Unix or Linux or CCNA?

SephStorm wrote: »

Interesting, but I think that is percisly why a new linux user shouldn't start out with something like a gentoo install, the amount of options could be overwhelming. I of course, say this without reviewing the documentation. I'll probably download it tonight and work through it, but I have my reservations, and doubts.

Also, that last remark worries me, "Think USE flags. But again, you don't know what those are unless you've installed and used Gentoo."

If a person is trying to learn Linux in general, they don't need to be distracted with distro specific commands and whatnot. Especially during the install process. Next thing you know hes trying to use a gentoo command on a centos install. Unlikely there will be any negative side effects, but now he was to run around troubleshooting when his six our install doesn't work.

USE flags in Gentoo are specified in the make.conf file which is checked for architecture information and specific system information each time a package is emerged. The USE flags are also explained in the handbook and they also give you a base line to use. Also, the profile you select during the install has a baseline set of USE flags already selected.

The USE flags allow for a more granular control over the OS. For example, if you don't want IPv6 support then you would do 2 things. The first being to not include it in the kernel and the second would be to specify -ipv6 as a USE flag. Then whenever a program is emerged that has IPv6 the OS will not compile that support into the software package. The USE flags are amazingly powerful and very beneficial after you've gotten used to them.

SephStorm

Again, wouldn't you say that is unnecessary for someone starting out with linux?

SephStorm wrote: »

Again, wouldn't you say that is unnecessary for someone starting out with linux?

Maybe for someone who just wants basic knowledge. For someone who wants deep, admin level knowledge and beyond it might be worthwhile. I for one, am going to do this at some point.

SephStorm wrote: »

Again, wouldn't you say that is unnecessary for someone starting out with linux?

I'd have to agree. When I'm learning something I start with a high level overview and then dig into the details as I get a solid conceptual understanding.

That would be equivalent to learning all the intricacies of OSPF with out a solid understanding of routing in general first IMO.

networker050184 wrote: »

I'd have to agree. When I'm learning something I start with a high level overview and then dig into the details as I get a solid conceptual understanding.

That would be equivalent to learning all the intricacies of OSPF with out a solid understanding of routing in general first IMO.

It probably isn't something you should do day one but after you have learned the very basics why not? Many people read CCNP level books while studying for the CCNA. This is kind of the same thing IMO.

SephStorm

networker050184 wrote: »

I'd have to agree. When I'm learning something I start with a high level overview and then dig into the details as I get a solid conceptual understanding.

That would be equivalent to learning all the intricacies of OSPF with out a solid understanding of routing in general first IMO.

*nods*

And thats all i'm saying. I personally feel I need to re-learn linux, just the basics, then go on from there.

SephStorm wrote: »

*nods*

And thats all i'm saying. I personally feel I need to re-learn linux, just the basics, then go on from there.

That's fine. I just made my recommendation, but like I said, it's not for everyone. Whatever distro you choose, enjoy it! Linux is a great road to travel down.

knwminus wrote: »

It probably isn't something you should do day one but after you have learned the very basics why not?.

That is what I'm saying. I didn't say to never learn the details, just they aren't needed from day one to get a good understanding.

loxleynew

Hmm you lost me with all that USE flag stuff. I think i'm going to install a gui version of ubuntu and work my way down like you said using more and more command options to do stuff. Then after a few days maybe move onto fedora or do that gentoo install once I "get the over-all picture" of the file structure and stuff in a more "noob" friendly setting haha.

GAngel

fedora 6 or 7. The goold old days when everything only worked 50% of the time. You'll either bash your head in or get very good whichever comes first.

sidsanders

loxleynew wrote: »

Mainly support developers. Side note I hate programming beside the occasional VB or batch scripting which hardly counts lol.

may be worth it to compile some items from source vs apt-get/rpm (yum)/etc binary install packages. that may be down the line however it will give you some insight into getting things compiled/linked that dev folks **may** ask your help on in that type of env.

a good example of this is openldap -- many distros ship ver 2.3 which is years out of date...

no hurry on that type of work though...

networker050184 wrote: »

I'd have to agree. When I'm learning something I start with a high level overview and then dig into the details as I get a solid conceptual understanding.

That would be equivalent to learning all the intricacies of OSPF with out a solid understanding of routing in general first IMO.

Learning the intricacies of OSPF IS learning general routing.

Its better to start learning at the detail level if you want to become a professional on that technology. Its what separates you from a user. It always surprises me when people lean towards the easy route, your not doing yourself any favors. When it comes time to start managing a Red Hat Server (the most common linux flavor in business) what you learn doing a GUI install of Ubuntu is not helpful.

Learn how to install a program from a tarball. You MUST learn vi, as much of a pain as that thing is there is no way of getting around it. Learn cron scripting. Learn how to manage Apache and sendmail. Learn how to manage mySQL. Learn how to integrate linux into Windows domains. Learn how to manage Amanda backups.

it_consultant wrote: »

Learning the intricacies of OSPF IS learning general routing.

No thats learning one single routing protocol.

phoeneous wrote: »

How many CCNA's do you know that know the intricacies of ospf?

I know a CCNA who didn't know what telnet was.

NightShade03

phantasm wrote: »

I know a CCNA who didn't know what telnet was.

Hire that guy

lol

tiersten

phantasm wrote: »

I know a CCNA who didn't know what telnet was.

Pfft. Use SSH or the console!

networker050184 wrote: »

No thats learning one single routing protocol.

Routing protocols and routing kinda go hand in hand. The concept of routing is not terribly difficult, there is no expert in routing who does not know at least one routing protocol to a high degree of competency. There is a reason why right after learning what a layer three route you start learning about routing protocols.

This is beside the point. If you want to work in network routing you must know OSPF. Sort of like if you want to be Linux Server admin you have to work with the common linux servers. Which is not Ubuntu. Ubuntu is great because it is easy and highly portable but it does not give you relevant experience to being a Linux admin.

OSPF is not focused on in CCNA, but it should be. I have never used EIGRP in an enterprise setting. In the real world we deal with ISPs that use Juniper routers, customers that have watchguard firewalls, etc.

BGP should be brought up as well.

it_consultant wrote: »

OSPF is not focused on in CCNA, but it should be. I have never used EIGRP in an enterprise setting. In the real world we deal with ISPs that use Juniper routers, customers that have watchguard firewalls, etc.

BGP should be brought up as well.

I'm reading CCNP:ROUTE right now and honestly, the depth that book goes into for OSPF and the BGP coverage is good for the CCNP. That level of detail is not needed in the CCNA. Not only is it not needed, but it would be overkill for most people. For example, I know a lot of people have issues with subnetting and route summarization. Try getting them to focus on mutli-area OSPF as well as BGP. Not a good idea.

Also, I have worked with EIGRP in an enterprise environment. On the ISP side, which I've also worked we deal with OSPF and BGP more than not. The CCNA is an introduction certification. The CCNP is more in depth and is right where it should be in my opinion.

phantasm wrote: »

I'm reading CCNP:ROUTE right now and honestly, the depth that book goes into for OSPF and the BGP coverage is good for the CCNP. That level of detail is not needed in the CCNA. Not only is it not needed, but it would be overkill for most people. For example, I know a lot of people have issues with subnetting and route summarization. Try getting them to focus on mutli-area OSPF as well as BGP. Not a good idea.

Also, I have worked with EIGRP in an enterprise environment. On the ISP side, which I've also worked we deal with OSPF and BGP more than not. The CCNA is an introduction certification. The CCNP is more in depth and is right where it should be in my opinion.

Agreed 100%

The details of OSPF are not needed for basic routing knowledge. First you need to learn IP forwarding, then distance vector and link state theories and then you can get to just the basics of specific protocols.

That is not saying never learn it, but if you dumped sham links on someone who barely knew the basics of routing it would be over their head. Could they understand it? Sure, but thats kind of like reading a book starting with the last chapter. You can get it down eventually but wouldn't it have been so much easier to start on the first chapter?

Just because your real world doesn't include EIGRP that doesn't mean its not used out there. We use EIGRP on the corporate side and OSPF on the ISP side.

I have nothing against EIGRP but for the fact that its not compatible with other routers. This does become an issue. Some Cisco routers don't even have EIGRP built in anymore.

The point I was trying to make was not that CCNA is the be all of routing; but that if you want to become a routing expert, then it is necessary to spend some time on OSPF and BGP since those protocols are in wide use. You can cover the foundations of routing including the things you mention very quickly; I mean within a couple of hours or less. Maybe I just like to jump in and get my hands dirty (in a lab of course) more than other people. Perhaps knowing NSSA vs TSA is advanced; but I have heard a lot of complaints from network engineers that point out the weakness in OSPF knowledge within the junior network engineer ranks. So I recommend what I have learned from experience, you should learn more than you think you will need.

Full Disclosure: I have my CCNA but I prefer Juniper routers and HP switches.

No one was talking about how to be a routing expert, routing was just an example.

What we are talking about is how to learn something from the ground up. IMO the best way to learn is to start with the basics and work your way up. Regardless of the technology you are learning.

filkenjitsu

In all my experience, Solaris is used the most in service provider networks. Lucent 5E, Nortel DMS, etc. All use Solaris as their base operating system.

All the systems at my job nationwide use Solaris which is why I use OpenSolaris for learning at home.

Solaris is the best Unix to learn if you want to make money from the skillset.

Ahriakin

knwminus wrote: »

Survey says "Read the thread" and you may find you answer.

When you see that kind of thread (no real link to the topic, 0 post user etc.) there's a good chance it's just a spam bot (usually trying to drop a link through their signature). Best to just report and ignore as it will likely (and this case was before I read the report email, thanks btw) be thrashed.

docrice

In response to the original post, if you're going to learn Unix or Linux, I'd suggest using a platform that's very common in the corporate enterprise. This will most likely be either Red Hat Enterprise Linux (you can use CentOS which is pretty much a binary replica of RHEL and it's free), or go OpenSolaris, although in general I've seen Solaris lose its popularity over the years, especially with the recent Oracle takeover.

When installing Linux, don't even bother running a GUI. Unless you're going to be working in shops that run Linux on the desktop (not very common), most server installations will be command-line only with some exceptions such as Oracle installs. CLI takes a little getting used to if you come from the Windows world because of the way the directory structures are laid out, etc., but a little persistence at home pays off. I recall my experience with this switchover years ago when I first started dabbling in the *nix world trying to learn OpenBSD (which you can download the installer ISO free now, although I like supporting them by buying an actual copy of the official media since their code is so rock-solid and stable). Enterprise Linux deployments will typically be a minimized install meaning none of the extra fluff (no X environment for a GUI desktop, non-essential applications, etc.) so it's well-worth learning the command interface environment. I would hardly consider a candidate who wasn't versed in the CLI. Ubuntu's nice and has gotten more polished over the years, but most job descriptions I see refer to server management. This means manipulating services, editing configuration files, verifying current system resource usage, tailing logs, etc., all using typed commands.

As for the CCNA track, a solid networking background is essential in *nix environments. You'll get some if that working with *nix in general, but nothing beats knowing how routers and switches work at a fundamental level. While you could in theory deploy Linux / iptables-based firewalls (or pf or whatever else), in reality I see most shops running dedicated appliances for network infrastructure functions. It's good to know iptables and the like to secure hosts themselves, however. Even though the CCNA is Cisco-centric, it still provides a lot of core fundamentals which make it well-worth it in my book as it emphasizes concepts like subnetting, OSI model, access lists, and basic protocols which can heavily relate to the *nix world.

While GNS3 is great for CCNA studies (and you can simulate quite a few things such as frame-relay environments and routing scenarios with a dozen routers), sometimes you need to involve real switches which GNS3 can't really simulate. You can buy old Cisco gear (like 1700 and 2950 models) off eBay for relatively cheap ... and it's real working Cisco hardware that you can actually get hands-on with, console in, connect the wrong type of cables, etc.. Nothing beats that. I say this as someone who teaches a good majority of the same CCNA material to co-workers. I use both GNS3 and real gear in my training / mentoring sessions. If you can spare $100 or a bit more, then second-hand equipment is your friend (although you may need to watch your electricity bill).

docrice wrote: »

In response to the original post, if you're going to learn Unix or Linux, I'd suggest using a platform that's very common in the corporate enterprise. This will most likely be either Red Hat Enterprise Linux (you can use CentOS which is pretty much a binary replica of RHEL and it's free), or go OpenSolaris, although in general I've seen Solaris lose its popularity over the years, especially with the recent Oracle takeover.

Side note:

I have considered doing the SCSA(S). Do you think Solaris' popularity decline would lower the value of this cert (and the other Sun certs) significantly? I thought that being purchased by Oracle would help to boast Solaris' popularity. . .

docrice

I work in a corporation that is predominantly Solaris in-house, but I used to work in the company's support team that deployed our company's server software at customer sites. When I first started, there were a lot of Solaris installs. As the years went by, it became increasingly obvious that Linux was becoming a more common choice among our customers.

That said, there are environments which I think Solaris is still a clear winner, depending on applications used, existing SPARC / Sun x86 hardware, etc.. I'm personally a little biased against Solaris however since I learned the *nix world through Linux and OpenBSD and the commands are slightly different between the two and doing some things in Solaris annoy me. They're just really minor points in the overall scheme of things though and it just makes me a platform fanboy. That doesn't make Solaris any less of an OS, but in my view I've seen less talk about Solaris over the years compared to Linux.

I don't know how the future of Solaris may turn out. Oracle might champion it, or it may fizzle out. I think there are still a lot of Solaris shops out there and perhaps the SCSA may be worth it. ZFS is one feature that makes Solaris stand out a lot. I think I saw some news articles indicating that Oracle might put more investment into integrating the OS with their software, etc., so it might continue to grow.

Interesting. Thanks for the follow up. How much *nix experience do you have by the way?

technique wrote: »

Linux OR Unix would equip you with knowledge for becoming a system administration. CCNA is all about routers, switches and networks.

I think you are generalizing it too much.

Not really. System Administration is really specific to the server platform you work with. CCNA does not help much with Windows Administration, which is my main role.

I think its a good thing, to know 2 technologies. However, knowing cisco does not help with linux/unix/windows and vica versa.