Wow. I was just looking at SAIR's sample tests, and I'm disappointed. They're much worse than I expected -- the questions are confusingly worded and the answers unclear. It doesn't seem very professional at all. Hopefully, the actual questions are better than the sample ones.
Actually, you need to more than that for the RH certification too. Installing packages was disallowed during the debug part of the exam -- you needed to really fix the problem.
That's right -- I mentioned LPI, but I totally forgot about this one. In my opinion, it suffers from the same problem the LPI exam does -- it's just multiple choice.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "The other thing I didn't agree with is the RedHat Specificness."
Here's some things that are Red Hat specific that we talked about without particularly pointing out non-RH ways of doing things: the install program (including kickstart), chkconfig (and sysv init scripts in general), PAM, sndconfig, kudzu, piranha. The instructor didn't make a point of saying that these things may be different elsewhere, but he did clearly say "This is the way it is on RH Linux." That's what I mean by it being implicitly Red Hat-specific. There wasn't a particular effort to demonstrate other ways of doing things, but there was definitely the understanding that those might exist.
There was no attempt to make it seem like Red Hat is the only way.
There were also things that were overtly mentioned as being the Red Hat way of doing things -- for example, the user-group scheme they use. For a different class, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the times where the RH-ness is mentioned were different -- it was mostly assumed as understood.
I suggest you read the article. The non-distro specific certification you refer to is probably the one from LPI, which I link to above. I feel that the RH exam has significant advantages, as it requires actual real-world skills rather than just the ability to take a multiple-choice test.
I'm all for having a good vendor-neutral certification, and the LPI exam has potential, but until they have something lab based, it won't be as good as Red Hat's.
Good point, especially because this is something Red Hat doesn't really do yet and probably should. As I understand it, they don't even provide camera-ready artwork for business cards.
Course + exam:..............$2500 Airfare from Boston:..........250 Hotel 7 nights @ $120:........840 Local phone calls (urg.).......20 Food:..........................70 Cab fare (inc. airport)........70 --------------------------------- somewhere around............$3750
I wouldn't have paid for this if it were entirely coming out of my pocket, but, if I were looking for another job, I might consider the exam-only option, which would be considerably cheaper.
I think that would have lead to confusion, as RH's init scripts already have a standard function called 'daemon'. (look in/etc/rc.d/init.d/functions.) Also, some things controlled by the init scripts aren't actually daemons. (ipchains, keytable, etc.)
I'd agree with the first parts (competency, legitimacy), but I really didn't get a sense that RH was trying to "stamp its name on Linux". In fact, they took pains to make it clear that RH != Linux.
Yes, you can take the exam by itself, and it is sigificantly more expensive -- $750.
As for the benefit -- I don't think there's enough data yet (or enough of a marketing push on Red Hat's part, as another poster mentioned) for there to be conclusive data. But my feeling is that the average person would see a reasonable return.
I'd vote for stupidty. And, um, I hate to say it, but it's not the mainstream media at fault -- it's the Slashdot headline that is wrong. (Yes, the article says "blueprint", but it could very well be using that metaphorically -- especially considering their audience.)
Slashdot Mirror
--
I don't have my final score yet.
--
--
--
--
--
--
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "The other thing I didn't agree with is the RedHat Specificness."
Here's some things that are Red Hat specific that we talked about without particularly pointing out non-RH ways of doing things: the install program (including kickstart), chkconfig (and sysv init scripts in general), PAM, sndconfig, kudzu, piranha. The instructor didn't make a point of saying that these things may be different elsewhere, but he did clearly say "This is the way it is on RH Linux." That's what I mean by it being implicitly Red Hat-specific. There wasn't a particular effort to demonstrate other ways of doing things, but there was definitely the understanding that those might exist.
There was no attempt to make it seem like Red Hat is the only way.
There were also things that were overtly mentioned as being the Red Hat way of doing things -- for example, the user-group scheme they use. For a different class, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the times where the RH-ness is mentioned were different -- it was mostly assumed as understood.
What do you disagree with about that?
--
I'm all for having a good vendor-neutral certification, and the LPI exam has potential, but until they have something lab based, it won't be as good as Red Hat's.
--
I linked to this in the article above, actually. First link under "The Course".
--
--
--
--
--
Course + exam:..............$2500
Airfare from Boston:..........250
Hotel 7 nights @ $120:........840
Local phone calls (urg.).......20
Food:..........................70
Cab fare (inc. airport)........70
---------------------------------
somewhere around............$3750
I wouldn't have paid for this if it were entirely coming out of my pocket, but, if I were looking for another job, I might consider the exam-only option, which would be considerably cheaper.
--
--
--
--
--
--
As for the benefit -- I don't think there's enough data yet (or enough of a marketing push on Red Hat's part, as another poster mentioned) for there to be conclusive data. But my feeling is that the average person would see a reasonable return.
--
--
The analogy may be interesting and even useful in some cases, but I'm not sure that it really applies to the proprietary vs. open debate.
I also think you'd be suprised at the amount of brand loyalty among Sam Adams drinkers -- and Linux users, for that matter.
(And that's not even counting the fundamental error that Sam Adams isn't actually a microbrewery. And also that Bud is inoffensive. Ugh.)
--
--
--