Best Training in Linux Administration?

Use it at home by SonicTooth · 2004-09-09 13:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Install Linux at home. It's the best training you'll ever get. And then switch over your best friends and finally your grandparents. You'll be a pro in no time.

Re:Use it at home by theparanoidcynic · 2004-09-09 13:05 · Score: 2, Informative

The key is learning on a hard distro, and sticking with it until you master the damn thing. I started my Linux career with Slackware (although I did know sh from my required "introduction to unix" course so I wasn't that fucked.)

Was that wise? I doubt it, but I'm nothing if not stubborn. ;)

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Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Re:Use it at home by zangdesign · 2004-09-09 13:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

Set up a small, representative network at home - don't bother making it work like you would use a home machine, but rather concentrate on how the company would need it.

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To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Re:Use it at home by wnarifin · 2004-09-09 13:30 · Score: 2, Informative

Install one distribution (I'd prefer Fedora Core 1), then http://www.tldp.org/, then http://www.linuxquestions.org/. Free, but takes time.
Re:Use it at home by damiangerous · 2004-09-09 13:30 · Score: 5, Informative

Install Linux at home. It's the best training you'll ever get.
No, it's not. When you just install a distro at home and start using it you'll learn a lot, sure. But what you'll learn a scattershot and mostly just what you need to do to get a functional system, because that's what your incentive is to do. You won't learn best practices and you won't learn why things are they way they are. Heck you probably won't even learn about some fairly basic tools just because you didn't happen to need them. You really need the formality of a structured learning environment (not a class, specifically, but a structured curriculum at least) to make sure you cover everything you need to know.
I know it seems to be the number one recommended method here on Slashdot, but it really has some serious flaws that everyone seems to conveniently overlook. Following your advice leads to sloppiness and "good enough"-ness. Not exactly skills that will endear you to an employer.
Re:Use it at home by nomadic · 2004-09-09 13:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually the best training is at work; home networks just don't typically have the complexity you find in a business environment. Unfortunately most people can't just hang out with a linux admin team for a few months to pick up stuff.
Re:Use it at home by antirename · 2004-09-09 13:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

Oddly enough, everyone I know who is good at Linux administration (or programming in general) is self-taught. Yes, you wind up with holes in your knowledge, but they are usually small. Take a class, you think you know it all, and all of a sudden you are in over your head when you see something new. I see it all the time in new hires. (I only bring up programming because config files really seem to confuse MCSE's, since there is nothing to click on and you actually have to type.)
Re:Use it at home by tverbeek · 2004-09-09 13:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

Using it at home is the approach I used, and I've been surprised by just how well it's served me. When I decided it was time for me to learn Linux, I picked up a mainstream Linux distro (Red Hat 6.0) and one of those thick guide books (SAMS Linux Unleashed) to give myself the maximum possible safety net... but nearly everything I know about it I picked up by solving real-life problems with it at home.
It's been almost spooky at times how often something has come up in my professional life which I'd just been dealing with at home (e.g. mail transport, firewalls, attachment filtering, Samba, mod_rewrite, cron), and once in a while something I'd learned how to do on the job would come in handy for the home network (e.g. floppy-based 386 print servers, spam blocking).

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http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Re:Use it at home by damiangerous · 2004-09-09 14:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Take a class, you think you know it all
Exactly, you hear that a lot here about "paper MCSEs". Yet that's just the converse of the typical proposal here: "You don't need a class, you can learn it all by running Slack on your old 486." Yet somehow one is sage advice and the other is mocked. You can't learn without doing, but you can't learn in a vacuum either. Neglecting either one will lead to sometimes critical (from a business standpoint) holes in your knowledge.
Just like you shouldn't take a class and think you know everything before you have real experience, you shouldn't think you've seen it all already "in the wild" and structured learning is beneath you. It's the same personality flaw. It's just manifesting itself in a different way.
Re:Use it at home by panic_paranoia · 2004-09-09 14:16 · Score: 2

While I agree that a formal training will benefit you tremendously, there are just some things it won't teach you. Sometimes you just need to use it for yourself without any guidance to really understand it. Still, this method of learning should in addition to, not as a replacement for formal training if these skills are to be used in professional environment. As the parent said trial and error will only teach you what you need to do to get a functional system. And a "functional system" doesn't necessarily imply good security or performance.
Re:Use it at home by Confessed+Geek · 2004-09-09 14:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

As an actively employed "Linux Systems Administrator" (my real job title) I must concur with "damiangerous." While I was a windows admin I set up multiple linux boxes out of curiosity, slackware, rh5, and it was interesting and educational, but once I was done I just sort of looked at them and was like "Now What?"

Only after I attended a 3 night a week month long class did it all come together.

Don't disregard the classroom setting. A online course or reading o'reilly books (and even the Linux for Dummy's book) are good but for your first introduction a classroom (with hands on training) is the best place to start. If you have a good instructor you won't just learn "the Facts" but will get a better grasp of the implications and how to use the tools, and get some real practical advice.

Your milage may vary as some people are much better book learners while others do better with lecture, but a good class does a really good job of giving a good foundation to start from so additional online or deadtree training is more approachable and rewarding.
Re:Use it at home by tverbeek · 2004-09-09 15:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Following your advice leads to sloppiness and "good enough"-ness. Not exactly skills that will endear you to an employer.
Depends on the employer. For many, "good enough" is... good enough. After all, it's why one former employer of mine is (by now) switching to Exchange and IIS on Windows, instead of Postfix and Apache on Linux: they're "good enough" and have the advantage of being from the same software vendor and consultants they (now) buy everything else from. And (setting aside my perfectionist tendencies and principle for a moment) for some businesses, anything better than "good enough" is a luxury... one they can't afford.

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http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Re:Use it at home by mindstrm · 2004-09-09 15:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

Every good sysadmin that I know has learned chiefly on their own. They may have had some schooling in some facts of computing.. but NONE of them learned OS skills in a class.

Classes generally don't give you the WHY of everything either.. they cram as much as they can into a short period of time. What gives you the WHY is work experience.

Yes, of course, there are things at home you just can't learn at home.. you can't learn them much better at school either.

Granted, a good course can help you fit some things together.. and I'm not saying you won't learn something..... but it's not the answer.

The real reason many suggest learning on your own is because requests for "what is a good course to learn linux so I can do sysadmin" generally come from those who DON'T learn on their own, and think a course is the answer, and will promote them up a level. A course will teach you things, and depending on the course, might teach you some really good facts.. but in the end, if you don't learn quickly on your own, you are going nowhere.
Re:Use it at home by adaminnj · 2004-09-09 15:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

Installing a home PC with distro de'jur and then using it to read about all the things you don't think you can do anymore because the tools are unfamiliar then learning the tools to accomplish the same things you use to do with a M$ box is a very good way to learn. But then it doesn't sound like this guy has a few years to get up to speed. As I've see from paperer MCS* if you don't follow-up with a full time use of any OS then your just end up with a cert and no skills then end up back at berger flippen or what ever.
I recommend
Start by tossing out your Windoughs box completely at home (or at least unplugging it and hiding it) and if you can get away with it at work get a second box and using it for everything you can!
and then loading a Linux box at home (MHO is stay away from the Fedora project) and then just picking any training that would fit you schedule to start (it will still take years for you to be any good unless you have some UNIX skills now) and focus on the comandline tool GUI's get you in trouble. if you don't understand commandline you will probably will never recover from even small probs.
Then get some deprogramming help and off the M$ wagon.

Your going to learn more about Linux administration at home at your darkend desk trying to do or install something than in a book or a classroom and you will keep thous lessons in your head longer but you'll need reading material try
http://www.google.com/search?q=linux&ie=UTF-8 &oe=U TF-8

--
I'd Tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past
Re:Use it at home by mcrbids · 2004-09-09 16:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

As an actively employed "Linux Systems Administrator" (my real job title) I must concur with "damiangerous." While I was a windows admin I set up multiple linux boxes out of curiosity, slackware, rh5, and it was interesting and educational, but once I was done I just sort of looked at them and was like "Now What?"

Only after I attended a 3 night a week month long class did it all come together.

Well, as "an actively employed "Linux Systems Administrator" (my real job title)" I can say that I followed a different path. There just weren't any decent classes anywhere near me unless I was willing to drive several hours each way, twice a week.

It started with me getting rid of Windows on my personal workstation, and using only Linux. I bought every book I thought might help, and became an avid reader of sites like http://rootprompt.org/ and http://www.linuxtoday.com (though the latter is mostly advocacy)

It also helps to know a few other people - I've offered and received useful tips from other experienced techs.

It was about a year before I truly "got" Linux - I noticed it when I sat down at a Windows system and immediately felt "cramped" because of all the limitations on what I was doing.

The single book that helped me most get going was "Red Hat Linux Unleashed".

--
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Re:Use it at home by Nailer · 2004-09-09 17:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes, you wind up with holes in your knowledge, but they are usually small.

As someone who learnt Linux at home, then took some classes, then became an instructor, I think most people who learn from home's knowledge holes are gaping.

Basic stuff like quotas. How the kernel knows where the root partition is. What the difference between the exire time in an SOA record and the TTL in the zone file is.

Most self-taught Linux users are no worse than the self-taught NT admin who has no idea what a port is.
Re:Use it at home by rnturn · 2004-09-09 17:27 · Score: 4, Informative

``Slackware is a "hard" distro? I think the installer and package manager aren't too bad. It's no portage or apt-get but it's alright.''

I started with Slackware back in the mid-'90s. I'd have to agree that it was a hard distribution to work with. At least back then, anyway. (Getting X set up took several evenings and a few scary sessions where you never knew whether your monitor would survive.) Since those days of yore, some friends have switched to Slackware from other distributions and they find it fairly simple. Of course they're not newbies tackling it any more, so...
Getting back to the original question: I'd suggest, if his employer can see that he's covered for the week and not getting yanked out of class to respond to a pager, that the fellow take the week-long class. Immerse yourself in it. Back when I was beginning to get into UNIX, I found that what worked best for me was to convert my system to run nothing else. It was DOS, Windows, VMS, and a bunch of other OSes at work but at home it was all UNIX all the time. (Technically it was Coherent but you get the idea.)
If he can swing it, I suggest getting a hold of a system that he can dedicate to use with his distribution of choice. Highly recommended. You wouldn't want to be screwing around and experimenting with dual booting the home Windows box and risking the wife's Christmas card list and the kids' term papers. (Not if you want to stay off their sh*t list, that is.) That way you can mess that system up, troubleshoot it, and fix it.
If you're not interested in fixing fouled up systems right off the bat, try doing some projects. I found several semi-work-related projects where I do some of the work at home on the new system. For example, we had some old FORTRAN code that some coworkers wanted converted to C. Heck, writing web pages for the intranet at work could be done at home on the Linux system. You'll learn one or more text editors along the way and most likely pick up some basic administrative skills at the same time. Anyway, I found it helped to have some goal when learning the new OS rather than just flipping around and trying things out randomly. Of course, YMMV.

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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Re:Use it at home by rnturn · 2004-09-09 17:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

``We ran across this once before when Tidwell was here. How'd he do it?" And everyone stands around with their thumb up their ass making a bunch of grunting noises trying to sound like they remember how to do it.''

And, of course, while they're grunting, they all recall that the reason that Tidwell isn't around to fix the problem is that his boss got sick and tired of his not documenting his procedures. :-) As much as everyone bitches and complains about it, documentation is important; especially for the odd little things that Tidwell knew how to do. Even if it's only an email, it's better than nothing. And, finally, I'd be wondering why none of the guys never had the curiousity to ask 'ol Tidwell what it was that he was doing to solve that problem. (And if he refused to tell you, then you know that management had another good reason for getting rid of him.)

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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Re:Use it at home by maxpublic · 2004-09-09 19:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

"See those 30 comps?" your in charge now and we don't know how they work.

And this will teach more than any college course or class in existence.

This is much how I learned, right from the beginning, e.g., "we don't know how this here mainframe actually works. Figure it out. If you can't, we'll fire you and hire someone else to give it a shot."

This should be a degree requirement for everyone in CS. It would do a lot to weed out the often-useless trash passing themselves off as CS majors these days.

Max

--
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Re:Use it at home by zerocool^ · 2004-09-09 23:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's because the most important aspect of being self taught isn't knowing the information, it's knowing where to look for the answer. There's still volumes about linux that I don't know, but when I run into a problem, I have a good idea where to start looking for the answers. It's kind of getting the zen of linux.

~Will

--
sig?
Re:Use it at home by sseremeth · 2004-09-10 00:17 · Score: 2, Informative
As soon as I read your post, this first response is exactly what I was thinking -- install it at home. If you have the hardware available to you, set up a lot of different configurations. Try not using your windows machines at all for a while and doing everything on Linux. If you don't have hardware available to you, get some. Linux runs great on machines 4 years old (yeah, yeah, we could run it on our 386's too -- but runs *well*) that cost $100 or are even free.
- Try:
- Linux as your firewall/router
- Install Apache - every good admin should know how to compile this and some basic configuration information
- Three words: "./configure", "make", "make install"
- Setup a second machine - test using NFS and Samba
- If you want to get a little adventurous, try NIS
- If you don't know sh, practice -- you'll need it -- same goes for VI
- RPMs (and I'm sure Debian's package manager also) make life easy -- if you want the easy way into linux, choose an RPM based distrobution like Fedora and check out YUM
- Having a weird problem that you can't easily solve? Google Groups are a good starting point.
Good luck.
Re:Use it at home by Skweetis · 2004-09-10 01:07 · Score: 3, Informative

Basic stuff like quotas.
Learned everything I needed to know in an hour from the man pages the first time I needed to set them for users.
How the kernel knows where the root partition is.
Learned this the first time I had a disk array fail and had to restore from backup. I don't remember where I found it, probably in the LILO documentation somewhere.
What the difference between the exire time in an SOA record and the TTL in the zone file is.
Haven't set up a fresh DNS server since I switched to djbdns a few years ago, so I didn't remember this one. Ten seconds of googling refreshed my memory.
I guess my point in all of this is that it doesn't matter if you have holes in your knowledge. Instead, it is important to know that you do have them, and to know where to find the information you need. And, for what it's worth, I'm mostly self-taught, but I've taken some classes. Both are valuable.
Re:Use it at home by CountJoe · 2004-09-10 03:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

You'll be a pro in no time.

Ummm ... I hope you intended this to be a Joke.

Learning Linux simply by using it at home will be a timely process. And you only really learn something if you have to deal with it. So there is no way you could learn enough about Linux to support your company in a reasonable amount of time.

If your company is willing to pay for it, take a course!

Real life by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-09 13:01 · Score: 4, Informative

Yes, some people mock Gentoo, but installing it is once of the best linux learning experices I've ever had. Even if you don't end up running it, it'll teach you a good bit about the internals. The documentation is pretty good as well.

Re:Real life by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-09 13:13 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, some people mock Gentoo, but installing it is once of the best linux learning experices I've ever had. Even if you don't end up running it...

Still waiting for it to finish compiling, eh?
Re:Real life by eric_ste · 2004-09-09 13:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yep, parent is right. And you have the Gentoo forums to help you if you are in need. Installing gentoo will certainly teach you lot's of stuff. But if you are to become a Linux sysadmin, your first step, IMHO, should be to drop windows and start using Linux on your work computer and on your home computer. Also, get him to give you a few old PC's to play with. Like 333Mhz which you can get for about 50$. On these PC's, don't use gentoo, compiling everything will be much too long. Use a precompiled distribution and preferably the one your Boss wants you to use in prod.

Set up the networking, play with apache, PHP, postfix, Openldap. Create and delete useracounts, explore /etc/init.d, read the rc script to understand how your server boots.

Instead of going on a class, get him to buy good books. I like wrox and Oreily books but others may be good also.
Learn to use man, the sysadmin's bestfriend.

Learn vi. Vi may be hard at first but it is very useful. the linux version is generaly vim. You may also use gvim but it's better to kick yourself in the ass and learn it if you are to become a Unix sysadmin.

Also, a good source of info is generally included in /usr/share/doc.

Finally, http://www.google.com/linux, I could not live without.

I do not know many sysadmins that understood Linux and wanted to go back to windows.

Have fun!
Re:Real life by Curtman · 2004-09-09 13:42 · Score: 3, Informative

What amazes me about Gentoo is how aweful those LiveCD's are. I've been a Gentoo user for over two years, I'm not knocking the distro whatsoever. But if you're new to Linux, do yourself a favour and install Gentoo from Knoppix, instead of the Gentoo LiveCD's. The process is the exact same, except you have FireFox, X-Chat, and many other helpful resources available to you. I think those CD's are a terrible way to introduce people to Gentoo.
Re:Real life by Daengbo · 2004-09-09 13:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Linux From Scratch is a better candidate for this, IMO. A list of mirrors for the necessary files and the book is here: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

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Put identity in the browser.
Re:Real life by DrNibbler · 2004-09-09 16:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

I figured everyone installed gentoo the way I do... boot the livecd, start sshd, goto my laptop, ssh in and install in a screen session. This way I have all the resources you mention without the overhead of X on the machine I'm installing from. If the CD autostarted SSH and had a pre-defined root password I could do the install headless.

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Sean.OutaHere()
Re:Real life by AJWM · 2004-09-09 17:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Every sysadmin I know uses vi. Hell, I even use it as an interview question ("vi or emacs?"), not that I'd base a hire/no-hire decision on it -- but so far everyone has said "vi". (I've been asked that question too.)

I've used about every editor out there at one time or another (including teco), used emacs for a while, but "vi" (or vim) is my first choice. Heck, for a long time I used "ed", and still do occasionally.

Mostly it's a matter of guaranteed availability. Every Unix or Linux system will have "ed", nearly every modern 'nix system will have vi (or a workalike). You're unlikely to find emacs on a server, it's usually considered too heavyweight and maybe a bit too powerful to be running it as root (as you'd need to do to edit the files a sysadmin is likely to need to edit).

Come to think of it, the Certified Sys Admin for Solaris exam includes questions about using vi.

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-- Alastair
Re:Real life by wolftone · 2004-09-09 17:25 · Score: 2, Informative

don't know if this applies as conveniently to other distros or not, but debian offers a package "emacs-nox".

Set up a home system first by AJWM · 2004-09-09 13:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Set up a firewall, web server, mail server etc, play with the hardware, reconfigure the things, set up raid, lvm, etc.

Nothing beats hands on, and nobody I've interviewed for a sysadmin job (and I've done quite a few recently) who didn't have a setup at home was any good.

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-- Alastair

Re:Set up a home system first by Bistronaut · 2004-09-09 13:14 · Score: 4, Informative

I totally second this.

I'll add that I think that the best distro to learn the guts of Linux on is Gentoo. Go the full compile-it-yourself route. There are easy to follow, step by step instructions, and they take the time to tell you why you're doing everything. By the time you have it installed (and it will take a while), you'll be a virtual expert on Linux.

Of course, you shouldn't limit yourself to just one distro, and Gentoo probably isn't the easiest to manage. I like Debian stable for server things because it is so easy to keep up to date.
Re:Set up a home system first by mo · 2004-09-09 13:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

Just to add to this, I'd like to point out a reason why this is a good idea.

In taking a class, the instructor tells you directly how to do something. You may or may not retain the information long enough to reuse it the next time you have to, say, install qmail.

However, doing it yourself at home will teach you that all-imporant skill of how to google for linux howto information on the web.

I've done a couple of qmail installs in my lifetime, but any knowledge I've gained has long been forgotten. Except for the fact that I know that qmailrocks.org is the place I go to re-learn what to do.
Re:Set up a home system first by drinkypoo · 2004-09-09 13:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

Not only that, but get a few PCs, some switches (don't have to be good ones) and some wifi gear, a couple of windows clients at the very least if not some macs and stuff, and figure out ways to get maximum connectivity between all of them. A bunch of 486s will probably work for most of your linux systems, especially if you're willing to work with older versions of Linux for most of your clients.

Set up ALL the major software packages in every category you can come up with. Learn to configure both primary desktop environments. Install everything ISC has written and use it for something. Learn apache! Install php with it. Do something with perl. apache with php is your ultimate quick-and-dirty web tool, unless you elect to use apache with perl cgi or mod_perl. perl is your quick and dirty everything tool.

Do something that requires patching your kernel - PPTP VPN with MPPE/MPPC (For windows PPTP VPN clients) is one example, and the thing that I have to patch my kernels for. Install something from cvs, including compiling it. Set up both sendmail and qmail (probably not at the same time.) I found qmail+vqadmin+vpopmail+qmail-scanner to be an enlightening exercise and I've been using linux religiously (though seldom exclusively) since about kernel 1.1.47, a fair while.

The more machines you have the more relevant your knowledge is likely to be in the end. After all, the network is the computer, right? :)

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Set up a home system first by Wugger · 2004-09-09 13:26 · Score: 3, Informative

For an office sysadmin, using it at home is a start, but not the end of the journey. Get yourself a lab. You will need three computers, a linux to be your "server", a linux to be a "client" and a windows to be a "client". (If you have more than one Win32 OS in your office, add one client of each type to your lab.)
Now, start playing. Basic install on your server, play with the interface for a bit. Get out the "Linux Network Administrator's Guide" and read it cover to cover. Read the Samba documentation in equal detail. Make a checklist of all the services you will need to support (DHCP server, DHCP client, Samba, Mail, WWW, FTP) and try them out. Get your test lab working with them.
Now, play harder. Try to make Samba a domain controller. Set up RAID on your Linux server. Do some NFS to your Linux client. A big stack of Linux books, a personal lab, and a workplan of things to try and make work will get you fully trained up, probably several years faster than I took learning a little at a time. :)
Re:Set up a home system first by suckmysav · 2004-09-09 13:29 · Score: 2, Funny

"Nothing beats hands on, and nobody I've interviewed for a sysadmin job (and I've done quite a few recently) who didn't have a setup at home was any good"

I second that. It frustrates the hell out of your family though.

"Is the network broken? Again?"

"Err, yeah, I'm just working on something, sorry!, I'll have it back soon, I promise!"

"grrrr"

:-)

It's funny though, a lot of MS "sysadmins" have networks at home yet it doesn't seem to do any good for their skill levels, most of the time anyway.

--
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Re:Set up a home system first by stratjakt · 2004-09-09 13:42 · Score: 2, Informative

Oh yeah, I forgot. This is essential:

Maintain a seperate network to put your wife and kids PCs on because they get really pissed off when they find out there's no internet and they can't get TV Guide because you wanted to see what would happen as you type in mysterious iptables rules.

Pay for another router/switch, and route both subnets to your dsl modem or whatever. Bonus you get to learn about setting up subnets and DMZs and funky routing ju ju.

--
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Re:Set up a home system first by John+Courtland · 2004-09-09 14:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

What I don't agree with here is the Stage-1 isn't really as tough as bootstrapping a GCC tarball from scratch (no compiler on hand). I'm actually performing a Stage-1 on another machine as I write this, and the whole thing is scripted. /usr/portage/scripts/bootstrap.sh and it does the rest.

While I agree in principle that Gentoo is one of the best methods for learning how to get into the nooks and crannies of Linux, you aren't going to learn major "oh shit" tasks. I learned best by making massive mistakes and fixing them. Tool around in it, waste a few boxes and repair them without reinstalling. Set up an iptables ruleset and watch as you accidentally lock yourself out of your ssh shell. It's all good, all in the name of learning.

One last thing:
Learn either LILO or GRUB like your life depends on it. Those two things will almost certainly cause you many problems in the near future. The ever-dreaded 'LI' prompt, and GRUB denying you boot access because you misspelled the name of your kernel. Again, all good as long as it isn't in a production environment.

--
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Re:Set up a home system first by Fred_A · 2004-09-09 14:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

I absolutely second that. Knowing how to do things is mostly useless (by the time you do it again, the syntax will have changed anyway).

Knowing how to find how to do things is the useful talent.

Knowing how to find how to do things without an Internet access is an even more useful talent. It takes longer to aquire it though. And often several catastrophes.

--

May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Re:Set up a home system first by GreyWolf3000 · 2004-09-09 16:19 · Score: 2, Informative

Going from the Windows world to doing things like setting up mail servers in Linux is a really big step.
Firewalling is probably harder than a web server (especially if you use thttpd).
I disagree with the other comments about Gentoo--I'd say Slackware or Crux is a better compromise between getting you to actually start using your system quickly and forcing you to learn how to use it.
Linux from Scratch is probably the best, closest equivalent to an online 'course.' It's much more engaging than a Gentoo install, and hand-holds you through all of the steps without doing them for you like Gentoo does.
There's a slim chance I might be biased, though :)

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Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Re:Set up a home system first by mortonda · 2004-09-09 16:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Learn either LILO or GRUB like your life depends on it.

And for the love of Pete, If you compile a new kernel, DONT OVERWRITE THE OLD KERNEL!!!!!

Set up a new menu entry, so you can always failsafe back into the old kernel. I don't know how many times I've seen this done.

TrainingCamp for LPIC by Semireg · 2004-09-09 13:01 · Score: 5, Informative

I did a 6-day bootcamp style training session with TrainingCamp. I successfully attained my LPIC-1. Out of the 6 people in my class 2 (including myself) had previous Linux experience and we both passed, the others failed. However, having many coworkers and friends that are teaching themselves linux, this would have given them one of the best starting points around. Highly recommended no matter what your skill level.

Go RedHat by buchalka · 2004-09-09 13:02 · Score: 5, Informative

Personally I'd recommend the RedHat training.

This will be more of benefit to you if you actually are going to use RedHat, but of course the general principles will apply.

If I were you, I'd also get Linux on a home machine and start "fiddling" to get up to speed.

Maybe install Vmware or a similar product so you can try different things.

Personally I took a leap and went from Windows to Gentoo linux and never looked back!

Good luck with it.

You could dual-boot an existing Windows machine or run VMWARE so you c

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Games Programmer And Designer

Re:Go RedHat by HiThere · 2004-09-09 16:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

Warning: This info is two years old.

The Red Hat training is for those who are already Linux admins. You need to have a lot of background as an administrator already. I found it quite useful...but didn't pass...so this may be biased, however...

Much of the Red Hat training centers around features that one won't normally encounter, and assumes that you already know how to do all the common stuff. Also, the Red Hat training assumes(-ed) that you are doing most-to-all of your work with the command line tools (which I only use for the most common jobs. Oops!)

The Red Hat training is an excellent refresher for an experienced Red Hat Sysadmin (note the version specificity) intending to get certified. But do yourself a favor, and use only the command-line for several months before taking the class. (Or, if that's what you do all the time, use GUI tools during this period.) Also spend a lot of time studying boot loaders, and how to edit their configurations from a non-working (in various ways) system.

What? You say you plan to look that up in a manual? Sorry. That's not the game plan here.

Also spend a bit of time with NFS (though that may have been on the way out of the class). I seem to remember that it went by awfully fast in the class.

Red Hat's clear intention is that the RHCE's should be the most technically competent admins. But there's an awful lot of info to pick up, so don't plan on doing it during the class. Consider the class to be mainly a refresher to take prior to the exam. If you've got a couple of blank spots, you might be able to use the class to fill in the holes (or at least to alert you as to what you need to study at night). DON'T count on it as a first step.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

Online courses... by chrispyman · 2004-09-09 13:03 · Score: 5, Informative

If I were you I'd stay away from an online course. From what I've found, they usually aren't much better than just reading and doing reseach on your own, the only diffrence is that they have exams and it adds to your GPA. Perhaps you should find a real class of some type (perhaps one of those weekend campy type deals) and get some real world hands on experience.

Stick w/the books by RealBeanDip · 2004-09-09 13:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

I see you mentioned the O'reilly books - they are the best. I found Unix Power Tools and System Administration (Alein Frisch, sp?) to be the best books you can buy.

As far as online course, I haven't found any worth a sh*t.

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You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.

Re:Stick w/the books by rayde · 2004-09-09 13:37 · Score: 2, Informative

The book you mentioned, Essential System Administration by AEleen Frisch is definitley an excellent reference. It was the core textbook, along with A Practical Guide to the UNIX System by Mark Sobell in my college Unix introduction course. The first book will act more as a reference, while the second book may be a better walkthrough.

just a thought by wrinkledshirt · 2004-09-09 13:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

In addition to whatever training you want to do, audit your office for its current tech needs. If time is short, you might not want to spend too much time studying minutiae unrelated to your future tasks -- some of that time can be put to better use preparing for the switch away from Windows.

Just a thought.

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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...

Are You Crazy!?! by eSims · 2004-09-09 13:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

Take the offsite training!

These days it is difficult enough to get training (at least in the corp America I work in) let alone offsite. A whole week to do nothing but dig in and learn. Take it... then on your own you can always do self paced work and such... it's a win-win.

Good Luck!

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I .sig therefore I am!

Re:Are You Crazy!?! by barzok · 2004-09-09 13:17 · Score: 3, Funny

Not only dig in & learn, you get to go on a trip on the company dime! Once class is over for the day, check out the city, meet up w/ friends for dinner, catch a baseball/basketball/hockey game, whatever. Turning a company-sponsored trip into a mini-vacation is what offsite training is all about!

No, seriously. If the class starts on a Monday, fly out Friday and stay with a friend for 2 nights. You'll actually save the company money on airfare by staying over a Saturday night.

Just a thought by drgonzo59 · 2004-09-09 13:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ask a friend o someone else you know that has some experience to share it. People who love linux often love it because they learned it as hobby and those are the people who usually like to share the knowledge and help others learn it. But if the company has the money to spend, give that a try. Also read through the HOWTOs those helped me.

Ummm, where do you work? by hendridm · 2004-09-09 13:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

...and are they hiring?

If I even mention "training" where I work the laughs can be heard clearly from the other side of the planet. Funny how an organization that is so gainst paying for anything is staunchly anti-Open Source.

Hands on experience by penguinoid · 2004-09-09 13:09 · Score: 4, Funny

It seems quite a few geeks are recommending hands on experience as the way to go for learning linux. At risk of sounding like an offtopic troll, I would also recommend hands on as a way to learn about girls. No, not hands on *that*! Hands on the girl!

I bet that I now lost my reputation for being a geek.

--
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways

Re:Hands on experience by Master+of+Transhuman · 2004-09-09 13:25 · Score: 4, Funny

"I bet that I now lost my reputation for being a geek."

Why? Have you established you've ever had hands on a girl?

You have, however, established a reputation for being unable to communicate in correct English...:-) (Okay, it was a typo, relax.)

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Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!

The kind they have in Hawaii by Xoro · 2004-09-09 13:09 · Score: 3, Informative

Seriously, get your co to pay for training in the most interesting setting they'll allow, where you can score a free lunch.

If you have time to "take your time", where you'll really learn is by installing at home. Have the co fork over for VMWare, and set yourself up with a nice virtual network on your home machine. You'll learn way more than through any online training course. You may even want to do this for a few weeks before starting the official training course.

This is a little off beat, but if you're totally new to unix, it might be helpful to nab a copy of Solaris x86 and put that in a vmware machine. I hate to admit this, but when I was starting I had a hard time understanding the linux man pages. The Solaris documentation was just luxurious, and the main options for commands pretty much the same. It used to be (maybe still is) free so you can probably get a copy someplace.

Good luck.

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Kill, Tux, kill!

Pick the hardest Distro by Dark+Coder · 2004-09-09 13:10 · Score: 4, Informative

By picking the hardest distro such as an older Slackware (don't knock the new ones), you've essentially master-micro-managed all aspect of Linux administration in virtually no time.

It's no different than mastering the DOS 3.3 command set and scripting; just [infinitely?] more commands scripting, languages and widgets at your disposal.

Re:Pick the hardest Distro by jburroug · 2004-09-09 17:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is one situation where I'd really recomend Gentoo since the installer is pretty much just a series of commands you have to run it's a good intoroduction to the "Linux Way" of doing things. Sure it won't teach you everything and will be radically different than more corporate distos in some ways but ultimately you'll learn a lot of basic, low level Linux shit just by doing the install. Hell I've been using Linux as my primary OS since 1997 or so and even I learned a couple things during my first Gentoo install about two weeks ago.

Course for a production (public) server it's all about the FreeBSD in my book ;-> Linux is still my choice for desktops and internal utility servers but that's besides the point for this guys question.

One final note. Once you've done your install and get ready to start installing your mission critical apps (Apache, Postfix or whatever) don't use emerge or RPM or Yast etc... grab the source tarball and follow the README/INSTALL directions. It's often a little harder but gives you more control and you learn more about both the app and your OS in the process.

Good Luck!

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"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Re:Pick the hardest Distro by tunabomber · 2004-09-09 17:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

I agree with this approach in general, but I think that Linux From Scratch is really the best "hard" distro to learn from. Unlike Slackware, LFS is set up specifically with learning in mind, with very explanatory step-by-step documentation. Just about every aspect of the installation is done by hand- the instructions even show you how to write your own boot scripts.
It takes a long time to get an LFS distro up and running, but by the time you do, you will know your system inside and out even before you've started experimenting with different configurations.

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pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
Re:Pick the hardest Distro by MoThugz · 2004-09-09 19:58 · Score: 5, Informative

That's not the best way... that's overkill. Hard doesn't necessarily mean best.

But hey, don't think that I'm knocking off LFS. I went through it myself... but after a year plus of using Slackware (following a year of using Mandrake consistently).

LFS is really useful if you want to understand how to build a Linux distro. It's technically not even a distro. It's more of a commando-style survival training, whereas a distro would be summer camp.

I also doubt the "you will know your system inside and out" argument. I believe "you will know how to build a working Linux system" is a better description of the LFS learning process.

Bear in mind that the poster is a Windows admin for five years... and he wants to have working knowledge of adminning Linux... not building a distro. Moving from Windows, and getting an introduction to Linux via LFS is really not something you'd want to go through.

My recommendation? I live and breathe Slackware... but the poster should really try out a few distros. Fedora Core & Mandrake would scratch that need-some-GUIs-to-get-me-going itch for a start. After that, you might want to try some of the more traditional distros... Slackware and Debian would be my recommendation then.

In the end, Linux is about choice. Just sometimes, the choice isn't yours... just your company's. Take a course on whatever distro they've decided upon... but play with a different distro at home for a different "feel".

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Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers

Geek Cruise... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-09 13:12 · Score: 2, Informative

Heh - if my company were footing the bill - I'd go for one of them Carribean geek-cruises. :)

Realistically - aside from the "install at home" and "online courses suck" and "go to TLDP" - find a local Linux Users Group. Nothing at all beats face to face and it's value is compounded by the fact that it's hard to come up with months of future questions in a 5 day class - having a group of people you can sit down with any time goes miles to improving your skills with Linux. They'll often see things you'll miss or not be taught.

Lucky by dance2die · 2004-09-09 13:12 · Score: 2, Funny

My company will pay for any Linux training I choose You are one of the Luckiest bastard I know...

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buffering...

Vendor-specific vs. Vendor-neutral Training by base_chakra · 2004-09-09 13:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

If "someone" recommended Red Hat eLearning, I assume your company is adopting Red Hat? At the outset eLearning might be a reasonable choice, but if you really want to understand Linux, you'll probably want to laern more than just the Red Hat way of doing things. Experiment with Fedora or Red Hat 9 at home; then, after a few months, test a distribution that doesn't rely centrally on RPM and you'll gain a new, edifying perspective.

Re:Vendor-specific vs. Vendor-neutral Training by Erwos · 2004-09-09 15:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

I hate to break it to you, but there are only two major distributions that don't rely on RPM (or DEB, which is more or less the same damn thing), and neither of them are really appropriate for a corporate environment.

Also, if they do a good job of teaching RPM, they'll tell you how to _build_ them from spec files, which does involve knowing how to install tgz's and such. You take knowledge, and you apply it to other things - that's what a good education lets you do.

-Erwos

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Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.

Like anything worth doing.... it takes time. by Neo-Rio-101 · 2004-09-09 13:14 · Score: 2, Informative

I agree with everyone else who says that you need hands on starting in your own home and in your own time.

I found that the O'Reilly books are really good, but their LPI in a nutshell is not the be all and end all of LPI study materials at all (if you're interested in going for level 1 of that). Sometimes the man pages will do - but more often than not, they won't cut the mustard.

One by one you'll have to go through getting different Linux servers up and running... starting with the old faithful Apache, BIND, qmail, NTP, FTP, SSH, Samba, Net-SNMP, etc., and once you've done setting up all of those, try your hand and some of the other more obscure open source projects out there and get them compiled.
Stuff like Nagios, MRTG, Big Sister, IPsec tools (freeswan, KAME), learn how to craft a firewall with iptables, try encrypting a file system with dmsetup, etc.

Don't stick to one distribution. Try as many of the free ones as possible. Each has thier own strengths and weaknesses,... not to mention different locations for config files, and different methods of package installation.

Enlist to as many mailing lists and IRC groups as possible..., then unsubscribe when you're email box can't cope anymore.

Compiling the Linux kernel is a right of passage for all admins.

Leanr how to write a shell script, and don't be tempted to play with X windows or all of RedHat's easy to use configuration programs too much.

Finally, be patient - this takes time, and drink lots and lots of coffee and keep a supply of hair on your head for occasional ripping out. You'll need it.

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READY.
PRINT ""+-0

Set up a small net in your work lab by SCHecklerX · 2004-09-09 13:22 · Score: 5, Informative

As many others have suggested, you should play on your own. I'd still take the class though. Set up a small network BEFORE going to the class, though. Then you will have intelligent questions to ask, and you will have some goals in your training.

In your work lab get 2-3 computers. Set up a linux box as a DHCP and DNS server, then maybe add apache, samba, etc. These are the things that you'll likely be using linux for in the enterprise, right? You can play with firewalling and IPSec if that is your thing too.

After the initial install, go here to learn the rest:
The Linux Documentation Project

The basic sysadmin guide there will give you the basics, and the specific howto's are great for setting up DHCP, DNS, etc.

Another good guide:
IBM Linux Newbie Guide

Set up that small net, play, learn, then go to your class and learn a lot more.

Have fun!

LPI? by psyconaut · 2004-09-09 13:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

Might be a good career choice if certifaction rocks your (or your employers) boat.

http://www.lpi.org

-psy

Some Good Links by teoryn · 2004-09-09 13:30 · Score: 2, Informative

Here's a good online book:
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

The best place for questions:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/

More reading:
http://www.tldp.org/

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You've seen the posts, now see the website!
http://hiddenuniverse.blogspot.com/

Linux From Scratch by BroadbandBradley · 2004-09-09 13:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Roll your own using http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

I've found most distros have thier own GUI tools to simplify configuring your system but all these tools simply mask what's going on underneath where everything is really just shell commands and scripts strung together. When the GUI fails what you want to do, you're lost without knowing what goes on underneath. Beyond that, if you become familiar with Redhat tools and GUI and your work installs Debian you're starting over. I'd also reccomend learning Bash shell scripting which is the ultimate in telliing your Linux system what to do.

for an example of what's been done with Linux from scratch check out ByzantineOS

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"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas

you need to set up a network by wobblie · 2004-09-09 13:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

and sandbox your activities in it. If you can get your hands on 3 or 4 pc's and a cheap hub, you can get very far.

What you want to concentrate on are
*auth services (pam, unix, nis, samba, ldap, etc)
*mail (set up a few MTA's and try some different configurations)
*name services (dns - probably where you should start)
*shell usage (this takes a while)
*routing and firewalling
*printing (cups, samba)
*samba

Set aside a few tasks for yourself and star trying to do things. Stay simple at first, then work your way up to bigger things.

Though I don't see how the boss asking you to learn linux is much of a motivator.

Building "scale" networks is great by GoClick · 2004-09-09 13:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

Depending on how complex your network is you might even be able to get the company to fund a "model city" at work in a spare room.

You can use local sources to buy outdated computers, used switches, hubs, routers and etc to build a "dumbed down" low cost clone of your current network which will allow you to learn using it just like the real network, heck even the same IPs if you're going to put that much effort in. You can practice deploying software, using the systems etc. You might also want to get exact (sans-serial-numbers) clones of key servers if possible so you can test things very carefully.

It's a great way to learn but it'll really help to have a guru to get you going.

Find the local Linux User Group and get involved, make friends and then pester them on IM.

Do both by dpilot · 2004-09-09 13:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

I honestly can't recommend a training program, though perhaps others can. I would keep it in line with the Linux your company plans to deploy.

But *in addition* set up a small network at home. Set it up as a mini-professional network, not a slapdash home network. You never learn like you do when you're doing, too.

But managers like Certifications, so I wouldn't suggest shorting out the course. Besides, some problems are related to scale, and you won't touch that on most home LANs. Book learning and practical learning can work together.

I'll second what someone said about Gentoo. While you want to deploy what your company uses, it wouldn't hurt to install a Gentoo box. Gentoo has very little handholding, and the install teaches you more than other installs. I wouldn't make Gentoo your first install, or even a particularly early one, though.

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The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.

Welcome aboard! by NtroP · 2004-09-09 13:59 · Score: 4, Informative

As a Linux SysAdmin who came from the Windows world I'd have to echo many of the earlier senitments:

Take advantage of an off-site "bootcamp". They won't make you a Linux SysAdmin, but they will give you a very good head start and are a good introduction to Linux. Let someone coach you through the first installs in class - you'll get plenty of opportunity to beat your head against the wall on your own later.
Definitely set up systems at home. The best way to learn is getting your hands dirty and using it every day. I'd also recommend using it as your primary workstation right off the bat at work; drink your own champaign, so to speak. With tools like rdesktop, smb4k, webmin and OpenOffice.org your should be able to do everything you need to do while you learn.
Build a good reference library. You've already mentioned O'reilly - they're great, but also build up a library of bookmarks and make friends with google!
Try many different distros. Everyone you ask will tell you difinitively which one is best. Don't take their word for it, find out for yourself. Besides, my recommendation for a desktop distro for my budy isn't the same as the distro I'd use for myself, and that is different still from the distro that I'd run as a web- or file-server, etc.

Personally, I'd not spend my time, initially, on an online course. In my experience, you're better off starting out in an environment where you have someone in meat-space to bounce questions off of and get answers immediately. Once you know your way around Linux a bit, then pick some specific goals or projects (set up a mail server with DNS, set up a webserver with secure areas and cgi scripting, etc.). Just going through the process of downloading the latest apache and compiling it from source (and forgetting to compile in certain functionality or having to go hunting for supporting libraries for a function you're missing) will give you invaluable insight into the whole process of fine-tuning and customizing your Linux boxes to really make them perform as you want.

And if you don't know perl and php, learn them! Windows admins don't naturally think of scripting something right off the bat, at least I didn't. Now, "how can I script this?" is the first thing I ask if I find myself doing the same thing more than once. I've even loaded ActivePerl onto my Windows Servers and have my entire user and group management process scripted. over 18,000 users are created, placed in groups, have their home directories created/moved/archived, etc. based on data gleaned from HR's databases. I used to get lists of hires, fires and transfers and have to manually manage their accounts and data. Not any more. A couple of perl scripts and an Active Directory perl module with a little Win32::OLE thrown in and I spend my valuable time doing more important stuff (like post on /.)

Anyway, this is free advice, which means you get what you pay for ;-) Welcome to the club!

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"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution

Don't forget about the time investment by damm0 · 2004-09-09 14:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes, everyone I know who is best at Linux is self-taught. But how much time did that take? Valuable lessons can be learned alone, but you can reduce the time it takes by a factor of 10 or more with structured lessons.

I'm talking years here. You can reduce 10 years of lonerdom to 1 year by using structured learning tools. No class is going to teach you to be a guru in 4 days.

Re:Don't forget about the time investment by SealBeater · 2004-09-09 14:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

I disagree. I am all self-taught, and I belive that taking a class only
teaches you how to think the way the teacher thinks. I have seen countless
IT people with formal skills approach a problem the exact same way, go through
everything they can remember, once they have gone down the list, they are
stumped. I would much rather be in charge of the training of my brain, esp,
since you can study what you want, it's always "play" and never "work". My
self-teaching has been of tourrmendous advantage, since I, having not
undergone the grinding down of formal education in computers, have developed
novel and unique ways of looking and solving of provblems.

SealBeater

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-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
Re:Don't forget about the time investment by mindstrm · 2004-09-09 15:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

Courses augment self teaching.. they don't replace it.

I firmly believe that to be a good sysadmin, programmer, technologist, etc, you have to be able to learn on your own.. that is the primary skill you need... and this is why almost every single skilled person you meet in this field will tell you they really learned it all on their own.

School, however, is a source of knowledge.. and not every course is there to teach you a bunch of narrow-minded BS.

If you really want to bean up on a specific area, for instance, you are getting more into Linux, taking a couple courses your employer is willing to pay for is certainly not a BAD thing to take advantage of... especially if you feel you will learn something out of it. Especially if you are a learning on your own kind of guy.. you will absorb a lot from the course. Make sure the instructor is someone who can actually add knowledge to you.. the entire course could be worth it if a handful of your unanswered questions are answered.

I think most of us just suggest "do it on your own, courses are silly" because we want people to realize that learning on your own is the most important skill.. that courses are just a brief foray into some new knowledge.
Re:Don't forget about the time investment by jadavis · 2004-09-09 17:56 · Score: 2

Well said.

I'd like to add that an important aspect of teaching yourself is that you learn how to learn.

It's much more valuable to know that you can type "man grep" than to memorize that "-i" means case-insensitive.

One thing is for sure: nothing can replace self-teaching. You will be a much more valuable resource to your company because of it.

However, the orginal poster's company needs him now. I think he should install linux everywhere he can and start taking classes. Then, I'd just pick the instructor's brain when I encountered a problem. Hopefully he gets competent fast enough to be helpful.

--
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Re:Don't forget about the time investment by maxpublic · 2004-09-09 19:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Valuable lessons can be learned alone, but you can reduce the time it takes by a factor of 10 or more with structured lessons.

That's rather amusing, given how useless a college degree is in most professions - CS included. Structured learning often does very little to teach CS students anything of actual, real-world value.

I'd argue for self-learning (the way most of us have done it, I'd imagine), with liberal doses of research on the internet and question/answer sessions on the newsgroups. There are a lot of people out there who'll lend you a helping hand if you ask for it.

Some - a very few - current administrators and programmers are also good at apprenticeship situations. Many aren't; not because they lack some indefinable skill, but because they're too busy with other things to be bothered with training up a newbie.

I'd say take a class as a very last resort. Avoid a college course as if your professional life depended on it.

Max

--
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Re:Don't forget about the time investment by Phragmen-Lindelof · 2004-09-09 20:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

"That's rather amusing, given how useless a college degree is in most professions - CS included."
I would agree about CS but I am curious about your list of "good" and "bad" majors. Of course, I do not agree with respect on Mathematics; I think Don Knuth would agree that a Math degree is worthwhile. I cannot imagine learning "real" physics (as compared with "popular" physics) without studying it at a university. Also biology (e.g. sequencing), chemistry (e.g. good lab technique, P-chem.), some (but not all) engineering, etc. On my "bad" list might be foreign languages (i.e. just go live in Spain or Germany or Sudan(?)), the social sciences, Comm., etc - I'm not really sure my "bad" list is serious because you (should) have to learn to actually go to class, use the library, express your opinion in persuasive ways, open your mind to new ways of thinking, accept differing points of view, etc. Independent of your major, a good university should make you "Grow Up". (No offense to the frat's.)

I had a student in Calculus (1980s) who was very good at math and computing. His degree was in Art. He worked (and still works) as a contract employee; he lived in Europe for ten years, moves from company, makes lots of money and does artwork (for himself, not for money) whenever he can. As a single person, being out of work for a year or two is OK; he can do more artwork and his bank account has a large enough balance (and his expenses are low enough) that money is not a principal concern.

This whole post may be offtopic but I am curious what people consider "good" and "bad" majors. By the way, I do not think being a "computer programmer" requires a university degree; lots of "uneducated hackers" can write (sometimes bad) code. People I know who got CS degrees usually think this was a waste; people are starting to switch from CS to math or physics. One problem with CS is that you learn some skills but you have no ("real" or "interesting") problems to which to apply these skills; who cares if you rewrite gcc? (How many times can you sort lists or learn about a "new" type of database or prove that AI really is not DEAD?) Physics has lots of interesting computational problems (e.g. simulate a quantum computer and see what it should be able to do). Math has lots of interesting computational problems (e.g. number theory, fluid dynamics, conformal mapping, surfaces (als Brakke's Surface Evolver, Bank's PLTMG, Parks & Pitts Least Gradient program), mathematical biology - population models, "wierd" yeast behavior - and mathematical genetics, etc.). (Actually, I think a foreign language major is not such a bad idea; just go to a country where the language is spoken while getting or after getting the degree.)
Re:Don't forget about the time investment by maxpublic · 2004-09-09 20:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

Remember that I said "a college degree is useless in most professions". That doesn't mean that the learning obtained while getting the college degree is useless, but that the degree itself rarely qualifies one for work in the profession that requires that degree.

Mathematics is a degree I did not consider, and a rather good example of a degree that might actually be useful right from the point of graduation. But then I did say "most" and not "all".

I've had the rare opportunity to study a variety of recently-degreed people who've gone to work in fields that their degree supposedly relates to. The fact is, most of these people are entirely unprepared for the actual WORK of that profession. The work itself must be taught to them, often from scratch, by people who're already employed in that profession. And it's my observation that in many cases someone without a degree could do the actual WORK just as well as someone with the degree; and I've seen this observation confirmed when people who did not have the degree supposedly needed for the profession had no problem at all actually mastering the work.

The only real exceptions I've discovered are professions which immerse the student in work as part of the degree. Doctors are a very good example of this.

A degree would be worth far more, I think, if the learning involved in getting that degree were modeled after the learning the doctor must go through for the same thing. That is, if much of the course of learning revolved around actual WORK in a real-world environment. Sadly this isn't a requirement of most degrees, and I think it's the reason why so many college graduates come to the work environment so utterly useless until trained. And if they have to be trained, it's often just as easy to train any smart, able-bodied person.

This might explain why more than 90% of all college graduates end up in a job unrelated to their degree. Not because they're underqualified (which they are), but because their supposed qualifications simply aren't worth that much in the work environment - and they can easily be swapped about in most work environments (as indicated by the fact that while 90% of them end up in jobs unrelated to their majors, *they do end up with jobs, most of which require college degree other than the one they got*).

Max

--
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?

My Advice by Glamdrlng · 2004-09-09 14:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

is not on where to get your training, but what to do before you start it. First, find out (if you don't know already) what distro your company is standardizing on, and make sure your training is geared towards it. You're going to suffer from infromation overload as it is, so there's no sense in going to suse-based training and learning yast if you'll be using red hat.

Second, identify the tasks you do as a windows sysadmin, and come up with a list. The more the merrier. Keep that handy while you're learning, and don't let your training end without learning how to accomplish those tasks in a linux environment. Don't settle for the gui way either. You'll save yourself a lot of time and work in the long run if you learn the command line and some shell scripting, plus you'll make yourself more valuable to your organization.

Also, get your company to get you a subscription to one or more linux sysadmin-oriented publications. Sysadmin mag is pretty good, but I'm sure there are others out there.

Finally, network with other linux techs, whether it's through user groups, training, or some other means. It's a strong argument in favor of in-person training, just because you cant network as well during online or teleconference-style classes. Oh, one other thing -- be sure to explain to your superiors that "putzing around on slashdot" == "hard at work". Good luck!

--

Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.

Instructor-led vs. Do-it-yourself by slank · 2004-09-09 14:33 · Score: 2, Informative

In general, I think there are advantages to taking courses like RedHat's, as well as a do-it-yourself approach:

Instructor-led:
Pro: There's someone there to answer your questions.
Pro: You can dedicate yourself to the material without interruption.
Pro: You won't be led off on tangential tasks.
Pro: You'll have something to put on your resume.
Con: You might be overly isolated from the nuts-and-bolts

Do-it-yourself:
Pro: You'll learn where to go to find the answers on your own.
Pro: You can focus on topics that are important to you.
Pro: You're exposed to the full breadth or possilities.
Con: You'll have to figure out on your own what's signal and what's noise.

FWIW, I've looked into the RedHat courses for some of my employees, and I think they're fairly good for someone who wants to learn useful Linux (for business) administration. The topics are a good mix of basics and enterprise-level stuff.

To help you with the self-taught portion of your learning experience, I highly recommend Linux Administration Handbook. It will lead you from low-level (booting, etc.) to high-level (web servers, backups), and it's concise enough to use as a reference later on.

Gentoo not relevant to sys admin by kuom · 2004-09-09 14:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

I run several machines at home, one of them is a gentoo machine. I like Gentoo, but it will *not* teach you much about being a system administrator. It will teach you about some basics about linux (installing one, to be specific), which I don't believe have much to do with sys admin. For example, bootstrapping your kernel. During the gentoo installation, that's just one command, you run the bootstrap script (I believe it was bootstrap.sh), and off it goes (for the next few hours). You don't really learn anything from that except typing in that "bootstrap" command.

I recommend that you read about real TCP/IP networking, as most Windows sys admins I know don't have the correct knowledge about networking (they only know it in Microsoft terms). O'Reilly's TCP/IP Network Administration is a good book, so is Linux TCP/IP Network Administration by Scott Mann.

Get comfortable with command line. I know many Windows sys admins who fear the command line tools. Most linux programs now have GUI counter parts, but to really get the most out of a tool, command line is still your best friend. It also will make remote administration a lot easier for you.

Find out what distribution you will be using, and join the user mailing list(s). Also get familiar with package management of your choice (RPM, DEB, or source). As a sys admin, you will quickly find out that custom compiling everything will become a nightmare to maintain. For me, I build everything into RPMs, even if it's just a single file script. This makes administering multiple machines much easier.

A good friend by tyler_larson · 2004-09-09 15:12 · Score: 4, Informative

I see you mentioned the O'reilly books - they are the best. I found Unix Power Tools and System Administration (Alein Frisch, sp?) to be the best books you can buy.

There's nothing that even comes close to having a hardcore hacker as a good friend. Information is quickest gained through other people's personal experience.

I've done it all. I've read a whole series of O'Reilly books (don't even bother with any other publisher) on various Linux and Network related subjects--I've read at least 25 of them cover-to-cover in the last 4 years. I have a whole bookshelf lined with them.

Then I subscribed to O'Reilly's Safari online program, and will never again be without it. I'll never have to buy another tech book again. If you can tolerate reading books online, getting a subscription is an ABSOLUTE must. And if you buy (or would like to buy) an average of more then two or three books a year, this will save you loads of cash. You can read up to about 60 books a year for $10/mo.

However, when you need to come up to speed as quick as possible, by far and away the best resource is a friend who knows it all. Install Linux on all your computers, and play with every piece of software you may be even slightly interested. Read all the books, read all the man pages. Write a few scripts in Bash, Perl, Sed, Awk, and anything else you hear about. And when you get stuck (and believe me, you will), call up that friend or drop by his desk. You'll be an expert faster than you can immagine.

It's the little things, you know, that make you an expert. Anybody can copy files to another computer, but if you can come up with something like

tar cf - dir{1,2} | (ssh host2 'cd destdir; tar xpf -')

off the top of your head, then people will start feeling the respect.

--
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925

Re:A good friend by tyler_larson · 2004-09-09 15:31 · Score: 2, Informative

Because I know someone will ask, here's the answer right now:
Q:How is
tar cf - dir{1,2} | (ssh host2 'cd destdir; tar xpf -')
better than
scp -p dir{1,2} host2:destdir
A:tar preserves more about the files than scp, for example, scp follows symbolic links, tar copies the links themselves. Also, the method I proposed allows more versatility, such as:
tar cf - * | (ssh host 'md destdir; cd destdir; tar xpf -')

--
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925

make sure you bosses know by hazem · 2004-09-09 15:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

It will be foolish to think that you can take one course or one training program and be just as proficient in Linux as you are in Windows. Make sure your bosses realize this. (I've been in places where they send you for a week of training, then say, "Here you go, you're an expert now. You take care of it."

There are lots of good suggestions so far. I personally recommend multiple-approach solution:

1) find a local Linux Users Group and get involved
2) seek out the certification you think is best, such as the Red Hat. Has SAGE ever finished their certification program? Sure, a cert is worth the paper it's printed on, but if you're serious about learning (rather than just getting by), it will provide you with a solid foundation.
3) set up a small network at home. Get a domain, and set up servers for mail, web, etc. See how quickly you get hacked, and learn how to prevent it. Get internal services like print servers, samba, file services, authentication, etc working. Will you be doing a mixed environment at work? Make sure your linux network can serve to your windows boxes
4) someone suggested a "city" at work. this is like your home network, but maybe can mirror better the work environment
5) see if your local community college or university has a unix course. It can be a great way to learn some basics about how a unix system is laid out and give you an intro to scripting.

As for distros, I would advise using a common one that you can easily find help for. Fedora Core, Mandrake, Suse, Slackware, to name a few. Has your work settled on the one they'll use? Start with that one.

Watch websites like rootprompt, and subscribe to magazines like linux journal, etc.

Windows to Linux Migration Training by janhct · 2004-09-09 15:51 · Score: 2, Informative

The biggest obstacle you face is not one of basic Linux familiarization, that can indeed be picked up through hands-on self-managed at-home training. There are many good books that can guide you in the basics, but the big obstacle is always TIME!

You will find that the demands to migrate Windows systems to Linux will outstrip your time. You need to pick up chilli-hot pointers to get basic services established in an instant.

For example: MS Windows has wizards and GUI tools to help get DHCP server, DNS server, file and print, etc. configured. Each requires only a limited amount oof back0ground information (IP Address, network mask, domain name, IP range for DHCP, upstream DNS server, gateway address, etc.) With Linux, no matter which distribution, you have to learn to use an editor (that is unlike anything you have ever used in Windows NT)and then manually configure each control file (dhcpd.conf, named.conf and so on) and if you get one dot wrong - your server will not work.

Samba is a bear to configure. Setting up a PDC and a BDC requires LDAP. Installation and configuration of LDAP requires more than transient knowledge! Then you have to install and configure a set of control scripts that interface between the Windows world (client requests) and the Linux OS. Again, this is not for the faint at heart average MS Windows network administrator who already feels out of his depth just having to deal with Linux.

If I were you, I'd check out the Samba web site, download the Samba-3 by Example book (can be purchased from Amazon.Com also) and use the networking examples it presents. You can download this book from: http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/Samba-Guide.pdf

The above book fully documents a wide range of MS Windows networks and includes all configuration files you may need for: 1. DHCP serving, Dynamic DNS, Samba, Firewall, CUPS (printing), etc. It is not perfect, but a good start.

You might also check out the Freedom Technology Center (see http://www.freedomtechnologycenter.org)for hands-on training courses they offer.

There is a wide range of potential training you can buy. Look for sources that run custom hand-on training. This is your best option to get yourself up to speed.

John T. jht@samba.org

try linux from scratch by karmester · 2004-09-09 16:10 · Score: 3, Informative

I cannot recommend LFS highly enough... http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ 'nuff said

don't learn it, UNDERSTAND it. by ehanuise · 2004-09-09 18:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you come from a windows background, and have a few years of experience, the biggest hurdle you face is not learning the technicalities of linux, but getting a grip of the overall unix philosophy.

The worst error someone in your position could ever do is learn linux system administration, then "try to do the same thing" as was done using windows.

Linux (and unix, bsd, ...) is a diffeent beast. The main concept you'll need to grasp is that programs and utilities have a limited scope by design. That's unix atomicity : one program that does one and only one thing, but does it well. Every single utility is a lego building brick that you'll use time and over again in various circumstances (especially in shell scripting)

That alone is very diffrent from windows 'all-in-one', monolithic, approach.

I strongly suggest you get involved in your local linux user group. Helping out people solve basic problems and mixing with more experienced admins is a very good way to learn the non purely technical aspects.

IBM by SlashDread · 2004-09-09 18:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

Take their distro agnostic Linux courses. I have never been better educated than by IBM (That was in the OS/2 days)

Anyway, the disto agnostic approuch seems more usefull to me than a red hat cert.

"/Dread"

Pick an old book by iNiTiUM · 2004-09-09 20:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

In addition to choosing a difficult distro to start with, pick up an older unix book. Something mid-80s or earlier. Why? Those books have more useful commandline tricks, simple stuff that is often overlooked in the modern day age of pointy-clicky. Scrounge your used book stores for a copy of "A Practical Guide to UNIX System V" for starters. I also scored a whole accounting box full of HP-UX manuals awhile back, many many neat tricks, mostly forgotten shell script kung-fu. You'll quickly pick up what still works and what doesn't. Basic commandline zen goes lightyears, especially if you plan to work with other variations of *n?x...

Hell, just install FreeBSD and bookmark the online handbook...

--
When encryption is outlawed, ou++1!@(93j++js-d9298yIUH(*Y24JKB!~

Certification by LarsWestergren · 2004-09-09 21:53 · Score: 2, Informative

I've passed the 101 test for LPI Level 1 certification, and in one hour I'm going to take the 102 test. The LPI certificate is a good general indicator of how much you know of Linux, but I must say I'm a bit disappointed in the tests. There is quite a lot of "sausage stuffing" knowledge, such as memorizing standard ports, location of files, lots of command line commands and worst of all, command line parameters.

Try to memorize what -d, -w, or -f means for 50 different commands. -f could mean first, force, fake (simulate), file....
You might be able to force it in your brain, but it will fall out again two days after the test unless you are constantly using the commands.

I don't regret paying for the certification and the LPI certainly fills its place, but if I would chose today, I think I would rather go for CompTIA Linux+ certification (which I believe is more up to date), or maybe RedHat Certified Engineer. Does anyone have any opinions on those certificates?

--

Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

SAIR Certification by Muddle · 2004-09-10 00:21 · Score: 2, Informative

SAIR

Start with a hard distro... by KermitJunior · 2004-09-10 00:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

I would recommend you start with Gentoo and move to Debian or Suse.

Before I'm modded flamebait, here's why:
1)Gentoo has some of the best install documents in the Linux community
2)It requires that you set up a lot of things by hand (system logger, kernel if you choose expert, etc)
3)It has some of the best forums/support around. Even Gentoo critics admit this.

After you get gentoo working on your box, wipe it and reinstall. After the fourth or fifth time, you'll actually have learned something. Then wipe and install Debian:
1) Debian has the largest volunteer following.
2) Deb has one of the simplest updgrade paths
3) If you choose stable, its old but very secure.
4)Suse is pretty darned awesome, too.
5)Then make a customized patched kernel for the heck of it.

Just my two cents. I took the Gentoo->Debian Road for the simple reason of learning and it helped.

--
There is a Universal Life Value Check it

Unix Tools On Windows by stan_freedom · 2004-09-10 00:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

Along with other /. recommendations, I suggest the user install a Unix toolkit on his Windows workstation at work. Then he can experiment with Unix/Linux tools in a "friendly" environment as well as compare them to Windows commands.

In particular, I suggest the user becomes familiar with the vi editor, as it will be required for many tasks, and is the most difficult of the basic sysadmin skills to master.

Linux learning by flipperman · 2004-09-10 01:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Having just gone through your exact situation, I feel at least somewhat qualified to give my opinion. I found lsf to be very useful. If you are like me (just in my forties) then you probably have some ancient experience with the DOS command line. I would strongly recommend going cold turkey and not using the GUI in whichever distro you choose as your learning environment. I also strongly recommend a subscription to the O'reilly safari bookshelf and the following three books: the infamous 'cowboy' book, "running linux" and the pocket guide of same, and the "essential system administration' pocket reference. I fouund the sys admin ref book to be especially useful because of it's task based format. This is stuff that we do on a daily basis with a straightforward way of doing it. Anyway, just my two cents. Best of luck to you.

--
I'm not here anymore, but I'm still not quite all there

5 commands to Linux Mastery by sloth+jr · 2004-09-10 02:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

ls
cd
mv
cp
man

Start with "man man". Most important man variation is "man -k someconcept" - eg, "man -k kernel". This will show man pages that purportedly have something to do with someconcept (in reality, that have "someconcept" as a substring in their description).

These 5 commands can help bootstrap anyone on a linux or unix system (unless you are so unfortunate to have a box that does not contain man pages).

sloth_jr

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