My experience might be out of date at this point, but I remember getting similar experiences out of installing Slackware and FreeBSD years ago. Nowadays, the Ub

My experience might be out of date at this point, but I remember getting similar experiences out of installing Slackware and FreeBSD years ago. Nowadays, the Ubuntu installer takes care of so many details for me, that I don't really have to think about the install process. Probably something like "Linux From Scratch" http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ would also be a good way to learn the important details.