Its magic.
I was recently trying to build my own linux operating system and I felt so frustrated as to how to build an iso image from bzImage / linux kernel + initramfs but I was able to withstand its pain somehow and it took me a week to actually learn a lot more about the fundamentals of linux which are so fascinating.
Now, I was trying to do some mix and matching (imagine tinycorelinux initramfs and buildroot bzImage and merging them) and doing some other shenanigans.
Sometimes my computer kernel didn't work or the userspace didn't work in the vm and I guess now WHEN I AM WRITING THIS POST, I realized that it was because of the difference in 32 bit and 64 bit, I think I had 64 bit kernel and 32 bit userspace which had some issues
There were some different things as well, which had caused some issues which made me want to scratch my remaining hair but it was so worth it (maybe i used some llm assistance in the end as well), its all just makes sense now, I always wanted to learn how computers work from scratch, now I feel like I have a very basic idea on how things work and they are complex indeed :sob:
I was looking for a post like yours yesterday and so I am still glad I found it when the topic is still fresh.
I faced so many issues trying to build my own iso but I don't know if it was my skill issue which streched it to a week. But the whole process of building your own iso seems less daunting to me now knowing what it really is
I may have skill issues indeed but I fixed those, I feel like that there is a lot to learn from those errors that I missed but maybe that's also because they got too overwhelming. But I now know a path which works and some explainations of why they work. I feel more confident in my ability to make my own custom distro even, but my appreciation for linux grows so much.
Its just such a massive rabbit hole and most of linux is literally just "it just works", linux is amazing.