> "I read this and realised I don't know what any of these commands are (I've always used Windows), and it's time to start." I'm a great admirer of Brendan Gre

> "I read this and realised I don't know what any of these commands are (I've always used Windows), and it's time to start." I'm a great admirer of Brendan Gregg but I have to say that 1) that's trying to run before you can walk; those tools require fairly advanced Linux knowledge to operate properly and you say that you've only used Windows, and 2) if you're primarily interested in the performance analysis aspect, analogous performance measurement tools exist in Windows, like Windows' built in performance counters and PerfMon. If you're unfamiliar with Linux and want to get to a point where you understand the tools Brendan Gregg mentioned, I'll say something similar to what others have said: get an inexpensive used 1-liter PC¹ at home, load Ubuntu or some other popular Linux distribution, and start with Nemeth's "UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook" to learn your way around the system. That will give you the context you need to be able to start to understand how performance analysis tools are used. After that, you can move to the cloud whenever you feel you're ready. ¹ The description at https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/ https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimic... explains what they are and why they are a good value. I wouldn't recommend the Raspberry Pi because not all diagnostic tools are available on ARM and a PC is no more difficult to re-image if you make a mistake than a Raspberry Pi.