Great post on the history and benefits of SmartOS, a distribution of Illumos. Also includes a comparison with OpenIndiana, another distribution of Illumos.
Not OP nor am I a Rust expert. I can speak regarding another technology: sockets.
I've been deep-diving into sockets recently. 2 weeks ago I had only a high-level understanding of sockets (learned from casually reading manpages, docs, blog posts, etc.). I decided to read as much as possible because I wanted to understand networking fundamentals, and after a week I learned enough to write some sockets code in Python and C. I know Python quite well, so reviewing the ``sockets'' library made more sense after my deep dive.
If you want to get better at technology A using language X, I suggest either reading/watching as much as you can about tech A, and build stuff with it in language Y. Then you can circle back to learning language X and you've already mastered much of the concepts around technology A.
I followed the exercises in this book coming up on a decade ago. It was I valuable to my growth as a developer. The author, OrangeDuck, has many worthwhile projects. If you are learning C, it's worth checking out their Cello project.
I'm only finally learning journalctl after years of using Linux, and what a lifesaver this would have been if I had only learnt it sooner. This guide is excellent; it is succinct and informative.
