Confused on what to do

jamesleecoleman

Alright so I've been reading that Red Hat is the way to go because it's recognized by many companies. I want to get a Linux certification and I was looking at the Linux+ and LPI Linux Essentials.

I read that Red Hat is testing on the RHEL7. I know that I can use CentOS to help me test but I'd rather get my hands on the actual product so should I go with the Desktop version or Server version of Red Hat Linux?

Would it be safe to buy the books that are already out there even though the exam has changed and then just look up the differences or should I wait for the actual material to come out for the updated version?

I've been studying Linux off and on for a while for the Linux+ exam. It's been a while since I've touched Linux and I've been looking for a SSD to put Linux on

varelg

Confused? You? No, you already chose a path.
So now you are set on studying linux. For the purpose of exams preparation, stick to the command line, whichever exam you choose to prepare for. You COULD install a desktop and prepare on it or have a desktop environment on a server "edition" of a Linux distro. In my experience though, Linux desktop environment had become a lot more fragile than before. Even distros like Ubuntu, that used to be rock solid as desktops, are failing. Command line is almost always guaranteed to work.
How comfortable are you with written exams? Or maybe you'd prefer practical exams, presented a list of tasks, a machine and left on your own for an hour or two to figure things out?
LPI are written exams and you will have to memorize stuff whereas RH exams are practical and you'll have a live system in front of you, so in case you forgot what a certain option to a command does, you can always open its man page and read about that option. You don't have that with written tests.

jdancer

The RHEL exams focuses primarily on server version. I think you can get a 30 or 60 eval version of RHEL.

brombulec

There is no need to use RHEL7 - CentOS 7 is enough if you don't need proprietary solutions from RedHat (Satellite, RHN, RedHat Storage - but GlusterFS is available for CentOS 7, support, patches etc.) and you will not install Oracle, NetBackup and other software supported on RHEL.
I'm using CentOS7 for exam preparation, testing environments and for my own purposes at home - IMHO it's enough.

jamesleecoleman

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it. Hopefully I can get this studying down for the Red Hat exam.