I find the basic Linux stuff is learning by doing and reading docs, using search and asking around.

Docker has docs and also searchable examples and blogs.

But k8s is an IMHO artificially fenced off area. No matter where I ask, I receive no response or am met with arrogance and elitism.

I can't even get the simplest thing answered, which is "what is the minimum required setup for k8s, if not using a hosted solution? I plan to use 3cp 3w nodes and utilize all resources available. Do I NEED external storage, do I NEED an external load balancer or can I use DNS-LB?"

Official k8s forum - zero response. Reddit k8s - zero response and downvotes Home operations Discord - zero response

It's like this little well kept secret only select few have access to.

The documentation is also not clear on that subject, because I believe the big companies like Google and Amazon want to sell you their k8s offerings, which are super expensive, over 2k per month for a 5 node cluster are you kidding me