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rednuhter writes "LPIC 1 Exam Cram 2 is the authoritative tree-based text to aid and abet interested parties accomplishing a LPI LPIC level 1 certification, Which (roughly translated) is the first (not quite open source) Linux exam for junior (intermediate) sysadmins; more information is available at Linux Professional Institute. It is (currently) the only (up to date) printed guide for the Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC) Level 1 exam." Read on for the rest of rednuhter's review. LPIC 1 Exam Cram 2 author Ross Brunson pages 590 publisher QUE rating 8 reviewer rednuhter ISBN 0789731274 summary Exam cram for Linux LPIC level 1 The LPI is a non-profit organization bringing high-quality Linux certification to the masses, including multilingual exams across continents. LPIC Level 1 is designed to certify a junior sysadmin in Linux and is composed of two exams. This first level (101) has an optional (minor) 'branch' of either RPM or DEB package management, with RPM being used on predominately Red Hat-based systems and DEB being the preferred method for Debian based systems. The second level (102) is much more 'on the job' administration duties (see LPIC objectives).

I purchased the book last year after deciding I had no reason to try and keep my windows 95 MCP up to date and wishing to (formally) extend my Linux knowledge. I hit a wrong turn after spending quality time with Que's "General Linux 1" [ISBN]0-78972292-5] to find (as I went to book the exam) the format and topics had changed a fair amount in four years (LPI is constantly evolving...).

It was fine book with some good Lab sections, however it was not preparing me for the onslaught that is the seriously tough LPIC Level 1 exam. After a quick rant in the LPI mailing lists, a friendly poster [ross@brunson.org] noted that a book did exist (recently printed) that accumulated one of the premier LPI Linux trainers knowledge and experience, and by no coincidence he was the author.

My previous guide had been only 340 pages long so I was concerned to find this was closer to 600! Luckily the author wastes nothing, with a considerably helpful introduction, followed by details of the LPIC 101 (both flavors) and the 102 exam culminating in the full LPIC Level 1.

The first half of the book is dedicated to the 101 exam, which is the first part of the LPIC level 1 certifications. This included a lot of trouble-shooting steps for basic booting of Linux with hardware configuration and included vi usage (key strokes, buffers, regular expressions), XFree86 (config and understanding) to text processing with tee, tac, sed etc. The detail involved also dipped into modems, CHAP scripts, hardware identification, jobs, processes, chmod, grep, exit statuses and much much more. This also where the RPM/DEB specifics some in; although I have used Debian for many years I opted to take the RPM exam simply because I believe RPM is more widely commercially used, not that I think it is a better packaging system. These skills are an excellent grounding for basic Linux use and understanding, giving rounded knowledge of all the key areas a Linux user should be aware of.

Each chapter has an example exam and the author often makes use of these to introduce new ideas and concepts to encourage the user to research further. These answers are accompanied by explanations of not only why the right answers were correct, but why the wrong answers were incorrect.

The second half of the book (after a quick 66-question 101 test exam) is much more geared to a junior sysadmin and I found it quite hard going. Topics range from runlevels, daemons, users/groups, kernel compilation, modules, shells, scripting, networking, services, printing and security. As you may imagine, some of these topics are quite extensive and I personally found this half much more difficult to absorb. Note there is only one 102 LPIC exam, there is no RPM/DEB choice. This list does not really do the subject matter justice, as it goes into such things as custom subnet masks, network time utilities, Apache, sendmail, crontabs and even more.

This was followed by a set of 77 test 102 questions with both a quick answer key and a complete set of explanations.

The book includes a pull-out Cram Sheet which can help you memorize things such as the IRQ/IO address for serial ports, the different man page sections and common printer commands.

The author also notes how best to prepare for taking and even resitting the exam (the LPI has a concise retake policy).

The actual exam questions and areas are weighted, and you should ensure you review for the heavily weighted sections at least as much if not more that the lower-weighted ones.

The key 'trick' to passing the exams is to have tried the commands yourself and seen the results, I cannot emphasize this enough! The LPI 'seems' to favor (currently) 2.4.x kernels in the FHS File Hierarchy Standard RPM and DEB varieties, I did most of my investigation either with Knoppix via qemu(in windows) or Debian sid running the 2.6.x kernel. (However, most topics are vendor/distribution neutral and kernel and other obvious differences are noted.)

Although this book contains a lot of examples, it is not for beginners, unless you want to base your Linux learning on it. Sysadmins will find it too simple in places, but should not be complacent as they will find some knowledge nuggets buried that will ultimately help them pass the exams.

The book is easy to read, with some real-world examples that are ideal to reinforce the information presented. (It has been noted that practice lab sections could have been included; see author reply here)

Unfortunately, there are a fair number of misprints, technical inaccuracies and spelling mistakes current errata but a quick session with man will set you straight and very few directly spoil the otherwise accuracy of the book (the author notes that a second reprint is addressing these).

The CD comes with the obligatory PDF version of the book and a test program, this has caused some problems for some Linux users although fixes are now available. The test program tries to recreate the testing environment, with optional timer and instant result features. I personally found it very useful to identify areas I was weak in and required further investigation.

The book does a good job not to stray off into GPL licensing or any other non (LPIC Level 1) related topic, leaving further investigation up to the reader offering links where relevant.

It took me about 15-20 hours to revise for the 101 RPM exam and I passed with (apx) 96% where as the revision for the 102 exam was over a much longer period (and a more turbulent part of my life) taking about 40-50 hours which gave me a (apx) pass of 86% (remember the questions are weighted, my percentage scores are simply against the number of questions I got right and makes me feel good).

Preparing you for the LPI LPIC level 1 exams (part 1(RPM/DEB) and part 2)

Not only did I find the book easy to get on with and an indispensable asset for passing the exam but it has had pride of place on my desktop and makes an excellent reference tome.

The LPI website does now list Ross's book and there are various other resources available for a quick google, or just wait for the Slashdot crowd to fill up the comments below.

You can purchase LPIC 1 Exam Cram 2 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

beton asks: "We've all come to the point where we feel the need to change distros. A friend of mine has been a loyal Red Hat user for over 4 years now, but now he'd like to try Debian. He's trying to accomplish this with minimal effort so I was wondering if there are any tools around that allow to change from Red Hat to Debian without having to start from a 'clean' PC and reconfigure everything to fit your needs. Such a tool should e.g. reinstall all your programs and should try to configure them using your current config files. I did some searching on Sourceforge and Freshmeat but I didn't find anything useful. Do any of you know such a tool or is the whole idea just impossible to accomplish?" Even limiting such a tool to the larger distributions out there, it would be a bear to implement such a tool and iron out all of the wrinkles. Of course, if all Linux distributions could agree on a file system standard, then such a tool may even be unnecessary, but I doubt that will happen in the near future. So how do you all weigh in on this issue? Would a distribution conversion tool be useful or would we all be better off with a file system standard that works across multiple distributions?

CarrotLord asks: "Looking at the recent release of IBM's Small Business Suite for Linux got me wondering about distribution compatibility and standards. Personally, I run Debian, and am considering a move to Progeny. However, I am concerned by the fact that many products (particularly commercial ones) are available for only a particular subset of distributions (usually RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, TurboLinux and Caldera, but rarely Debian-based distributions or the BSDs). What is the current state of play, particularly in regards to tools for developers to enable them to create and test installation packages for various distributions?" Such a tool would go a long way in removing the force behind the "Linux fragmentation" argument that most of Linux's detractors often refer to.

"How are the LSB and the FSSTND affecting consistency between distros? What about RPM and APT? What tools are there available for developers of software to ensure that their software runs on the widest variety of systems? Is there some software development or packaging tool to assist developers in making distribution-independant software, so they can create files in dpkg, RPM and tgz formats for any distribution without much additional effort on their part? What about tools to test their software installation on individual distributions, and assist with the resolution of problems? Should this be up to the individual distributions, or should be have a unified approach?"

Daniel Quinlan writes "Today, the Free Standards Group released version 1.2 of the Linux Development Platform Specification and let loose with the public review of FHS 2.2-beta that will be used in the Linux Standard Base (and is already being used by distributions). Also of note, the Linux Standard Base has a new chairman, George Kraft IV, and the LSB specification is nearing completion. Really."

Daniel Quinlan writes "Today, the Free Standards Group released version 1.2 of the Linux Development Platform Specification and let loose with the public review of FHS 2.2-beta that will be used in the Linux Standard Base (and is already being used by distributions). Also of note, the Linux Standard Base has a new chairman, George Kraft IV, and the LSB specification is nearing completion. Really."

Daniel Quinlan writes: "The Free Standards Group is publishing a beta release of the Linux Development Platform Specification (LDPS) which tells third-party software providers how to best achieve binary-compatibility across different Linux distributions (well, at least until the Linux Standard Base is done). It's important to note that third-party software providers include not just the large vendors like Oracle and IBM, but also anyone who creates a binary package for use on more than one version of a single distribution."

It's definately been a hot topic lately, no doubt about it. But Daniel Quinlan wrote in to send us a press release from the LSB stating that the Debian/Red Hat standards project (LCS) will be working with the LSB. Daniel has also been named as Bruce Perens replacement as the head of LSB. Besides having an @transmeta.com email address, Daniel has been the head of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. I'm really glad to see this come together. Anyway, I've attached the announcement- click below if you want to read it.

Additional Vendors Participate in Growing LSB Effort

LCS founders join the LSB project

We are happy to announce that the founders of the Linux Compatibility Standards (LCS) Project, a collaboration of Debian and Red Hat, will work on Linux standards as part of the LSB effort. Now that the LSB Project combines the original focus of the LSB with the goals of the LCS, the LCS founders see no need for any separate standardization effort.

LSB elects new chair and forms 3 technical sub-projects

After Bruce Perens departed on August 10th, it was necessary to find a new chair for the LSB organization. It was felt by several vendors that such a chair should be impartial and thus not from any Linux vendor. The new chair of the LSB Steering Committee is Daniel Quinlan (head of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard).

Originally, the focus of the LSB project was to produce a Linux reference platform that would define a standard Linux. Any program that ran successfully on the reference platform could be expected to run on all compliant Linux systems. An LSB written standard and test suite were secondary goals.

As discussion of how to develop the reference platform continued, it became obvious that without active work on a written standard and a test suite, that the LSB project wouldn't be successful in achieving its goals. Therefore, the LSB project has now reorganized into three technical sub-committee projects of equal importance, each with a prominent technical lead.

• LSB written standard Technical lead: Stuart Anderson (Metro Link, Inc.)
• LSB test suite Technical lead: Dale Scheetz (Debian)
• LSB sample implementation Technical lead: Ralf Flaxa (Caldera)

These three groups will work together to develop a base standard for the Linux operating system as follows:

• The test suite must match the written standard.
• A conformant distribution (such as the sample implementation) must pass the test suite and follow the written standard.
• Conformant applications should run on the any distribution that passes the test suite.

And when the above is not true, then something needs to be fixed. If it can't be figured out by the technical groups, then the steering committee will arbitrate.

Finally, the sample implementation will be composed entirely of free software and the test suite will be as free as the LSB can make it without rendering the test suite meaningless.

New LSB web site

There is now a web site for the LSB project: http://www.linuxbase.org/

About the Linux Standard Base

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is developing a set of standards that will increase compatibility among Linux distributions and enable software applications to run on any compliant Linux system. The LSB will also help coordinate efforts to recruit software vendors to port and write products for Linux.

We have also created several open mailing lists (for more information, please see the LSB web site). The public "at large" are encouraged to subscribe to these lists, with a request that non-committee members "lurk" quietly.

The list of individuals and organizations participating in the LSB effort or endorsing the LSB includes:

• Alan Cox, Building Number Three
• Caldera, Inc.
• Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc.
• Eric S. Raymond, open-source evangelist, and author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
• Evan Leibovitch, Chair of 86open Project
• Jon A. Hall, Executive Director, Linux International
• Linux Hardware Solutions, Inc.
• Metro Link, Inc.
• Pacific HiTech (TurboLinux)
• Phil Hughes, Director Linux International, Publisher of Linux Journal
• Red Hat Software, Inc.
• S.u.S.E. GmbH
• Software in the Public Interest
• The Debian Project
• VA Research

(For the growing list of participants, please check www.linuxbase.org.)

Contact Information

For further information, please send email to press@linuxbase.org or visit the Linux Standard Base home page at Linuxbase.org.

It's definately been a hot topic lately, no doubt about it. But Daniel Quinlan wrote in to send us a press release from the LSB stating that the Debian/Red Hat standards project (LCS) will be working with the LSB. Daniel has also been named as Bruce Perens replacement as the head of LSB. Besides having an @transmeta.com email address, Daniel has been the head of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. I'm really glad to see this come together. Anyway, I've attached the announcement- click below if you want to read it.

Additional Vendors Participate in Growing LSB Effort

LCS founders join the LSB project

We are happy to announce that the founders of the Linux Compatibility Standards (LCS) Project, a collaboration of Debian and Red Hat, will work on Linux standards as part of the LSB effort. Now that the LSB Project combines the original focus of the LSB with the goals of the LCS, the LCS founders see no need for any separate standardization effort.

LSB elects new chair and forms 3 technical sub-projects

After Bruce Perens departed on August 10th, it was necessary to find a new chair for the LSB organization. It was felt by several vendors that such a chair should be impartial and thus not from any Linux vendor. The new chair of the LSB Steering Committee is Daniel Quinlan (head of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard).

Originally, the focus of the LSB project was to produce a Linux reference platform that would define a standard Linux. Any program that ran successfully on the reference platform could be expected to run on all compliant Linux systems. An LSB written standard and test suite were secondary goals.

As discussion of how to develop the reference platform continued, it became obvious that without active work on a written standard and a test suite, that the LSB project wouldn't be successful in achieving its goals. Therefore, the LSB project has now reorganized into three technical sub-committee projects of equal importance, each with a prominent technical lead.

• LSB written standard Technical lead: Stuart Anderson (Metro Link, Inc.)
• LSB test suite Technical lead: Dale Scheetz (Debian)
• LSB sample implementation Technical lead: Ralf Flaxa (Caldera)

These three groups will work together to develop a base standard for the Linux operating system as follows:

• The test suite must match the written standard.
• A conformant distribution (such as the sample implementation) must pass the test suite and follow the written standard.
• Conformant applications should run on the any distribution that passes the test suite.

And when the above is not true, then something needs to be fixed. If it can't be figured out by the technical groups, then the steering committee will arbitrate.

Finally, the sample implementation will be composed entirely of free software and the test suite will be as free as the LSB can make it without rendering the test suite meaningless.

New LSB web site

There is now a web site for the LSB project: http://www.linuxbase.org/

About the Linux Standard Base

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is developing a set of standards that will increase compatibility among Linux distributions and enable software applications to run on any compliant Linux system. The LSB will also help coordinate efforts to recruit software vendors to port and write products for Linux.

We have also created several open mailing lists (for more information, please see the LSB web site). The public "at large" are encouraged to subscribe to these lists, with a request that non-committee members "lurk" quietly.

The list of individuals and organizations participating in the LSB effort or endorsing the LSB includes:

• Alan Cox, Building Number Three
• Caldera, Inc.
• Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc.
• Eric S. Raymond, open-source evangelist, and author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
• Evan Leibovitch, Chair of 86open Project
• Jon A. Hall, Executive Director, Linux International
• Linux Hardware Solutions, Inc.
• Metro Link, Inc.
• Pacific HiTech (TurboLinux)
• Phil Hughes, Director Linux International, Publisher of Linux Journal
• Red Hat Software, Inc.
• S.u.S.E. GmbH
• Software in the Public Interest
• The Debian Project
• VA Research

(For the growing list of participants, please check www.linuxbase.org.)

Contact Information

For further information, please send email to press@linuxbase.org or visit the Linux Standard Base home page at Linuxbase.org.