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Community Based Linux certification
Evan Leibovitch writes "The
Linux Institute
has recently opened a website to provide information on
its professional certification program that
has already been about half a year in the making. Like the
Digital Metrics program recently announced on Slashdot, it
has no big names behind it, just a lot of
hard and dedicated workers. However, unlike other Linux
certification attetmpts, this one is community based, non-profit,
and non-distribution-specific.
"
The ready availabilty of 'certified' consultants for a an operating system platform or NOS helps corporate IS management acccept it. If you cannot hire anyone to run/administer your system you really don't want to buy into it. MCSE helped to bring NT into the mainstream and a Linux cert will help Linux professionals.
Systems administration tends not to require people with four year degrees, but employers still wan't some proof that an applicant can do the job.
If you have looked at the Red Hat certification materials any sort of independent certification effort is sorely needed. As a consultant I have seen the power of a good certification. Customers and management do not necessarily want somebody that is certified, but it helps them feel more comfortable that the person knows what they are doing.
Certification is not the only answer though. People must have experience or the certification is worthless. I have dealt with far to many MCPs and MCSEs that did their certification entirely on book learning and they tend to be the most amazingly worthless techs around.
We all know that the best computer people are people that have dedicated their lives and their spare time, sometimes at the detriment of their lives, exploring and learing about computers and various operating systems. We need to find a good way for these people to receive an endorsment that HR and management people can look for and trust to be a symbol of a quality Linux professional.
As much as I would like a Linux certification, I for one cannot afford to go off to Virginia and spend the $2500 (and hotel and airfare) that Redhat wants for their certification process. Redhat seems to have unfortunately taken their certification process and price list straight from Microsoft, albeit the MS classes are even more expensive, but if you know what you are doing, anybody can go down to a local testing center and for $600 US take the tests to prove it and become an MCSE.
Best of luck to the Linux Institute people!
Chris
chris@pugrud.net
Upon looking at the test "titles" that were to be administered, I couldn't help but laugh. They need to refine their tests to be more professional and not cater (sp?) to the average joboo idiot. They should also simply remove their "level 1" and start at level two. Who cares if someone knows how to install the damn OS? It's rather trivial in the realm of certification. Obviously, if someone knows what the hell they are doing, they know how to install the OS, so why add another layer of trivial paper work.
I filled out one of those cards in a magazine, that show a cool looking guy, who went through a 2 week "learn at home" training course and is now making a billion dollars a year.
I was skeptical, at first. But then after i sent in my $450.00, i received my soldering iron and a copy of Netscape, and im happy to say im on my way to being a billionaire! Without any previous computer experience (not counting the cash machine at the burger chef).
All those people wasting their lifes but living,breathing computers are stupid. I learned as much as they ever will IN 2 WEEKS!!!
Regards,
Daryll Likt
I am glad to see that some people have implemented
something that sounds like the Linux University proposal I had suggested back in August.
I haven't yet checked to see how well it has been executed. Regardless, it is nice to see somebody
do something you haven't had the time to start.
--Bob Keyes
"...hard and dedicated workers"
huh huh
You're probably a find "adminner" but I sure wish you'd learn how to fucking spell. :-)
You're probably a fine "adminner" but I sure wish you'd learn how to fucking spell. :-)
Look at any certification be it cisco, banyan, novell, sun, microsoft or whoever, and you'll see that a well engineered program always eject the certified if they fail to fork over the cash on a continuous, annual basis. As a good rule of thumb, the average certification program extrats about $5000 a year form the certificate holder (either out of his pocket or from the sponsor). There's a definite point of diminishing returns and the trick is to jump on the bandwagon just as the certification reaches a widespread recognition, but before the job market is saturated by too many clueless fucks with enough spare change in their pockets to warm a seat for a week. Programs are definetly subject to the whims of fortune... just ask any Banyan or Novell certified engineer. There are a few exceptions like cisco's CCIE program, but the ultimate guage of certification's VALUE the premimum that employers are willing to pay. Anything less than $10,000 a year above you're job sector's average probably isn't worth the time that you'll off being trained.
Of course, there's a good argument for this, backed up by ACM no less, called technical obsolescence. However, those familiar with the institutionalized jaded (be they corporate or government), know that those bi-annual, $2500 refresher junkets usually degenerate into seat warming in the day, followed by expense account abuse at the local titty-bars during the night.
Certification venders are equally guilty, often using the refreshers as blatent advertizing fourms and revenue generators. Once the seat warmers gets back the their places of work, they're bosses ask them what they learned and the seat warmer usually waxes poetically that BackExchangeUpLook will solve all their problems... it's almost as sad as an alcholics anonymous meeting or young communists revival... at least attendies aren't breaking out and speaking in toungs yet... a certification program is usually on the down hill slide when that happens).
Still, there are some good things to be said for certification racket... uh programs. I think the primary positive effect is that it puts a diverse equipment mixes in close proximity and provides a hands-on environment. Those types of program are usually centrally located, as hauling all the equipment around to achieve the desired equpment mix and density would produce what I call the rock concert effect (rodies and losts of ruggidized equipment racks).
It is in this area where I think a well designed linux training laboratory could achieve the desired result. Espically, if vendors have a chance to let dedicated system admins and network stylists (I would have said "engineer" but that opens another can of worms play with their equipment in a diverse environment. Since the software is bascially free, the equipment vendors should band together and build labs that demo the full enterprise capabilities of Linux... in particular high end equipment venders could show people how to upgrade their infrastructure to support all those failed promises that MicroCruft has made over the years. Video to the desktop, enterprise wide internet telephony, high speed WANs, secure computing environments, integrated bio-metric user authentication, real per client hardware cost reduction, etc.
I like the idea of a community based training certifcation, but it's going to take community concensus and cooperation to make the certifcation mean anything to the average HR droid screening resumes.
These things are meaningless. So you spend time and money getting a 'certificate' on top of your CS degree. Why the hell did you bother with the degree?
Certificates are things Dilberts's boss looks for, because he can't recognize actual skill or ability. You're better off elsewhere.
These certificate programs are just a means for some group of crap to get rich at our expense.
Non-profit? Pardon me while I laugh.
Certification ;)
/. password :( )
I believe the above is better (at least I can get to their website) and the material is GPL'ed so you can distribute it
If nothing else the two should combined efforts, it is a Community thing after all.
Jeff Waddell (who can't remember his
Certification serves two purposes:
1. Provide additional revenue for the purveyor
of the product or for the certification entity.
2. Provide a mechanism by which unqualified and
inexperienced individuals can pad their resumes
in order to be eligible for jobs that they
cannot perform acceptably.
Oh...I should add:
3. Provide a mechanism by which people stupid
enough to pay to be "certified" can be hired
by other people stupid enough to actually believe
that "certification" is of any value whatsoever.
I suppose that in the case of (3) it at least
has the desirable side-effect of diverting the
time of stupid people so that it isn't put to
use doing other far more damaging activities.
---Rsk/rsk@gsp.org
If you just take part in the examinations, cash is not so much an issue.
Why do you need to follow the training ?
I've passed a couple of certification programs, and while I would not call myself an expert in f.e. NT (though I am MCSE), at least I have a pretty good overview and understanding of it.
This always pisses me off. How is someone supposed to *get* experience if employees are only willing to hire people *with* experience?
I've spent over three years mucking about reasonably deeply with Linux, but I have no work experience. I have a Comp Sci degree, and I think I would make a pretty capable admin, given a month or two to settle into such a job. But nobody is willing to hire me, "sorry, don't have experience". I'm in a "Windows job" at the moment.
What am I supposed to do? I couldn't afford a certification program even if there were any being offered in my country. And like you say, prospective employees would still look at me funny and say, "oh wheee, a piece of paper. Don't you have experience?"
Man, Rob should just relegate these ACs
to score=-1 land
Here's a test that would definitely get you some sort of certification:
They put you in a room with a computer running Linux, a case of beer, and a randomly selected piece of hardware on the table. The hardware isn't supported on Linux. Your task is to find out what the hardware does, insert it into the computer, and write a device driver for the device in the form of a kernel patch. You must also drink the entire case of beer. You have 30 minutes.
I still can't get to the site. Did the /. effect melt their server(s)?
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Why does everyone think you need to understand kernel source to admin Linux? This is patently ridiculous. I don't understand a lick of c and I'm doing just fine adminning linux ... you don't need to know any programming at all other than very basic shell scripting ... but advanced shell scripting helps a great deal. C or writing drivers has nothing to do with being an admin. on the other hand, there are a lot of c programmers who don't know a lick about setting up sendmail, DNS, or any other server programs ... that is what adminning is.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Sounds good, and their material looks decently thought out, but damn is that site ugly (IMHO)...
something needs to be done about the color scheme...
If it's a common sense approach, WTF would I buy the book?
Just curious if anyone here has taken the RHCE course yet?
Nick
LSG
Level 1 is so low and useless it wouldn't be worth the time to take the test.
Really, are you going to drive to some test center somehwere and take an hour out of your life to show someone you can select the right timezone in the RedHat install?
Ok, I feel rather compelled to reply based upon the problem solver remark....
Reading the source is obviously done after the manuals have been perused, it is the way that one fully understands what the program is doing. There are certainly things that the source will reveal that the manual does not.
Since you bring up secure shell (the fact that you refer to it as sshd speaks volumes), an understanding of the fundamentals of cryptography when combined with a source file will show you most of what the security concious admin needs to know. A manual certainly cannot be trusted for this information, if the programmer half assed the random number generator, why would he document it?
Personally I would recommend 'The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System' combined with the books of W. Richard Stevens but that's a little much to expect from an (usually) underpaid sys admin.
Cool, but you don't become a linux expert by reading certification manuals. You become a linux expert by hacking at it over and over again, and reading the source code:) I suppose that certification is good, because it gives the management types a warm fuzzy fealing.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
Well, the Linux Institute site now appears to be :) --- it's a kind of catch-22 -- Certification is needed. There are people out there who know nothing billing themselves as linux experts. One guy I worked with at one point claimed to know as much as I did, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt right up until the four hour conversation that I spent explaining that he couldn't cd into bash, that it was a shell and he was already there. And 'showstrings' is not a bash command, no matter how you type it, and the fact that it's not there does *not* mean that the server has been compromised. OTOH, certifications of any type (not just technical) have been used for years to shut people (especially people without money or other resources)who would have been otherwise qualified out of jobs, which is totally antithesis to my view of what open source software should be. And yes, being able to pass a written test proves very little about your linux ability and knowledge, but tests using actual hardware and software are more expensive and harder to administer. It's certainly something the linux community needs to think about.
/.ed, but that's not going to stop me from commenting on certifications
rark!
True, you don't need to know C or understand kernel source to admin Linux. But not knowing it does limit the scope of what you can do. It is just like any other skill or understanding. What it does for me (and I've been programming in C since 1982 on over a dozen different platforms) is give me the ability to diagnose problems in programs I am trying to install, and modify those that don't do exactly what I want.
:-)
Another example is networking skills. You don't have to understand TCP/IP to admin a system, but it has its advantages if you do know it. And knowing HTML has some advantages, as well
I would suggest learning as many related skills you can, especially if you want to improve your career position even in the sysadmin track.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars