suggestion - learning linux

[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