suggestion - learning linux

[sheevm]

Hi!

I have been working with HP-UX for the past 10 years. I would like to get into LINUX world. What is the best way to go about it? I am thinking about LINUX certification. Can you suggest some possible good training/certification centers. My company is not going to pay for this as we do not have any LINUX boxes. This has to be on my own. So I am looking something cheap and best.

Thanks for your input.

[RAC_1]

I am in same league as of you. I personly started by installing linux (redhet) on my home PC and started hands on. I belive, unless you try hands on there is no point in going for RHCE. (the cost of it is too much for me)

Also, even if you go through, Redhet, system admin primer, custmization guide, getting started guide, ref. guide, security guide, it is very helpful.

You also can get complete command reference by Redhat.

Also, there are a quite a few training centres available that give you traning+certification. Which city you are based out of?? In Banglore/Chennai/Pune/Mumbai, you have kerox, SEED etc.

[Rick Garland]

Some time ago I started playing with Linux. Started with home PC and then 2 and finally 3 - all networked.

The learning curve goes way uip when you access/play/work with Linux daily. For this reason I installed RH Linux on my work desktop. All of my desktop functions are Linux. At first it was frowned upon because it was thought that Linux could not be a viable platform to support a PRD environment of HPUX/Solaris/AIX servers.

Actually, I find it easier that using winblows.
I get daily use from Linux.

[sheevm]

Thanks. Id REDHOT LINUX is free down load?

I live in New Jersey area. Any training center in NY/NJ is fine.

Thanks

[W Sanders_1]

Certification is a waste of your money unless you can get your employer to pay for it.

As other posters have said, use Linux for your desktop. Then evangelize within your organization. Since you are an HP shop, you might be able to enlist your HP sales rep or solutions architect in selling your management on investing in some Linux equipment. It's not a hard sell, particularly if you have some software developers on your side.

A favorite Dilbert:

[Dilbert is messing with a computer, a superhero wearing tights and a cape appears]

Superhero:Step away from that network server! I'm certified!

Superhero: I SUMMON THE VAST POWER OF CERTIFICATION!!!!!!

[Nothing happens]

Superhero: Well, this is embarrassing; that's all I remember from the classes...

[Stuart Browne]

If you're just starting out, what everybody here has said is right on.

Grab a distribution, install it on a spare machine, play.

You can get free downloads of Fedora (what was RedHat's free offering) from http://fedora.redhat.com/download/ . You could also try using SuSE evaluation from http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/eval.html .

There are other distributions (Gentoo, Debian etc.), but those two are the major players.

Once you get used to playing around with the desktop, set yourself projects..

Set up a web server
Set up a Samba server for sharing files on a network
Set up time synchronization
etc. etc..

.. Try to do everything you do on HP-UX ..

If you can do all of the things you can think of, and are comfortable with it (might take a few years), then think about a certification.

If you ever get stuck, come back here, we'll answer any questions you have!

RH's certification (RHCT or RHCE) are pretty hard (and rather expensive), and have a reasonably high failure rate. But they have sample questions on their website.

There are also any number of training sites online which have sample exam questions for linux (as does http://aplawrence.com/Tests/ .. Go Tony Lawrence! *Whee!* Good 'ol SCO boy!).

Linux is a continuing learning curve. Just keep playing with it. You'll keep learning.

[Dexter Filmore]

There are some linux distributions which can run from bootable CD without installing to hard disk e.g. knoppix. You can download the image from www.linuxiso.org and burn to CD. It is a good starting point if you want to have a look at linux and this can be run from any PC without affecting the existing OS.

Hope this helps

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

As You have more than just 'reasonable' unix background, I don't think LPI or vendor certificates will help You very much.
But, of course most of them offer courses with tekmetrics and such companies where You only take the exam for usually something like $200.

for playing around with linux I'd recommend to get a grip of the configuration mechanisms in SUSE RedHat/Fedora and debian. After that try a more server-grade linux like trustix.
(of course SUSE and RedHat *are* the most used linux flavors, but if You have the choice You can just go with what makes sense)

After some time look into things like kickstart and other toys.

if You want my personal opinion, look if SAGE offers some linux exams, they are harder, more interesting and worth a lot more.

As our companies job site states 'linux experience is NOT sufficient'

[sheevm]

Hi ALL,

Thanks for all of your suggestions and comments.

I checked this place, smartcertify, he says he will let me have the online training for $1900. Solaris 9.0 and Linux LPI certification. I can use it one year and take my certification exeam.

If I take the exam in 120 days does not pass in two attempts, they will refund my money 100%.

Does anyone has comments on this?

I am thinking all this, because we are in the process of consolidating our data center to a different location. I am unable to move, this leaves me with no choice other than expolring new oppurtunities. With 10 years of solid HP-UX Unix background do I need to worry about getting trained in other Unix flavours?

How is the market outside for HP-UX engineers?

I appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks.

[Rick Garland]

I have not seen purely Linux shops, nor do I envision them in the near future.

I think what you will find are shops that are starting to mix in the environment. Say HPUX and Linux.

Having Linux experience is a plus but don't give up your day job! (Keep up with HPUX!)

[Stuart Browne]

I've worked in a few pure linux shops..

But I admit it's hard to find a job with pure linux certifications.. It's all I have, and I'm certinaly not having much luck :)

As an additional to another cert (hp-ux, solaris, aix), it's a great helper though.

[Dave Falloon]

I have not found ANY shops to be homogeneous, there are always the odd windows box or mac laptop for some graphic artist premadonna, and there always seems to be an extremely old solaris or AIX box tucked away somewhere thats been doing its one job for the last ten years and nobody remembers anything about it except don't touch it.

Even when I worked for a small startup software devel firm that wrote software for linux on linux we ended up with a half dozen solaris boxes just in case we wanted to port to them.

Frankly the only way to learn linux is to use it. Find a project for yourself that you've wanted for a while, for instance, say you want to setup a home PBX phone system ( the open source PBX software to use is called Asterisk ).

This is a perfect project to throw you into the linux world, you will need to hammer through the basics of the OS and it will get you used to scouring the internet for howtos and information tidbits. That last part is the secret to linux, since you can't call a help line you have to use community good will to help you with problems and the more you offer and make available to the community the more others will contribute.

Another good home project is a home web email fileserver.

The other thing to remember is to jump in with both feet, the worst that can happen is that you have to ask someone for help :)

--Dave