Seeking Hands-on Training Programs?

thekernel32 asks: "Recently the topic of getting people trained in the Linux/UNIX environment has troubled me. Where are people going for this stuff? I recall taking an Microsoft Networking Essentials class that I dropped out of. The reason why I dropped the Microsoft class was because we were being taught about the existence of Routers, File Servers and other networking topics, but we never saw or [worked with] any of them. I really feel that it would have been more useful to get hands on experience with daemons and real hardware, rather than just being told that they exist. What decent training programs out there have a hands on approach?"