Passed 102!

LinuxG33k

Passed 117-102 today! The printout says that I only missed 1 question out of 60! Which is partly luck since I know for a FACT that I guessed on at least 4. Luckily, since 20 of them are seed questions it appears 3 or more of my incorrect answers weren't counted.

I found 102 to be a lot easier than 101. It's like this, if you work with Linux for a couple years then you are going to be intimately familiar with the objectives covered in 102. Whereas with 101 even if you work with Linux all day you are STILL going to need to study and memorize superfluous command options.

I think LPI did a good job of weighting objectives based on real world use. X, printing, etc are required topics but not necessarily heavily used day-to-day by most admins. So they are weighted appropriately and seen less frequently throughout the exam.

I used the Sybex book and once finished reviewed with the Jang "in depth" book. I took notes as I went along of any commands or concepts that were new to me. I then went over the 102 objectives on their site and verified that I had been exposed to all the "key knowledge areas", refreshing on ones I wasn't entirely familiar with. I think that both books do a pretty good job covering the required material. If you are familiar with the concepts you may wish to save some time and focus more on the Jang "in depth" book since it's - uh hum - less in depth.

On to LPIC-2! Looking briefly at the objectives I don't think I'm going to get by on previously acquired knowledge. It's not everyday that I have to recompile the kernel, patch and rebuild modules, screw around with udev rules, modify bind zones (by hand)! Should be a great learning experience!

NightShade03

Congrats on the pass! I've been putting off both exams for a while now, just switching jobs and all. Hope to take them soon.

For LPIC 2 you may want to check out this site:

The LPIC-2 Exam Prep

It isn't complete and slightly outdated but a useful resource none the less.

impelse

Congrats

UnixGuy

Congrats man !!! I'm gonna start serious preparation for RHCE next month !

are you thinking of RHCE anytime soon ?

LinuxG33k

Thanks Everyone!

UnixGuy wrote: »

Congrats man !!! I'm gonna start serious preparation for RHCE next month !

are you thinking of RHCE anytime soon ?

Cool man, how long do you think you will be studying? Are you planning on taking any of their courses?

I hope to start studying for the RHCE in June. That's all just dreaming at this point though. It's a little early to tell how long the LPIC-2 is going to take. Good thing is that some of the objectives between LPIC-2 & RHCE overlap: DNS, Samba, NFS, etc. I will probably study some of the RHCE objectives as I prepare for the LPIC-2, at least that's the plan.

What seems to be working well for me is registering for the exam before beginning to study. Having a hard deadline and being a little broker lights a fire under my arse. I will probably register sometime this week to take the 117-201 near the end of April.

Hehe registering early for RHCE, with it costing $800, may not the best approach.

UnixGuy

LinuxG33k wrote: »

....

Hehe registering early for RHCE, with it costing $800, may not the best approach...

absolutely !


I've been studing on and off for the RHCE...but I found a guy who's willing to give me and my friend private classes with practicals. It's better this way since it's cheaper than official RHCE courses, and I'll have someone on my head to force me to do the labs ! I think I'll spend April & May with this private tutor...then I guess I'll take the exam somewhere in June or July.

If you happen to start studying, maybe we can share our labs/practices here on TE for everybody to participate with us

varelg

Congradulations LinuxG33k again, you did it! Focus on celebration first since you probably need to vent out now. have a cold one on me!
as far as those things you mentioned having to study for lpic-2, in my opinion it's all patience as long as you stick to the plan you made beforehand. Unfortunately you have to make a plan first, browse for materials later and then after all that do the actual study since preparatory material for level 2 is next to non-existent. Not that level 1 is terribly well documented.
Some of the candidates that passed 102 previously noted the same thing that you mentioned about having just the conceptual knowledge and not the memorization of commands and their options.
I have noticed a recent feedback on amazon.com about the sybex guide posted by LinuxG33k is that book sufficient as a prep material? I had it in my hands several times and got the impression that it's too easy and burries important stuff into the pile of fluff that it is full off...

LinuxG33k

varelg wrote: »

I have noticed a recent feedback on amazon.com about the sybex guide posted by LinuxG33k is that book sufficient as a prep material? I had it in my hands several times and got the impression that it's too easy and burries important stuff into the pile of fluff that it is full off...

Thanks again! I celebrated with a beer and some good pizza yesterday..mmm...bacon chicken pizza!

You're right, the important stuff was buried a bit but I'd rather have too much info than too little. What may be fluff to some was context to me. Having the extra detail makes doing practicals easier, which in turn helps the information stick. We all have different styles of learning though so the extra detail may really just be fluff to some. I would recommend buying the book since you can resell it for 65% your original investment it ends up only costing $15 or so. Not a bad price for the extra assurance.

Started studying BIND tonight and just can't find it in me to move forward. Going to give it a rest for a day or so. Also, ordered the Asghar book for an additional perspective on things.

varelg

Well LinuxG33k if you are willing to give a shot at LPI-2 just for the sake of preparation for Red Hat, you might be interested in a Linux Admin cert from Oracle. Oracle also pushes its own linux distro (heavily Red Hat-ish though) and looking at exam objectives, there are subjects like LVM, RAID, kernel compilation, NFS whose studying might be helpfull for RHCE. Their exam is 2-part but they are willing to waive part 1 for holders of LPIC and Novell Linux cert (among others).
Self- study literature for that exam is however... not... listed... seems they would also like to see you in their classroom. Also Red Hat-ish...
Oracle University Select Country

varelg

I just passed 102 couple of hours ago. 700 out of 800. It wasn't as hard as I expected to be.
To prepare for this exam, I used variety of sources, few books ("Linux Network Administrator Guide" 3rd edition, Sobell's "Practical Guide to Linux commands, editors and shell programming" and plenty of freely available literature from Linux distro vendors, particularly helpfull were openSUSE docs, parts of Red Had Deployment Guide, wikis of commands and utilities listed in exam objectives, guides from this site that address Linux+ exam, and of course man pages. Variety is the key but know your objectives and stick to them. Practice also helps to reinforce what concepts you learned, if you've never established ssh connection and exchanged keys or managed user accounts, now is the time. In- depth knowledge of some of the more complex utilities is not strictly required and as such those utilities are pointed out in the objectives. That is particularly helpful if you are pressed by deadlines so you know where to focus more and where to skim on the material.
Truth be told, online docs though voluminous, are of varying quality. Some are really "canonical" you could almost swear by them while some are unfortunately written by the seat of the author's pants. Vendor- approved documentation is almost always of the first category (with the notable exception of the latest Ubuntu Server Guide- lame and unworthy). While there are great blogs, tutorials and collections of tips and howtos (about.com's Linux explanations for example), many more are either plain wrong or simply echo somebody's part-time, half-baked efforts at authorship.
This time I was really tempted to get one of the guides for LPIC-1 and at times I had Sybex's guide in my hands but it just didn't suit me how things were presented there. Author took the "junior" out of "junior linux administrator" literally as a guide for his target audience. Relying solely on that book without venturing out on the web for additional prep will very likely cost you your exam.
Sorry tldp.org, you need an update. They aren't testing anyone anymore on kernel 2.4.
Sure being distro- agnostic cert has its advantages but unfortunately also comes with the lack of vendor- approved literature. The two attempts from Sybex and Jang are just not cutting it. Brunson's book is due july according to amazon.com maybe that would help if the current version is as strong as people say it is. But I would really be looking forward to O'Reilly's updated guide for LPIC- if they keep the style of the current (dated but solid) guide that guide should aleviate the lack of prep material.
I'll take a step out of the beaten path and not go for LPIC-2. Novell has an interesting practical exam for their Linux Certified Professional certificate and offers prep literature for the exam, both free and for purchase. Price is ok, there's no requirement for attending classes in order to get the literature, and it's a practicum- a great way to prepare for the coveted RHCE... or coveted at least for now.
To those of you who plan to seat 101 and 102- good luck. Remember to stick to the objectives and you'll be fine.

Bl8ckr0uter

Congrats man!

That's pretty awesome. How long did it take you to do both test?

varelg

Thanks knwminus!
For 101 I took my time and was really thorough but it took 2.5 months (with some projects in between that took my focus off) to really get it down and feel confident about taking the test.
For 102 it was really quick, about 4 weeks. I must admit that I already knew well objectives on client- side networking and ssh part of security objectives and had a good grasp on user administration even before I considered getting LPI cert. If Samba was an objective, I would have taken high percentage there too. All that experimenting with Asterisk in mixed Linux- Windows environment paid off.

senghor

Congratulations man!

LinuxG33k

Congrats man! You are automatically qualified for the NCLP by completing the LPIC-1. Are you going to attempt another Novell Cert of higher difficulty? Report back on your progress regarding the Novell cert track.

varelg

Thank you guys. LinuxG33k, I am qualified for Novell's CLA but as soon as lpi updates my profile which still isn't updated. Maybe it takes longer because of upcoming holidays? CLA is required in order to get Novell's CLP, which is a practicum and those with longer track with Novell say it isn't an easy exam at all. But prep material is on offer and at fair price and conditions (no need to attend classes in order to get the books) unlike ahem some other practical linux exams. I'll probably have some extra time off this summer which will be handy for final preparations before taking the exam. Maybe I will need your help guys, with practical user case scenarios that you or your coleagues encounter at work (just scenarios not solutions) like for example what customers/non-IT coleagues/boss want from their linux servers...

hankliang

Congratulations! I also want to take LPI exams, I already by a book but need your help. Can you give me some suggestions or share your experience? It's better if you can send me your prepared document or tests to me. my mail is sharetech@foxmail.com , look forward your news. Thanks in advance!