Get in there and do something with your VPS. You can always reset/reinstall. The process of following through and doing it - until it works as you originally en

Get in there and do something with your VPS. You can always reset/reinstall. The process of following through and doing it - until it works as you originally envisioned is the best way to learn and improve. During the process understanding how things work and why is more important than finding that perfect configuration (see bediger's comment). Now as soon as you have users or a business, etc... things change quickly. Your goal will change from learning to maintaining or stability. That's why multiple environments are so common. Most people in IT are not learning they are optimizing, maintaining and protecting. So you have to understand when viewing most comments and information on the internet that you have a different goal (learning) than most of the IT industry. Almost all the most useful ideas that I learned about managing a server, I learned due to an experience. Opposed to just reading about it on serverfault or superuser :)