RefDesk — Essential DevOps & Linux Resources
Updated Jun 2026 · Tested on Linux, DevOps, Cloud
A hand-picked directory of the resources we actually use — official documentation, download and install pages, container registries, and learning hubs for the modern Linux, DevOps, and cloud stack. Every link goes to a canonical, current source, so you’re always one click from the real docs or the official download.
Infrastructure as Code
The tools for defining and provisioning infrastructure declaratively.
| Tool | Documentation | Download / Get started |
|---|---|---|
| Terraform | developer.hashicorp.com/terraform | Install · Registry |
| OpenTofu | opentofu.org/docs | Install |
| Pulumi | pulumi.com/docs | Download |
| Ansible | docs.ansible.com | Install · Galaxy |
Containers & orchestration
Building, shipping, and running containers.
| Tool | Documentation | Download / Hub |
|---|---|---|
| Docker | docs.docker.com | Get Docker · Docker Hub |
| Kubernetes | kubernetes.io/docs | Install kubectl |
| Podman | docs.podman.io | Install |
| Helm | helm.sh/docs | Install · Artifact Hub |
| containerd | containerd.io/docs | Releases |
GitOps & CI/CD
Continuous delivery and Git-driven deployment.
| Tool | Documentation | Source / Releases |
|---|---|---|
| Argo CD | argo-cd.readthedocs.io | GitHub |
| Argo Workflows | argo-workflows.readthedocs.io | GitHub |
| Flux | fluxcd.io/flux | Install |
| Jenkins | jenkins.io/doc | Download |
| GitHub Actions | docs.github.com/actions | Marketplace |
| GitLab CI/CD | docs.gitlab.com/ci | — |
Observability & monitoring
Metrics, logs, traces, and dashboards.
| Tool | Documentation | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Prometheus | prometheus.io/docs | Download |
| Grafana | grafana.com/docs | Download · Dashboards |
| Loki | grafana.com/docs/loki | Releases |
| OpenTelemetry | opentelemetry.io/docs | Downloads |
| Jaeger | jaegertracing.io/docs | Download |
Cloud provider docs
The big three, plus their CLIs.
| Provider | Documentation | CLI / Tools |
|---|---|---|
| AWS | docs.aws.amazon.com | AWS CLI · Architecture Center |
| Google Cloud | cloud.google.com/docs | gcloud CLI |
| Microsoft Azure | learn.microsoft.com/azure | Azure CLI |
Linux distributions & docs
Official documentation for the distributions you’ll actually run.
| Distro | Documentation |
|---|---|
| Ubuntu | ubuntu.com/server/docs · Help |
| Debian | debian.org/doc |
| Red Hat (RHEL) | docs.redhat.com |
| Rocky Linux | docs.rockylinux.org |
| Fedora | docs.fedoraproject.org |
| Arch Linux | wiki.archlinux.org |
Shell, scripting & core tools
References for the command line itself.
| Resource | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| GNU Bash Manual | The official Bash reference |
| ShellCheck | Lint your shell scripts (source) |
| explainshell | Break down any command line |
| GNU Coreutils | Manual for ls, cp, find, and friends |
| tldr pages | Practical, example-first man pages |
| man7.org | Authoritative Linux man pages |
Learning & reference hubs
Where to go deeper.
| Resource | What it offers |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes the Hard Way | Build a cluster from scratch to learn the internals |
| CNCF Landscape | Map of the entire cloud-native ecosystem |
| roadmap.sh (DevOps) | Visual learning paths for DevOps and SRE |
| Google SRE Books | The SRE books, free to read online |
| DevDocs | Unified, searchable API docs for dozens of tools |
| Awesome Sysadmin | Curated list of open-source sysadmin tools |
Looking for hands-on guides rather than links? Browse our DevOps topic for tested, copy-paste references, or start with the full topic index.