If it were true then Universities and schools wouldn't exist. After all everything taught in school is a "Google search away".
There are a lot of extremely knowledgeable people out there with little formal education. Universities and schools are not the only way to learn. They make learning easier because they present the information in a carefully organized way. Again, how do you want to pay? You can either pay the educational establishment to organize that information for you or you can invest the time to find it yourself.
It's all about attitude. If you attack a problem with the 'I can do this' attitude you probably can. Will you make mistakes? Of course. Will you always succeed? Probably not. Will it be hard work? Yes. However if you start off thinking this is too hard you are pretty much guaranteed to fail. Unfortunately fewer and fewer people these days are willing to try.
The reality is if you already know, then you know what to discard and what to use. And when you don't know what you don't know, the google approach is incredibly difficult.
Start with the basics and work from there. Taking the Linux kernel example. Type 'What is the Linux kernel' into Google. The first hit is Wikipedia. This is the first sentence in the Wikipedia description: "The *Linux kernel* is a free and open-source <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source>, monolithic <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel>, Unix-like <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like> operating system <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system> kernel <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(operating_system)>." Ok, but I don't know what a kernel is. Click on the kernel link and you get a description that starts with a good overview then goes into more detail if you need it (which you don't).
Of course none of this tells you anything about how to build the kernel, but at least you have more of an understanding of what it does and why you would need to modify it. Instructions for building the kernel are out there. It can be a pretty deep rabbit hole but this is advanced stuff that few people need to do. An evening on Google isn't going to be nearly enough. It's a learning process and learning takes time. Even learning how to use online searches efficiently takes time. Are you willing to invest the time?
And none of that addresses that a LinuxCNC system is an incredibly complex system
So is a 747. You don't have to know what hydraulic system 2 in a 747 does to fly in one, though if you are interested a quick search will get you a diagram that shows you.
Motion control is complicated. Making a very versatile extensible motion control system is even more so. If you want LinuxCNC's versatility you have to accept it is going to be complex. Unless you are doing pretty sophisticated stuff you don't need to know how it works internally. If you do need to work on it you just concentrate on the area you need to work on.
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