DevOps Roadmap Part 2 — Linux Fundamentals for DevOps

If DevOps had a backbone, it would be Linux. Almost every server, cloud VM, container, and production system runs on Linux.

DevOps engineers do not “use Linux occasionally”. They live inside it.

Most cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) run Linux internally. Docker containers are Linux-based. Kubernetes nodes are Linux machines.

If you avoid Linux, DevOps is not possible.

Linux is an operating system — just like Windows — but designed for:

Linux does not focus on graphics. It focuses on control.

Everything in Linux is a file.

DevOps engineers must know where configuration and logs live.

Check current directory

pwd

List files

ls

Change directory

cd /var/log

Create a directory

mkdir devops

Create a file

touch app.log

View file content

cat app.log

These commands may look simple, but they are used daily in production.

Linux protects files using permissions.

Each file has:

Check permissions

ls -l

Incorrect permissions are a common cause of production failures.

Terminal allows:

GUIs do not scale. Terminals do.

Do not memorize commands. Understand what they do.

DevOps engineers are not command machines. They are system thinkers.

In the next part, we will go deeper into Linux processes, users, and system management — the real server-level concepts.