I found a position where I'll be using linux to troubleshoot equipment and some other techincal support duties. I was thinking about cranking out Linux certs (maybe L+, LPIC-2, LPIC-3, some red hat certs) within my 1st year of being there and after the 1 year of experience and possibly 3-5 linux certs..then possibly looking for some type of linux sys. admin job? I was looking at some job posting and a lot of them have 1 year as a min., so I'm thinking the certs may help me out. I bet the pay would be a lot better!

My goal before this job was to get into networking(maybe wireless) but after getting this job, I think I should maximize my opportunity with this new linux role. I would enjoy both networking and linux jobs, even though I might feel like I wasted my time getting my CCNA (but it could help later on in my career?).

Is it a good idea to maybe abandon my networking job/career hunt for now and start working towards a linux career? I've always heard in IT, EXPERIENCE IS #1 (over education and certs)!


What do you guys think?

My experience with Linux / Unix has been intertwined with my experience with networking. The two kind of go hand in hand. Heck, my last position I was hired to be the Linux System Admin, and ended up becoming the Senior Network Engineer / Network and System Architect.

Smaller companies, while not paying as well, always need someone that can do both jobs.

As for the Cert, I liked the LPI level 1, until it got merged with the L+. Now I just feel dirty about it. I've had friends go through the RHCE, and I've looked at it. You'll want more than one year's experience with RedHat based linux systems before you go after that beast.

Running commands, writing simple scripts, and using linux to troubleshoot things is ok, but a far cry from administration. You want experience with that, start by installing it on a VM at home. Then switch to Dual boot, then to making windows the VM. Then get a VPS somewhere. You'll learn lots.

VPS - Virtual Private Server.  Lots of services out there that offer it up for a reasonable fee.  Amazon Web Services might be a good place to start.

I haven't looked at the Linux+ in a number of years, but what I do remember of it, it was nothing like either the RHCSA or RHCE.

Redhat Certs are thorough, but they are not difficult if you know the material back and forth. I always hear people say they don't give you nearly enough time to finish everything. I finished with over an hour of time on both my RHCE and RHCSA exams. The thing is to know the material back and front and read extra carefully when taking the exam. I find that most of the people that complain about time have to re-do their work b/c they didn't read the requirements carefully. How 'real world' is that?! I know I've been there!

Redhat tells you exactly what to know. Check out the section titled "Exam Objectives" on these links:

http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhcsa/objectives/
http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhce/objectives/

As chrisj points out, these certs are not for the newbie. I would recommend at least a year's experience administering Linux in a multi-user environment. I would also recommend running SuSE or Redhat without the graphical interface. These are the two flavors  of Linux you will find in the large majority of corporate environments.

Keep Backtrack around as a VM, it can be a useful tool to fire up when you want to test something and don't feel like compiling the tool yourself in your standard linux build.  I keep a regular linux VM and a Backtrack one and I have loaded my most common tools on the regular ubuntu install to have them when I want. 

I am little ignorant here but I saw many peopl talking about sl linux (I think scintific linux). So that is the idea to move that linux and not to CentOS?

CentOS, Fedora, SL, blah blah blah.....if you can work in any of them....you can handle RedHat Enterprise Edition.

Believe me, the RedHat exams do not test whether you can distinguish between different flavors. All they care about is can you configure this, fix that, and troubleshoot everything in between. And as a side not, if you only know one method of doing anything you think you will need to do on the exams, you might want to look into alternatives 'cause Murphy likes to strike in these situations.

In my opinion (take it for what it is), I'd stick with OpenSuSE or CentOS (or some derivative of RedHat..whichever you prefer) as your primary learning Linux distribution, because that is what you are going to see in most corporate environments.

Beyond that, it would be prudent to get familiar with Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, all the BSD's, etc. etc. These show up on occassion as well. Hell, I've even seen Ubuntu Server at multiple clients lately.

I am comming from the windows enviroment, now that I am learning linux I apply or try to emulate services that I normally do with Windows and help a lot to understand the whole picture.

After practice, and more practice becamse a little easier