Best Training in Linux Administration?

Love to Learn Linux asks: "My company is making the move to Linux. I've been a Windows admin the last 5 years and have been asked to learn Linux. I've got some O'Reilly books but I need some hands on experience. My company will pay for any Linux training I choose. I'd prefer an online course to one of those 4 day classroom courses since I'd like to take my time and really learn it. So far, I've been recommended the Red Hat eLearning course and the O'Reilly Learning Lab. Would you recommend either of these over the other, or are there some better choices?"

Comments

Use it at home

[SonicTooth]

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

[zangdesign]

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.

Re:Use it at home

[damiangerous]

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

[nomadic]

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

[antirename]

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

[damiangerous]

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

[Confessed Geek]

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

[tverbeek]

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.

Re:Use it at home

[Nailer]

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

[rnturn]

``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.

Re:Use it at home

[maxpublic]

"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

Real life

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[eric_ste]

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!

Set up a home system first

[AJWM]

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.

Re:Set up a home system first

[Bistronaut]

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

[mo]

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.

TrainingCamp for LPIC

[Semireg]

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

[buchalka]

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

Online courses...

[chrispyman]

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.

Are You Crazy!?!

[eSims]

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!

Hands on experience

[penguinoid]

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.

Re:Hands on experience

[Master of Transhuman]

"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.)

Pick the hardest Distro

[Dark Coder]

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

[jburroug]

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!

Re:Pick the hardest Distro

[tunabomber]

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.

Re:Pick the hardest Distro

[MoThugz]

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".

Vendor-specific vs. Vendor-neutral Training

[base_chakra]

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.

Set up a small net in your work lab

[SCHecklerX]

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!

Linux From Scratch

[BroadbandBradley]

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

Building "scale" networks is great

[GoClick]

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.

Welcome aboard!

[NtroP]

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!

Don't forget about the time investment

[damm0]

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

[SealBeater]

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

Re:Don't forget about the time investment

[mindstrm]

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.

A good friend

[tyler_larson]

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.

Start with a hard distro...

[KermitJunior]

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.