Linux+ with WGU

markulous

Just getting some advice on the Linux+ courses I'm taking through WGU. The materials they have is the LabSim through Testout and the Sybex book. What I'm doing now is going through DansCourses.com | Computer Networking Classes Taught by Dan Alberghetti and referencing the LabSim when it says to do so. Any fill in the blanks, I reference the book (which I haven't used yet since this is my first week studying). Is this good enough to absorb this knowledge and pass the exams also? I'm a complete newbie to Linux but my goal is to pass the first exam this month and the second one in March studying/labbing a few hours a day.

H3||scr3am

Cybrary.it just came out with a free linux+ course they may interest you, I can't speak to the question you asked, as I have well over 5 Years of linux exposure and daily usage and could likely pass the exams without much issue. I'm reading through the Sybex book and plan to take the Linux+ in a week or two.

Free CompTIA Linux+ Certification Training Class from Cybrary

H3||scr3am

ssnyderu2

H3||scr3am wrote: »

Free CompTIA Linux+ Certification Training Class from Cybrary

H3||scr3am

Is it safe to say that this is based on the 2015 requirements?

H3||scr3am

ssnyderu2 wrote: »

Is it safe to say that this is based on the 2015 requirements?

Well it just came out, but I have not heard anything regarding a 2015 exam change for the Linux+ series yet. furthermore there will be a 3-6 month overlap period between the current exam series and any new exam series, so you should be able to knock this out prior to the new exam series.

markulous

H3||scr3am wrote: »

Cybrary.it just came out with a free linux+ course they may interest you, I can't speak to the question you asked, as I have well over 5 Years of linux exposure and daily usage and could likely pass the exams without much issue. I'm reading through the Sybex book and plan to take the Linux+ in a week or two.

Free CompTIA Linux+ Certification Training Class from Cybrary

H3||scr3am

Thanks!

I wonder if I should try to use this in addition to danscourses and Testout. Lots of info so I guess I'll play it by ear. If I failed the LX0-101 exam, then I'll probably jump over to the Cybrary course to retake that one and to prep for the LX0-102.

EngRob

I recall the LabSim covered the material fairly well, but it doesn't hurt to have other sources and real world experience. Definitely lab up and run a couple of distro's.

markulous

EngRob wrote: »

I recall the LabSim covered the material fairly well, but it doesn't hurt to have other sources and real world experience. Definitely lab up and run a couple of distro's.

I've got Mint and Ubuntu up on virtualbox and they are distros a couple years old so hopefully those are good enough.

xiny

Something about that guy teaching the Testout videos annoyed the hell out of me.
I felt like I was being taught linux by Woody Harrelson.

I also used linuxacademy.com to help me through this course.

Burnsie

xiny wrote: »

Something about that guy teaching the Testout videos annoyed the hell out of me.
I felt like I was being taught linux by Woody Harrelson.

That would be Rob Tracy. UMUC uses Labsim for a lot of their Microsoft/A+/N+/etc. courses. He annoys me as well.

For those not familiar with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG033L53zlE

B

markulous

I actually don't mind him at all. At least he isn't dull and dry.

JamesKurtovich

markulous wrote: »

I've got Mint and Ubuntu up on virtualbox and they are distros a couple years old so hopefully those are good enough.

I've got Kali and Fedora running in VMs on top of Mint myself. Mint 17.1 was a really good update. I was using 15 and ran into issues -- mainly with Flash.

The Linux Foundation also offers a free course on edx.org. https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-linux-linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-2#.VOGPzZjF9r8

Networking_Student

markulous wrote: »

I've got Mint and Ubuntu up on virtualbox and they are distros a couple years old so hopefully those are good enough.

Get Debian, OpenSUSE, and CentOS. Questions on Linux+ have them mentioned from what I have been told.

red.roadster

Did not care for the WGU course. linuxacademy.com and a vm lab with half a dozen flavors of Linux was way better for me prepping and passing than the WGU material.

Iggy Stooge

The WGU stuff was alright. I think taking your approach of a variety of different distros is the best plan, that's what I ended up doing and it paid off come exam time. I don't remember what my score was, but I know the test had a lot of command related questions and using different distros while preparing ended up being a boon for me. Good luck to all who are testing soon. Variety is the spice of life.

markulous

I'm about halfway through Dan's Courses and going through the Labsim. I'm still a little bored/disinterested but at least it's not like Project+ boring.

markulous

I took a two week break, but I'm back at it again. Looking at the objectives I still feel lost. I just want to bang this out ASAP to finish my degree. I really don't care about Linux at this point.

H3||scr3am

If you really just want to bang it out, force your self to emerge in it... reformat your PC to CentOS and dive in... then you'll gain the comfort level you need with linux, and if you really want to do it quickly... don't use a Desktop manager during startup and try to perform as much as you can from the CLI... it'll help with the fill in the blank questions on the exam where you'll need to be familiar with the commands and flags.

anoeljr

Yea I know the feeling. It took me almost 3 months to feel confident enough to take the 101 exam. What really helped me was going through the Labsim exercises and studying all the practice questions. Understanding why each answer was correct and incorrect really helped reinforce the material.

DoubleNNs

Are you currently studying for the first or second exam?

markulous

DoubleNNs wrote: »

Are you currently studying for the first or second exam?

The first one. I think I'm close to finishing Dan's Courses material for LX0-101. Although, I don't see on the site where 101 ends and 102 begins, but looking at the objectives for 102 I don't see anything I've gone over yet. I'm about to start Week 8 right now.

markulous

H3||scr3am wrote: »

If you really just want to bang it out, force your self to emerge in it... reformat your PC to CentOS and dive in... then you'll gain the comfort level you need with linux, and if you really want to do it quickly... don't use a Desktop manager during startup and try to perform as much as you can from the CLI... it'll help with the fill in the blank questions on the exam where you'll need to be familiar with the commands and flags.

That's good advice but unfortunately, my study time and distros are only at work and I am not able to do that.

The thing that's killing me the most on these practice exams is the fill in the blank for the directories. There's no way I can remember all of these. Hopefully I can go back and forth a little and pull up a shell in one question to answer another question.

DoubleNNs

You won't have access to the shell in any of the questions on the exam.

The easiest way to remember the directories is to make sure you fully understand the Linux FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) and lab as much as possible. Since you need to access those files/directories while labbing, you'll naturally start to remember where everything is located and what does what.

You don't have a pc at home you can set up a small VM (no GUI) on?

markulous

I have a PC at home, it's just when I'm home I really don't have much time to study, whereas at work I have several hours.

markulous

I think my biggest issue is that I just don't care about this cert at all. I just want to get it over with ASAP and don't care what I retain. I'm so close to graduating and that overshadows this cert.

hurricane1091

I'm working on the Linux+ now. I'm 1 chapter through already and the first few videos into the CBT nuggets. It's kind of boring and I don't care about it too much either, but I look at it as being 10% done already. It's not nearly as hard as learning the CCNA material at least. I'm only a day into this but I've just been labbing alongside the book/video. Going as good as it can get I guess.

markulous

hurricane1091 wrote: »

I'm working on the Linux+ now. I'm 1 chapter through already and the first few videos into the CBT nuggets. It's kind of boring and I don't care about it too much either, but I look at it as being 10% done already. It's not nearly as hard as learning the CCNA material at least.

I disagree. CCNA was easier for me and more interesting (maybe that's why it was easier for me). Are the CBT Nuggets videos pretty good? I went through LabSim and that was meh, but I have a coworker that's getting me the CBT Nuggets videos, but not sure how much more time I need to invest. Been studying for a couple months.

hurricane1091

markulous wrote: »

I disagree. CCNA was easier for me and more interesting (maybe that's why it was easier for me). Are the CBT Nuggets videos pretty good? I went through LabSim and that was meh, but I have a coworker that's getting me the CBT Nuggets videos, but not sure how much more time I need to invest. Been studying for a couple months.

CCNA was harder to understand though I feel like but definitely more interesting. I just finished the CCNA Security though and just got started on Linux+ yesterday. The videos are kinda beat. He just jumps into it and I have some background on it because of a Unix class in college. Lots of handwritten notes he does too with crappy hand writing. I'll watch 2-3 tonight and report back on my feelings. I did the first chapter of the book WGU provides too. It might get crazy complicated and I'll hate it but so far just the basics aren't too bad. I know it'll suck memorizing certain things though.

DoubleNNs

I think w/ different study materials you might have thought differently of the material And even tho you might feel like skipping labbing is a shortcut to the exam, w/ the Linux+ it isn't. I felt as if it would have been easier to skip labbing during preparation for my CCNA than for my Linux+.

the only problem is you've been studying for months now. It wouldn't make sense to tell you to switch study materials. I say spin up a few VMs or try to get access to a few boxes at work you can break and spend a few days playing around w/ them. At this point, might be the only thing needed to take the exam.

Also, keep in mind the passing score for the exams are pretty low - you only need a 500/800 to pass. I know i missed plenty of questions on the 2nd exam when I completed my Linux+ last week. Even still, I somehow ended up well in the 600s. So I can only imagine that you can miss a large amount of questions and still make the 500 score cut off.

Good luck.

markulous

Thanks!

I finished the LabSim videos so I'm doing the practice tests on there to get the voucher. Without any googling or referencing the shell prompt, I'm getting like 40% on the domain tests, which is terrible. Although, a big part of my studying is doing practice exams in itself if the questions are similar to the actual exam (not sure if these are or not).

A co-worker just gave me the CBT Nuggets videos (and the PluralSight videos) so I'm kind of listening to those in the background while I'm doing the practice tests.

I think you're right though that I need to just spend a couple days just plugging away. I've made a **** sheet of the commands so maybe I just go through those a bunch more and see what I can do.

Ideally, I want to take the test within a week from now. And since I've already gone over some of the 102 material, hopefully I can do that within a few weeks from now.

DoubleNNs

I have no idea about the Plural Sight videos, but the CBT Nuggets Linux+ videos were great. You definitely could (although not really recommended) get thru the 102 exam using the CBT Nuggets videos alone, w/o any other study material, as long as you have the basics from the 101 down pat.

hurricane1091

I'm like 6 deep into the 24 CBT videos for the 1st half of the Linux+ (are you trying to take both at the same time?) I think I'm going to try to bang out these videos this week. They kind of are lacking, not as good as the CBT CCNA videos. I'll go through the LabSim afterwards and keep reading this book (also not great) and hopefully take it May 16. I can't really say if this is a good method or not obviously. Would definitely like to get both done by the middle of June though and bang out the Security+, then leave July-August-September open for 2-3 courses.