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Where Do You Go For Linux Training?
Spritzer writes "I work for a rather large corporation with multiple divisions around the world. Nearly all user computers in the company are Windows systems, and there is no plan to move to Linux in the future. However, a good many of our products are now designed to run on Linux systems for security and stability purposes. Obviously, the design/development teams are knowledgeable in the use of Linux operating systems. Unfortunately my field service teams are not, and their is no in-house training program. This has begun to affect our ability to provide efficient, quality service to customers when in the field. So, we need training and would prefer to stay away from online, self-paced courses and get our people some hands on training with an instructor. What training services have you used in the past to get people trained in the basics of using?"
The Southern California Linux Expo is a great traing event for Linux and OSS platforms.
For actual learning purposes, I very much agree w/ you. The problem is though, training is as much or more (IMO MUCH more) for the gaining of credentials as for learning. I've been running Linux exclusively on all my personal boxen for several years now, and pretty much everything I've wanted to do I've been able to learn how to do. But I haven't had any "official" training, and I have no certification or credentials, so whenever I look at postings for jobs that really interest me, I feel like I'm under-certified. I might actually have a shot at acceptance to some of them, but between my feeling of being unqualified & my innate laziness, I haven't yet bothered to really go for any of them. Various things (mostly low pay & my current job being in MS Windows shop) are currently prompting me to reconsider doing some active job hunting, so I might put whether or not I'm qualified to the test.
On the other hand, part of me thinks I really should do some official training to get certifications before starting a serious job-hunt. I really ought to go back to school and get a bachelor's degree, but there's so much time & money required for it that I don't want to. There are of course simpler test-certifications, some of which I could pass w/out needing any additional training, but while they don't require as much time, I'm still too much of a cheapskate to be comfortable paying for them, especially as they aren't worth as much as a B.S.
This has gotten a bit longer than I intended, really all I intended was to agree that for learning, reading easily obtained free documentation is usually enough; but for useful employment-wise credentials, I get the feeling they're almost worthless.
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This comment may sound funny/stupid, but it's true.
I personally bought 1 book, used Google a lot and dug through man pages to learn. Figuring out things for themselves is the key.
A training company will teach them a few things and they'll come out knowing enough to be dangerous. Give them a virtual server on their computer of what they'll be working with (show them how to backup the image and restore it on their own) and then give them a few scenarios that you all get on a normal basis. After they break the machine within 20 minutes (rm -r *...SHIT!), restore it and they'll start learning to be more careful.