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There is, actually but it's not as well-known:

http://www.lpi.org/

I'm sorta slowly pursuing these. I think my favorite concept is that LPI does offer an Ubuntu-specific exam on top of the regular certifications you can get.

choose 2 or 3 people and send them to take a course and certificate on the technology (some kind of Linux administrator cert. on http://www.lpi.org/ [lpi.org] for example) and then arrange some time to let these guys teach the other people in your place.

http://www.lpi.org/

How can you suggest that a company which might have thousands of employees should let them train for such skill as Linux admin/setup "Empirically"? Empirical learning is OK for the mom-basement geeks which might just put their web server online. What are they going to do? are they going to give the guys 2 daily hours to mess around with some computers? uh, *great* use of time (and money).

I would definitely suggest getting some formal (read *real*) training. As others have stated in the thread, there are lots of Linux certification programs. What companies usually do (at least the ones I have been which does not have a lot of money to send 100 monkeys to learn about X or Y technology) is to choose 2 or 3 people and send them to take a course and certificate on the technology (some kind of Linux administrator cert. on http://www.lpi.org/ for example) and then arrange some time to let these guys teach the other people in your place. That way you will have a structured plan of learning.

Of course you may want to have practical sessions (to "try stuff and look online") but you will know what to try and look. I can just imagine a chemist going to the laboratory to "try stuff" in order to learn about the effects of nitroglycerin when combined with different reactants...

If you are a lone consultant, sure just google your way to get this new set of knowledge (of course do not get pissed of when the guy who has the Red Hat Certified Engineer cert. gets your job...). But for big companies, you'd better get real training (to justify the time/money you will be spending).

This is what the lpi ( http://www.lpi.org/ ) aims for.

It's not _free_, but at expos you can do an exam for something like 20 quid, which is pretty near free.

Have a look at the Linux Professionals Institute: http://www.lpi.org/
At least they are vendor-independent. And their tests are pretty tough too. I know. I've been through a couple of them.

The whole point of the certification industry is to create a cash flow for the certifying entities, the training establishments, the book authors and publishers. Secondly certifications provide a somewhat nebulous proof of a skill-set so that knowledge-free managers can sleep comfortably at night. That said, well thought out tick-the-box tests do sort the absolute chaff from the grain in a rough and ready sort way. Remember that MCSE == "Must Consult Someone Experienced", and, joking aside, that the LPI series are actually useful, but that you need to achieve level 3 before your knowledge is of any real economic value.

Check out the Linux Profesional Institute exams at http://www.lpi.org/, I'm going to undergo the first two (level 1) exams in a few weeks.

I have recently taken (and passed) certification exams for Zend PHP, MySQL Core, and LPI Linux 1. I work with these technologies every day and studied for these tests. Some of the questions were pretty difficult, and some were fairly easy. I think that anyone who has passed these tests does possess a least a minimum amount of knowledge about these subjects. Anyone can say they know something on a resume, but if you can prove you know at least a minimum before you are even interviewed... in my opinion that can only help when job hunting. And if your current employer pays for it, why not get certified for your resume's sake? But if your just trying to impress your coworkers and others already in the industry, I doubt that certs will help you out much.

Linux HAS an "Open Source" certification. They are from the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). LPI does not cost $500, has a community based development model, does not make money on training or books (though we do endorse ones that teach our objectives). In fact, we want you to come and help us update our objectives right now at https://group.lpi.org/cgi-bin/publicwiki/view/Exam dev/ObjectivesReview We want to create tests that don't suck. Here is your chance to put your money where your mouth is about how to do a certification test right. Your input is sought after to help us do this. Contact info@lpi.org if you wish to contribute.

My time has much value, thank you very much, and wasting it removing viruses, spyware, and downloading endless updates to repatch a system so that it is only less vulnerable than before is not appreciated.

This is the same tired old Microsoft argument: You'll have to train folks to use Linux, so it'll cost you more.

Remind me again how much I had to spend training my folks to use Windows? Last I looked, those MCSEs were not free. Even now, a quick comparison shows me that a LPI certification costs around $100 while an average MCSE cert is running about $1000 minimum (figures for a self-taught student, buying their own books - the figures are much higher for a course-based cert.).

A better question might be who has the better technical skills once they are certified. I've known more than a few MCSEs who think that things like DNS views are virtually impossible. I know of no LPIs suffering the same confusion, but, I'm willing to concede there may be a few out there - I just haven't seen 'em yet.

I wonder how they'll approach this. Will it be generic BSD certfication, much like LPI's? LPI's goal was to be distro-agnostic.

I'm sure it might be nice for the BSD cert to be agnostic as well, perhaps with specialities in the different "distros" - Open, Free, Net, etc. But would that be worth it?

And would Solaris and Mac OS X kinda count, since they are (somewhat) BSD-based?

yep, those people sure look like linux sysadmins to me. Its like they put a camera in the server room!

I'm sure most /. readers can relate: I'm the tech support guy for the entire family. I just helped my sister buy a Mac Mini because I just can't in good faith tell my family to buy Windows any more due to the rampant security issues. That, and I'm tired of cleaning spyware off of their computers everytime I visit.

1. Yes, I've heard of this Linux thing. I don't have time to listen to my family complain about not having MS Office for Linux. No, really, it's important to them. (Trust me, I'm working on it.)
2. Yes, I'm also familiar with OO.o and no, my family doesn't consider it the same thing.

It's my first foray into the Mac world, so we'll see how it goes.

Yes, IMO the short supply of qualified linux admins is the real problem. This underscores the need for a widely recognized certification in linux. I deride MCSE's as McSoftware Engineers, but that certificate does require a certain level of competance with that given software: a company hiring an MSCE guy can be assured that he can do basic MSCE stuff with Windows. To MS's credit, this is a good thing. I realize that there are linux certifications available (e.g. http://www.redhat.com/training/rhce/courses/, http://www.suse.com/us/business/services/training/ certification/index.html, http://www.lpi.org/), and that's great. Businesses should be aware of this, and should require some level of certification in linux--otherwise, it's like the wild west.

Don't know about Redhat, haven't tried it. However, my experience is that LPI is crap. You are expected to memorize hundreds of commands, together with just about all their parameters. Oh, and you are expected to know about the exact location and exact name of all the configuration files for XFree, NFS, Apache, samba, Sendmail, SSH, tpc wrappers...
Very little understanding required, just a talent for memorizing endless lists.

Oh, and expect to get lots of questions on obsolete things like ppp chat scripts, magic LPR filters or whether the 2.0 kernel supported USB!

You can also add ambiguous and poorly written questions to that, an amateurish site, and the fact that they keep switching topics around which makes coursebooks obsolete. A few coursebooks came when the exam was new, but see how many publishers care about the LPI now.

A Knoppix CD

This is the original live CD. Pop it into any reasonably modern PC and reboot to experience Linux without installation hassles. It's horribly slow but does give you a decent start.

The Linux Professional Institute lpi-101 Objectives.

This is what you have to learn to just start out on Linux admin. Skip the hardware stuff and start out at Objective 103. Go back to the hardware lessons after you are more confident.

The RUTE book

This is by far the best book for the root user. It's in serious need of a second edition, but it's 600 pages of good solid stuff

Gentoo

Once you have got a bit of experience with Linux this is the distribution to go for.
The install manual is a lesson all of its own!

Don't waste your employers money on courses which are simply not necessary provided you can read and understand English, and have sufficient self disipline to do the reading. The money would be much better spent getting a small laptop, and giving it to you once you have an LPI certificate or two.

A Knoppix CD

This is the original live CD. Pop it into any reasonably modern PC and reboot to experience Linux without installation hassles. It's horribly slow but does give you a decent start.

The Linux Professional Institute lpi-101 Objectives.

This is what you have to learn to just start out on Linux admin. Skip the hardware stuff and start out at Objective 103. Go back to the hardware lessons after you are more confident.

The RUTE book

This is by far the best book for the root user. It's in serious need of a second edition, but it's 600 pages of good solid stuff

Gentoo

Once you have got a bit of experience with Linux this is the distribution to go for.
The install manual is a lesson all of its own!

Don't waste your employers money on courses which are simply not necessary provided you can read and understand English, and have sufficient self disipline to do the reading. The money would be much better spent getting a small laptop, and giving it to you once you have an LPI certificate or two.

Yeah but that is what I like about SuSE's Certification. They basically took the LPI Certification and added one SuSE specific test to each level.

The main reason why the Globe and Mail, ran these articles is because the Real World LInux show (www.realworldlinux.com) starts next week.
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) is offering discounted LPIC exam certifications at the event, BUT here's the CATCH.
They're offering the exams at the same time the Keynote Speaches are being delivered...I guess the braniacs at LPI figured that tech's are a bunch of 'properller-heads' and won't understand the business of Linux...
I think I'm just gonna get an RHCT and screw the LPIC.

/me looks around to see if there are any Linux gurus here :)

Check it out. Contribute if you like. My motivation in starting it in the first place was to learn enough to pass the exam myself, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

cheers!
minderaser

2000$ isn't awfully much for five day a course that gets you certified in something

Most of the 5-day training courses are priced for companies who want training for their employees. They are generally way too expensive for individuals to pay for out of pocket.

If you want to get a Linux certification and not spend a lot of money (and you basically already have Linux skills and can do some self study), then the Linux Professional Institute Certification is a better way to go. To reach Intermediate Level you have to take 4 tests, which cost $100 each for an affordable $400 total cost.

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) serves the community of Linux and open source software users vendors and developers, in the interest of increasing and supporting professional use of such software throughout world. LPI will seek to improve the skills and resources of Linux and open source professionals, by providing services and setting standards which are relevant, of high quality and widely accessible.

LPI will tentatively be holding a number of events at the WSIS conference in December, including an open source workshop and a certification exam lab; it is also our intention to put a Linux "live" CD in the hands of every WSIS delegate. We will have at least six people at the conference, working to ensure that the delegations are capable of overcoming the anti-open-source FUD which is no doubt going on.

To that end, LPI has submitted a commentary on the WSIS activities, now part of the official WSIS documentation, that is stirring some interest. Anyone who is interested in helping LPI's efforts at WSIS is invited to subscribe to the LPI@WSIS mailing list.

The FSF is participating through the WSIS Working Group on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks; RMS is on the group's steering committee and Georg Greve of FSF Europe is one of the co-ordinators.

LPI will tentatively be holding a number of events at the WSIS conference in December, including an open source workshop and a certification exam lab; it is also our intention to put a Linux "live" CD in the hands of every WSIS delegate. We will have at least six people at the conference, working to ensure that the delegations are capable of overcoming the anti-open-source FUD which is no doubt going on.

To that end, LPI has submitted a commentary on the WSIS activities, now part of the official WSIS documentation, that is stirring some interest. Anyone who is interested in helping LPI's efforts at WSIS is invited to subscribe to the LPI@WSIS mailing list.

The FSF is participating through the WSIS Working Group on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks; RMS is on the group's steering committee and Georg Greve of FSF Europe is one of the co-ordinators.

It may be of interest to note that SCO is still a platinum sponsor of LPI

NYLXS

The Gnu/Linux 1 class, the Unix 1, class, the Perl 1 class, and others have all been superb. You are being taught by instructors who know what they teach, in an active, hands on environment. It is backed by an active mailing list, a learn list, an announcements list, Inservices that present various free software services and applications that are free to attend, business demos, and more. Richard Stallman has dropped in on classes, inservices, and other events from time to time, and David Sugar (Bayonne telephony Project)and others have held inservices and dropped in on meetings and classes as well.

The philosophy behind NYLXS (which is in the process of becomming a non-profit entity) is that open source is useful and productive, should be promoted by everyone, and can only grow larger. The funds raised from classes will go to promoting free/open source software.

If you look at the mass push behind free/open source software in other countries, in companies and schools across America, and in various agencies, their eyes are either slowly being opened, or are being jammed wide open at the benefits for running free/open source software. It can no longer be denied that gnu/linux has a huge momentum behind it, and must be a part of everyone's toolbox from now on.

NYLXS teaches the nitty-gritty of what you need to know to get the job done. You can take individual classes, or take an entire program and get discounts. At the end of several classes, you will have a working server, which can be setup to do anything you want, apache, mail, file/print, etc. You will also have the knowledge you need to go forward as a sys admin, or whatever other computer related job you choose, or for just your own knowledge.

They have Gnu/Linux 1/2, Unix 1/2, Perl 1/2, C, Gimp, Open Office, and other classes as well. Every class is taught by someone who uses the software daily as their main operating system/application, and they may be using it as the main software in their profession, or they may be using it as an aid to pick up where other software falls flat on its face.

NYLXS also has a free software chamber of commerce, where they provide solutions for businesses using free/open source software, and which also gives the students who go through the training an opportunity to obtain employment, allows the students to make important business contacts, etc.

NYLXS will be present and have a booth at LinuxWorld in NYC. NYLXS membership was instrumental at the events that occured on July 17, 2002 at the Commerce Committee hearing for drm/other controls, which had the direct effect of stalling the legislation, and opening up the process to what was previously a good 'ol boys process of enacting legislation behind closed doors.

Any sys admin, or anyone maintaining computers in a large user environment who does not know how to use and administer Gnu/Linux systems will be at a handicap when trying to sell themselves. I am aware of the environments of many companies, and for the larger (more than 10-15 seats) companies, they are virtually all experimenting with gnu/linux servers at least at a minimal level. They are just getting their feet wet at some of these companies, but as they become more familiar, and as they realize the benefits, they will become more and more involved with gnu/linux.

If you only know ms products, and are having trouble finding work, you must realize why. If you only know free software, you will also have trouble finding work. But sys admins and other techies that know both, and are comfortable with both, will have an easier time under any possible scenario.

Check out NYLXS, especially the pages under the Free Software Institute, and see what they offer. Their prices are very good, you get a working computer as part of the classes (which is used in the classes), you get access to numerous distributions, and you get a first rate education that is not taught to any test.

Complete one of the sequences, and then study the questions that are on the LPI exam, and you shouldn't have any problem passing the LPI exam when you are done with an NYLXS sequence.

For instance the one I am currently working on: www.lpi.org outlines a good broad introduction of basic Linux skills. I prefer the original non-vendor specific certification test to the new beta one which asks a few pointless questions on Redhat RPM's. You could use this as a solid outline and at level one it also covers a lot of basic Unix skills.

You can probably buy a practise exam set from one of the certification vendors to distribute amongst your students.

SAIR
RHCE
LPI

I saw a mention in one of the posts that most certs are vendor or hardware specific (Cisco, for example). With LPI [www.lpi.org], SAIR [linuxcertification.com], and CompTIA [www.comptia.com] all offering various certifications. Does this make the linux certs more valuable? Which is the "best" of the ones I've mentioned? (I know, I didn't mention RHCE). Did I miss any others that are valuable? Thanks.

I expect a lot of people will weigh in on certifications, and the arguments for and against are pretty widely known. Here is what I understand:

1)the vendor certifications (Microsoft, Oracle, etc) have some marketability, but the courses and related material are overpriced. So are the predictions of median incomes that certified people enjoy.

2)it is impossible for certifications to measure the ability to program, to think creatively or to solve problems. However, they do measure in a rough way one's familiarity with an application/OS's mechanisms to accomplish tasks.

3)Aside from Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco, employers have usually never heard of
the certification you have.

4) Employers are impressed about certifications when it is hard to measure competence. It is a third-party objective criteria. What impresses them is that you took the initiative, that you had to study for some test. That's different from just sitting at a seminar and passively absorbing information.

5). Despite what people say, "paper certifications" and "paper mills" are not worthless. The problem with IT institutes is that no training program can cover the variety of problems and administrative functions that one encounters on the job. On the other hand, they do a good job of exposing you to some of the basic tasks.

6)The problem with "paper certifications" (especially vendor-sponsored ones) is that to pass them you need to learn skills specific to the application or OS. That puts the onus of chasing after skills (and paying for them) entirely on the job seeker. And surely by the time you pass one certification, you'll hear about another one that is the next best thing. You need to ask yourself, "why I am spending time immersing myself in vendor-specific information when I should be learning more general things: protocols, network architecture and programming theory and algorithms.

7)Certifications do matter in my own field: technical writing and training. They indicate some familiarity with a particular domain of learning.

8)If you seek a certification, seek it only because you find the subject in and of itself to be interesting. I sought the LPI 1 certification because I needed to know these concepts anyway and the certification provided a structure and path for learning the material. Right now, I am pursuing another certification, the Master CIW Administrator
certification. I'm not sure employers will even know what this certification is, but I know that the subjects on the certifications: network security, ip6 and unix/windows interoperability are things I would be learning anyway.

9)If you do seek certification, don't spend more than $100 on study material. There are hundreds of sites and forums that provide good study guides and practice tests for free. You'll also enjoy sharing in the learning and studying experience. My favorite is Exam Notes

I have LPI and Sair certifications. The other widely-recognized certifications are Linux+ (which I'll be getting soon) and Red Hat RHCE (which is expensive). In order of importance (i.e. worthy of respect), I'd rank them RHCE, LPI, Linux+, and Sair. The RHCE includes nearly a full day of hands-on installation and troubleshooting, making it quite difficult, much like Cisco's CCIE.

On another note, CompTIA now has a low level Linux cert called Linux+. I haven't seen any questions from it, but if it is anything like CompTIAs other certs, anyone with two IQ points to rub together should be able to pass it.

Anoyne have any experience with the SAIR and the LPI certifications?

I got an exam cram and a nutshell book for them and have been using them as bathroom reading material. Even if I never end up taking the tests, it is nice that a certification forces you to learn certain things.

Being that a good portion of us are self-taught Linux guys, I've never really found a use for sed and awk until I read about them in this book. And I've even started learning vi! (ugh).

One day I guess I'll got get a cert - comp.os.linux, www.linuxdoc.org, and the Ars Technica Linux Forum probably wouldn't have that much weight on a a resume. Heh.

I have struggled with this certification issue and my employer didn't want to pay the money for RHCE. Then one day I seredipitously managed to stumble across LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell by O'Reilly.

Suprisingly the LPI isn't covered in the article.

As Linux certs go it doesn't depend on the financial solvency of a company (get an RHCE and if RH goes out of business then what?). It's vendor neutral (rejoice Mandrake and Suse fans).

Plus there's an animal book on it! Instant credibility.

Plus if you want to own your own certs and not have an employer to hold it over your head you can't beat the price (only a few hundred bucks for the whole shooting match).

More info available at lpi.org

Thanks for bringing up the point that the exams are split between rpm and deb. LPI is a vendor and distribution neutral certification exam. We do not recommend, specify, or require any training program or courseware. You're free to study on your own from the published exam objectives or to work with one of the many training and courseware vendors who support LPI.

Additionally our development process for the exams is community based and open to anyone who wants to participate. Right now we're in the middle of beta testing our Level 2 exams. During the beta, you can take both of the Level 2 exams in one combined form for only $84 (USD) at any VUE testing center. (See the bottom of the page.)

With regard to your certificate, be sure to contact us at info@lpi.org. If you're overseas, it sometimes takes things a while to get there via snail mail.

Thanks for supporting LPI!

Thanks for bringing up the point that the exams are split between rpm and deb. LPI is a vendor and distribution neutral certification exam. We do not recommend, specify, or require any training program or courseware. You're free to study on your own from the published exam objectives or to work with one of the many training and courseware vendors who support LPI.

Additionally our development process for the exams is community based and open to anyone who wants to participate. Right now we're in the middle of beta testing our Level 2 exams. During the beta, you can take both of the Level 2 exams in one combined form for only $84 (USD) at any VUE testing center. (See the bottom of the page.)

With regard to your certificate, be sure to contact us at info@lpi.org. If you're overseas, it sometimes takes things a while to get there via snail mail.

Thanks for supporting LPI!

The readable (exception: objective 2) O'Reilly book on Level I could serve as course material for any linux instructors.

Level II is calling for beta testers at the moment.

(Sheesh...lost my password again...)

One important claim made in the article is that software patents aren't generally enforceable. While that might be true in theory, I wonder how it actually works out in practice? Consider these 1999 statitics for the U.S. Patent system as a whole:

Average monetary award by a jury in a patent infringement case: $8.6 million

Average monetary award by a judge in a patent infringement case: $9.8 million

Percentage of lawsuits which are settled before trial: 61.5%

Average reported* out-of-court settlement amount: $39.6 million
* Many smaller settlements are not reported.

Patent owner's success at trial: 76.5%

Percentage of patent infringement judgments which are appealed: 51%

Success rate of jury cases after appeal: 61.7%

Success rate of judge-alone cases after appeal: 74.1%

(Source: Patent Enforcement and Royalties Ltd )

The interesting numbers to look at are the success rates of IP owners in successfully getting their patents upheld in court. Now this doesn't break out software patents by themselves, but the overall statistics are pretty much in favor of the IP owner. Food for thought.

Jared
LPI
Still worried about deploying Open Source Software? Consider this: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals. Which would you have rather been on?

A little dose of reality.

Linuxgruven happens to be the employer of Kara Pritchard, Director of Exam Development for
the Linux Professional Institute. Feel free to check it out yourself on either LPI's or Linuxgruven's web sites.

While she is actively involved in LPI development and holds an RHCE, I don't believe that Kara has taken any Sair exams.

I also note that Linuxgruven has been very supportive of LPI efforts, and is recognized as a
bronze-level sponsor of LPI.

A little dose of reality.

Linuxgruven happens to be the employer of Kara Pritchard, Director of Exam Development for
the Linux Professional Institute. Feel free to check it out yourself on either LPI's or Linuxgruven's web sites.

While she is actively involved in LPI development and holds an RHCE, I don't believe that Kara has taken any Sair exams.

I also note that Linuxgruven has been very supportive of LPI efforts, and is recognized as a
bronze-level sponsor of LPI.

At first glance, LPI seems to be a refreshing exception. The exam goals are well-documented, but require some creative intelligence to prepare for. They seem to be in no hurry to jump into the lucrative marketplace with half-baked exams, preferring to proceed carefully and to leverage community involvement. Best of all, they're keeping their commercial sponsers at arm's length.

__________________

Linux Professional Institute is just starting to do this. They've written and beta tested exams for Linux System Administration 101 and 102. From the sample questions on the website, it looks like they've done a competant job. I'm planning to sit the exam in a month or two.

Certification needs to be judged by peer review. If competant people agree that the LPI only certifies competant people, then we have a de-facto standard that is worth something. It doesn't matter who set it up in the first place.

ai731

--

I don't believe in vendor specific certification... RHCE, MCSE, CCNA, etc... I do believe that a company such as redhat could join an organisation such as the LPI to create a non-vendor specific certification. In the process, the linux communitiy would benefit greatly... vendors, developers and users a like... along with the corporations that want certified staff...

I think more companies are trying to be open toward telecommuting, but are scared. On the other hand, those companies who already allow people to work from home are finding that the majority are getting more work done. Can't sleep? They get more work done. Need to take kids to the doctor? Don't have take off work and not get work done, they can do it when they get back home.

On a negative side, you're always at work. During dinner, you're at work. In the bathroom, you're still at work. It becomes harder to get your mind off work to relax, enjoy your family, friends, etc because everywhere you look is work. I think the only real conflict with me working from home, is by the time my husband gets off work, he wants to sit at home, and I'm ready to get out of there! :-) --Kara Pritchard kara@linux.com

Check http://www.redhat.com/apps/co mmunity/linux_assoc.html and you will see that Red Hat supports the LPI. Check http://www.lpi.org/a-advisory.html and you will see that Red Hat has a representative on the Advisory Council. Red Hat is not currently listed by LPI as a Sponsor on their web site, but that seems like nitpicking. Certainly Red Hat wouldn't waste time or money placing someone on the Advisory Council of a program they don't "support."

The RHCE was in planning long before the LPI got started. I know, because I was party to some of the very early talks about the RHCE and Red Hat's consulting partners program, back around 1997 or so. This is not a matter of Red Hat trying to "bully" the rest of the community, it is simply the continuation of a process that had been in the works for a long time.

Whether or not Red Hat chooses to continue offering the RHCE or merge it into the LPIC process is pretty much up to Red Hat. They have invested a significant amount of resources in developing their own program, and it makes very little sense - especially to a publically-traded company - to just completely drop what they were doing for the sake of adopting LPIC.

If Red Hat wants to continue offering their own program, it is certainly their prerogative to do so. But it seems pretty clear to me that Red Hat is also interested in what the rest of the community thinks about more general and less Red Hat-specific certification.

This is reminiscent of the bogus "Red Hat doesn't support the LSB" arguments that were flying here about a month ago. Whether or not you speak for one of Red Hat's competitors, it makes your point look a lot more solid if you do a bit of basic research first.

You can get Linux Certification from SAIR and from LPI. And RedHat is doing their own stuff, RHCE.

This story should not surprise anyone, and provides a very good argument against any proprietary, distribution-specific certification for Linux.

People may find it easy to use this as another excuse to beat up on Microsoft (like we really need one!), but the reality of the situation is that any company in a similar situation will find it necessary to use their certification program as a marketing tool. This means that decisions will eventually made, not based on what is best for the certificate holders, but on what is best for the company.

O.k., fine. Nothing wrong with that. But we have a prime opportunity to not play that game. Savvy employers should display a bias towards a vendor-neutral certification. Savvy Linux professionals should avoid the RHCE in favor of a neutral alternative. By keeping certification separated from software sales and distribution, we help ensure that the incentives are skewed in favor of the needs of the certificate holders and their employers, rather than in favor of the vendor.

So check out LPI and help promote a non-proprietary alternative!

Yeah, great idea. Except... there are already two efforts underway to deliver exactly what you propose: certification. First, there is SAIR Linux and GNU, some guy named Tobin Maginnis (sp?) who provides quite good training material and a certification to go with. (IIRC They were recently acquired by Wave Technologies, one of the largest (world-wide!) training companies around). (ok, ok, I'm affiliated with them somehow).

But wait, there's more. Doing it "the Linux way"(tm) is, what the guys over at LPI (Linux Professional Institute) are doing: an open process to create and review certification questions based on a community process in identifying objects and areas of interest. They are also the ones who are backed by the big boys (SuSE, IBM, Caldera)

But... the market is still young. If you can throw $2-5M at developing and marketing (that's most important, imho) a certification, you have a great chance for your upcoming IPO.

go figure.

OK, I usually allow posts like these to roll off the monitor, but not this time. Seems like every time there's a story on certification, the anti-cert contingent rolls out of the woodwork. Fine. Now let's hear from the other side of the aisle.

I'm not employed by any vendor, nor am I employed to teach any vendor's curriculum, although I once was: I still hold CNI certification in addition to the other alphabet soup that I could staple at the end of my .signature file. I say that so that those who want to dismiss my viewpoint simply because I have a certification can do so immediately.

I do contribute occasionally to the LPI project.

I'm surprised to find out that anyone gives a fsck about vendor "certification". I thought everyone had realized it was a meaningless scam by now. A week or two of training isn't going to get you any more knowledge than reading a good book (like an O'Reilly guide) and playing with the system a bit - and an O'Reilly guide is a hell of a lot cheaper.

Let me put this as delicately as I can: you have no idea what you're talking about, if you believe that a person can learn just as much about a system they've not worked with from a book and some play time, as they can from an instructor-led class. Now, I'm not saying that all instructors ran their classes as well as I did (and I have the trust of several companies in this town who continue to ask for me, even though I haven't worked the classroom for over a year), but I can say that if an instructor is worth a damn, and most of us are, then the only way you can use a self-study book to outstrip participation in my class is to ignore me and the curriculum, and sleep in the back row. If you do that, it's your own fault. The concept of certification isn't to blame here. It's shitty implementation on the part of some, not all.

["Our customers ask if we are [certified], and certification gives our business more legitimacy.]
Not with knowledgable customers - or knowledgable potential employees.

Oh, yeah, right. That's why vendor certification programs are so popular among the best and brightest companies and people. They certify because they want to know that all those who are certified have taken exams demonstrating that they all have a certain minimum level of knowledge. Not "competence". The best test in the world won't prevent a well-trained bozo from screwing up your server. Competence isn't just knowledge, it's also judgement, and quite honestly: character. The best people I've worked with knew when to say "I don't know" from behind their multiple certifications. They were the smart ones. But the truth is, companies want to have the ability to say, "OK, our people will know at least as much as a CNE", and be able to learn that about their employees (and potential new-hires) by looking at a certificate. Does that guarantee competence? Of course not! But given all else equal... training, opportunity, experience... I'm more likely to give the nod to a certified engineer, because I know she's proven herself in testing. That isn't the only factor I'd apply, of course, but it carries weight. And I'm knowledgable, thank you.

Stop knocking certification. You want to knock the programs, go ahead. The instructors? Go ahead, but be ready to back yourself up with hard evidence. The companies who use certification as their only criterion? Please, feel free, and I'll join you! But to slam on the idea of certification itself shows lack of understanding, not only in the realm of corporate hiring practices, but in human pshycology as well.