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Home > Archive > Linux/Unix > October 2002 > At a crossroads
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| Spides 2002-10-07, 3:45 am |
| Well I have my CCNA and in a couple of weeks I’ll have my MCSA, but what next? I have experience in the field of Cisco and Microsoft but Companies want so much more. I want to try and get into more of a Networking role. I’ve been in the IT Industry for about six years, and I’ve worked for major companies in the city of London. What would anyone advise of learning next? Novell seems popular and so does Unix Administration, what are good study books on these? Any advice is greatly appreciated. I am in Australia at the moment from England, I’m here teaching under privileged children the basics of computers, but it’s voluntary work. I want to make myself desirable to the job market. And it seems any skills away from Microsoft is good. Cheers….. | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2002-10-07, 5:44 am |
| OK, definitely get some UNIX background. At this point in time, not knowing UNIX/Linux is a real obstacle, but the good news is that they are easy to learn. To newbies who want to really get a good hyandle on Linux, I usually recommend "Running Linux" published by O'Reilly, and written by Matt Walsh. However, nowadays there are a number of good books on the subject . . . the "Bible" series from IDG, the "Unleashed" series from Sams or the Vue books I have found to be really good. They usually come with a distro of Linux for you to install and play around with, and the books are usually something like 1500 pages long, with pretty much everything you need to know until you decide to specialise in one area like maybe mail server or web server administration. Also, I posted this in a previous thread, but I guess I can mention it here as well. There is a free online class for Windows/Apple types who want to learn Linux. See http://basiclinux.net/ for details . . . the new "semester" starts on 4 November I think, so you might want to sign up for it. It is very good at helping you learn Linux. You will probably get some attitude on the mailing list, as someof the guys on it are a bit immature, thinking Linux is the greatest thing since the wheel, but all the same, it is a valuable learing resource, and best of all it will cost you nothing.
As for Novell, it is one of the most solid platforms I have ever dealt with, but I don't have as much experience there as I should. John Wiley & Sons have published some high-quality Novell books, and I used those to get my CNA, though that was back with Netware 5, and I understand that 6 is out now. They don't get as much press as they used to, but they ain't going away any time soon.
And don't brush off volunteer work as unimportant . . . such work is valuable both for you and for those you are teaching. You can add such work to your resume to good effect. 
Let me know if you have any more questions. | |
| Spides 2002-10-07, 8:11 pm |
| Well Mr Linux Guy I have been on the Cisco and Microsoft forum for ages now, and your response is one of the best I've had. Thanks a lot for that......
I have looked at the Running Linux book you mentioned and this seems to be a good start.
I've got Red Hat Linux 7.3 OS will this be any good with the Matt Walsh book!! I want to learn Unix Administration, will these be the way to go?
www.basiclinux.net looks good but unfortunately you can't register if you have a free e-mail address (hotmail, yahoo etc) but that is the only e-mail address I have!!!
Cheers for that, anymore help is much appreciated. | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2002-10-08, 5:36 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by Spides
Well Mr Linux Guy I have been on the Cisco and Microsoft forum for ages now, and your response is one of the best I've had. Thanks a lot for that......
I have looked at the Running Linux book you mentioned and this seems to be a good start.
I've got Red Hat Linux 7.3 OS will this be any good with the Matt Walsh book!! I want to learn Unix Administration, will these be the way to go?
www.basiclinux.net looks good but unfortunately you can't register if you have a free e-mail address (hotmail, yahoo etc) but that is the only e-mail address I have!!!
Cheers for that, anymore help is much appreciated.
Try: http://www.linuxmail.org <-- Free, and they allow it on the list. The purpose behind the banning of "free" accounts was I think to reduce spam, which many free accounts are bad with. Anyway, it might be a good idea to have a separate account for the class, as the mailing list can be a bit heavy at times. "Running Linux" with RH 7.3 should be more than enough. Don't be put off by some of the detail in Walsh's book . . . at times he can be a bit hairy for the newbie, but for the most part, you will learn a lot with that book . . . much more so than with many of the "simpler" books. It also gives a good overview of Linux in general and how much it has to offer. He focuses more on the command line than GUI, which is great in my opinion, since it gives you a better "feel" for Linux and prepares you to move to any flavour of UNIX that you might have in mind. And after all, one GUI is more or less like any other . . . pretty self explanatory to use. If you run into any problems or have some questions that the book does not cover, post your conundrums here, and I will be glad to help. | |
| Spides 2002-10-08, 6:30 am |
| Call me stupid but your such a decent guy I doubt you will, I get some confusion between Linux and Unix. A lot of talk is moved towards Linux but I'd like to learn Unix Administration, does this all fall into one!!! Cheers Linux Guy, your the man... | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2002-10-08, 6:41 am |
| OK, there are some important differences, but for most practical purposes, they are the same. To be an "official" UNIX, an OS has to conform to the POSIX standards, which are basically a set of rules for the OS developers, not of that much important to users or admins. Thus far, Linux is not an "official" UNIX, but in practise it works mostly the same. For example, if I wanted to search for a particular user on a HP-UX machine, I would issue the following command:
$ cat /etc/passwd | grep lejeuner
On a Red Hat Linux machine, to do the same thing, I would issue:
$ cat /etc/passwd | grep lejeuner
Most other tasks are similar. You can for the most part interchange them and most people would never know the difference. So, in practise there is little difference between them. Linux began being developed in 1991 as a hobby project by a compsci student name Linus Torvalds. UNIX itself beagn in 1969 as a project by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernigan. Various flavours of UNIX have been in development ever since then. A "full-blooded" UNIX will be more suitable to enterprise deplotment and mission-critical applications on large scale servers, whereas Linux is still best suited to small to mid-range servers, although it is still under rapid development and this may change in the future. But for the purposes of a user or administrator, most flavours of UNIX/Linux are about 90% the same, the main differences being the names of the administration utilities (which vary from one distro to another) and the location of specific files. But if you learn one, you will easily be able to move to another and feel right at home. | |
| ccieToBe 2002-10-08, 12:19 pm |
| Yeah, I agree with Randy er.... Mr. Linux Guy In my experience (Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and QNX), the main differences are the filesystem hierarchy, kernel interaction (recompling it, loading modules, etc) and the booting processes (BSD vs. Sys V). The userland is almost identical. | |
| drdirt 2002-10-15, 2:14 am |
| also, I like linux 'cause many applications (native on unix) run on linux without modification. The software producers usually say it isn't supported, but I haven't had trouble if it loads in the first place.
pretty cool! | |
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| As a Linux n00b, I'm curious. Do most of you Linux admins work from the command line or the GUI? The couple that I've met work exclusively through the command line. They absolutely hate the GUI. And if you hate the GUI, why use Linux in the first place? Why not just use Unix? | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2002-10-17, 5:59 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by Zinji
As a Linux n00b, I'm curious. Do most of you Linux admins work from the command line or the GUI? The couple that I've met work exclusively through the command line. They absolutely hate the GUI. And if you hate the GUI, why use Linux in the first place? Why not just use Unix?
I don't hate the GUI, it has it's purposes. But to be honest, once you get used to it, you can work from the command line much quicker than you can with the GUI and you also have more power using it. There are things you can do with a single command line that would be hard or impossible using a larger tool. This gives a flexibility that lots of us are not willing to give up. next, when I install a server running Linux, I find it to be a security risk to use lots of extra programs that I will not need. The X Window system is network aware and you will need to make sure to keep it "locked down" to avoid anyone tying to tunnel a way into your box. Not to mention you will have to keep up with updates, exploits and so on. I figure if it is not on my box, then it is not something I have to much worry about. As for why not use UNIX, well, I consider Linux to be a subfamily in the UNIX tree. BTW, there are plenty of graphical tools to do these things in UNIX as well. Where I work we use both . . . Linux as a web server, HP-UX as database servers. The UNIX machines cost a lot more money as they run on specialised hardware and the licensing fees are outrageous. But after you find out what suits your needs best, it is largely a matter of personal preference. | |
| ccieToBe 2002-10-17, 4:13 pm |
| I use the command line almost exclusively when dealing with servers. I have X loaded on my workstations for web browsing and that sort of thing, but whenever I'm doing any "real" work, I'm almost always at the command line for the reasons Mr. Linux guy mentioned.
As far as the Linux vs. Unix thing goes - I find that the BSDs offer the best of both worlds in most respects - a free, solid OS running on commodity hardware. They can run most Linux binaries as well. | |
| drdirt 2002-10-21, 4:40 pm |
| I don't see the differences in Unix and Linux with what I do.
until a stroke of luck recently, I couldn't afford to run a proprietary Unix. I had a user account about a century ago in an academic lab (on a univac 1180 and a dec 1134/1170s - anyone know these?). Big and little iron.
So I tried FreeBSD on PCs. It is kinda fun to have such control over configuration.
But linux seemed easier to load, find drivers and find help (manpage, whiteppr). It seems that there are more newbies like me trying to get linux running, and not so much help for open unix/s.
I have run proprietary applications/packages on linux that are not supposed to run on anything but a specific Unix (solaris in one example of a CAD program).
It was just too emotional a moment for words when I it ran for the first time...I am still misty-eyed thinking about it.
And I found the drivers for an old Kurta graphics tablet online, but not for FreeBSD.
Q: I don't know anything about drivers. Would Linux hardware drivers work with a BSD distribution? Could they sometimes? Should I experiment or would just waste time?
Anyway, now I am experimenting with HP-UX since I got lucky on a bankruptcy auction and picked up a dual (quad capable) 400mhz risc server w/12x128ram 100FxLan SCSI +++ - minimum bid price ($316 by the time I payed for shipping). HP-UX already installed.
But I haven't done anything with it yet but plug it in and boot...
Q: ...any suggestions? I would like to become "competent" someday in unix/linux administration. I got a few linux boxes to play with the HP. |
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