I can come back to see how far I am going and for here to serve as my accountability partner. So the first step I have taken in the journey so far is the installation of the Linux operating system on my laptop. Oh my God! It wasn't an easy journey because the laptop I am using is a 4GB RAM laptop. You can imagine trying to run windows and Linux on it….hahahahahaha. I found a way around it sha, so I bought a 500GB external hard disk drive and installed Linux. It is on the external HDD drive that linux is running. So anytime I want linux I just plug in my external HDD and it boots to Linux. But doing it wasn't easy for me sha at my level. I had to reconfigure a lot of things in my PC and changed It to dual booting. turned off secure boot, gave ubuntu the priority as the first OS that will load. So anytime I connect my external HDD it loads to Linux but if not connected my windows load straight away. So I kinda prefer it this way for now since my laptop is not capable of running both OS. I need to start somewhere. For the installation, I downloaded linux cinnamon mint. linux mint is a popular linux distribution based on ubuntu/debian. It is user friendly and the interface is almost like that of windows. The GUI is beginners friendly size is about 2GB+ after that I downloaded Rufus software, it is what I used to burn the linux downloaded file into a USB, making the USB a boot-able drive and in my BIOS in the systems setting I set it to load first when it is plugged in. downloading the linux OS into my external HDD, I had to partition it first allocated space of 256GB, I made a mistake. It was 265GB I wanted to allocate but I forgot and I didn’t have the strength to clean the drive to a new volume. I have gone through that before. I pressed diskpart and then entered the following commands to clean it 1. list disk (...this lists all the drives in my system and their capacity) 2. select disk 1(...the name of my external HDD) 3. clean 4. create partition primary format fs=ntfs quick assign After that I loaded my USB containing the Linux file and also plugged in my External HDD, so during installation when it was asking me for where it will be installed and listed out all my drives. I clicked on my External HDD. Installation was successful after a lot of back and forth with troubleshooting; it finally installed and the dual booting was set. So this is how far I have gone in my journey and I hope to update it from time to time to share my progress. I have prepared my mind for how difficult it is going to be but I don’t know if I have prepared enough. I am now getting familiar with the linux environment, it is rich. They have their own version of office suite and I noticed the shortkeys I use in office it is also working here. Anytime I finish work I disconnect my drive and everything gets saved on my External HDD. make i dey manage am like this first till i upgrade to a better laptop. Learning this at the beginning I know it's going to feel like studying math at 3pm. I am setting a 6 months to 1 year timeline….lets see how it goes. 2 Likes |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 8:26pm On Sep 23, 2025 |
The installation. The next process is now to start learning basic Linux commands 3 Likes
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| Re: My Devops Journey by jidemosaic: 10:11pm On Sep 23, 2025 |
Can we connect? I'm on the same track but dealing with Linux sys admin first via an udemy course |
| Re: My Devops Journey by PeterObi4Presid: 1:02am On Sep 24, 2025 |
The installation hassle alone should be enough to award you "certificate of beginning", recognized by recruiters 4 Likes |
| Re: My Devops Journey by tollyboy5(m): 12:04pm On Sep 25, 2025 |
jidemosaic:Is there always need to connect  . I don't know o, I'm just saying. But you're on the right track |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Seun(mod): 1:25pm On Sep 25, 2025 |
Nice workbro. Hint for learning Linux for devops: You should probably install the latest version of CentOS/Alma Linux/Rocky Linux or Fedora. The first 3 are the same: the most popular Linux servers used in the world. Fedora is a desktop OS but it's very compatible with the first 3. 1 Like |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Suicideboy: 2:39pm On Sep 25, 2025 |
Same with my gf My gf runs hers on rpi running arch linux , thanks to her i dont need netflix any more when we have plex, navidrome instead of spotify, xmpp instance for when she spams me dirty piiiicccs 1 Like |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 5:05pm On Sep 26, 2025 |
I'm telling you oooooooo there should be something like "proficiency in Linux installation begginers level"🤣😂😂 PeterObi4Presid: 1 Like |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 5:16pm On Sep 26, 2025 |
Thanks for the feedback, I started with Cinnamon Mint since it feels closer to Windows. it’s helping me get comfortable with Linux basics. As I keep learning the command line, I’ll definitely start exploring the more server-focused distros like you suggested. Plus laptop constraints is limiting me for the time even installing editor like nano I couldn't so I am stuck with sublime for now. When I get a better one, I will move on to the latest distros. Seun: 1 Like |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 5:21pm On Sep 26, 2025 |
Osheeeey I twale for the hottest homelab couple😂 Suicideboy: 1 Like |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 5:24pm On Sep 26, 2025 |
How's the course going so far? jidemosaic: |
| Re: My Devops Journey by jidemosaic: 8:45pm On Sep 26, 2025 |
Seun:The owner of nairaland commented on your thread. Wow! |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 5:54pm On Oct 07, 2025*. Modified: 6:14pm On Oct 07, 2025 |
So far, I have explored basic Linux commands and system concepts. 1. Shells: I learned how to list all available shells installed on the system. 2. Hardware clock: Practiced checking and displaying the hardware clock time. 3. Navigation:Used commands to change to the home directory and understand directory structures. 4. Hidden files:Learned how to display hidden files and directories. 5. File & directory management: Created directories and files, and appended text to files. 6. Viewing content: Practiced using head to display specific numbers of lines or bytes and combine head and tail for selective viewing. 7. File permissions: * Changed permissions so only the owner can read, write, and execute. Chmod 700 'filename' read is 4, write:2, execute:1 all of them added is 7 so for each group you set the number you want. * Modified permissions using symbolic and numeric modes. * Applied umask to control default permissions for new files. * Changed file ownership to another user. 8. File paths: Learned the difference between absolute (which ls, type -a ls) and relative paths (cd /bin ./ls). 9. Process management: Listed running processes using ps and tail. Understood the meaning of UID, PID, PPID, STIME, TTY, TIME, and CMD. 10. Links: Created and understood symbolic links. 11. File compression: Practiced decompressing files back to their original form gunzip 12. Searching files: Used commands to find files in `/etc` that contain the word “bash”, and learned how to count and display results using grep, wc and head. 13. Memory monitoring: Used free with options (-h, -k, -m, -g) to view memory usage in various units. 14. Sticky bit: Explored the sticky bit concept, although this part still needs more practice. I’m becoming more confident with basic Linux navigation, file permissions, and process management. Next, I plan to deepen my understanding of special permissions like the sticky bit, setuid and also get into running processes more. 1 Like
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| Re: My Devops Journey by Nostalemate: 8:57am On Mar 10 |
Jecci:Saw your message I've replied kindly check your inbox for what is needed for a proper Convo. Shout-out to all chess players on Nairaland earning good money via the game. |
| Re: My Devops Journey by as69: 9:09am On Apr 03 |
This is a solid start sha. Getting Linux running on an external HDD on a 4GB laptop - most people quit at that installation stage alone, so real respect for pushing through. One thing that helped me: once you're comfortable with the basics, start practising on a free cloud instance rather than only local. AWS free tier gives you a t2.micro for 12 months, DigitalOcean gives $200 credit for new accounts. Running commands on an actual remote server changes how you think about networking and permissions - and those two things matter a lot for DevOps specifically. How far you go with the sticky bit issue? That one trips people for a while. 1 Like |
| Re: My Devops Journey by Jecci(op): 8:08am On Apr 08 |
That's what is affecting me now honestly. I have deployed locally and done everything locally and now moving to cloud feels hectic. The AWS free tier is nothing for the kind of stuff I need on the server. I registered in digital ocean last week but there was no free $200 my account there read 0.00. It's contabo that I have moved to, pricing is fair compared to AWS but their payment rules that's delaying me they don't accept naira card only dollar, Euros, pound as69: |
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