How hard is it to study Linux

Hey guys I'm just curious, on how hard it is to start studying Linux/Red Hat from ground to up, I am currently working as a windows support, and it looks like I am far away to my networking career, and would like to advance my career into Systems Administrator, it looks like they require both Windows Server and Open Source (linux) nowadays.

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dynamik

It's easy to get overwhelmed. It's essentially just a lot of commands and config files. If you pace yourself and stick with it, it's not too bad. If you expect to be a master immediately and aren't realistic about the complexity, you'll get discouraged and give up. Download CentOS, install it without a GUI, load it up in a VM, and you're off to the races!

BroadcastStorm

Thank you for the response, it looks like most companies require Redhat, what are the difference between each distribution, is the CLI all the same? is CENTOS the closest to Red hat?

maumercado

BroadcastStorm wrote: »

Thank you for the response, it looks like most companies require Redhat, what are the difference between each distribution, is the CLI all the same? is CENTOS the closest to Red hat?

YES, CentOS is the not yet recognized son of the red hat enterprise family, and it will stay like that... thank god!

Slowhand

BroadcastStorm wrote: »

Thank you for the response, it looks like most companies require Redhat, what are the difference between each distribution, is the CLI all the same? is CENTOS the closest to Red hat?

CentOS is, for all intents and purposes, identical to Red Hat Enterprise. It's a very good OS to start with, and you can really get a lot out of working with it because, as you said, the whole world seems to be clamoring for Red Hat. The different distros have common commands, but they'll have different programs installed, have slightly different ways of doing the same things, and often times have different layouts to their file systems. The best advice I can give is start with one, (probably CentOS,) and stick with it as your main distro until you know it backward and forward. It's fine to learn how different distros like Debian and Slackware are, but it's important to stay with one OS as your "regular" until you're as comfortable with it as you are with Windows.

If you're looking for a nice, structured approach to learning the foundations, go for Linux+. The exam outlines pretty much everything you need in order to be a Linux sysadmin and the study guides you use will not only help you pass the exam, but they'll also be good reference for the future. There are lots and lots of books to read on Linux, (O'Reilly Press is going to be your best friend,) but I think starting with the Sybex Linux+ study guide and Running Linux. Once you get more advanced, there's all kinds of fun things you can learn to do with the various *NIX environments, including play nice(r) with Windows.

BroadcastStorm

Thank you I am currently downloading the 64-Bit distro DVD ISO.

I am definitely looking into the entry level certifications from COMPTIA.

My goal is to pass both Linux+ and Security+ and move on to advance certification possibly RHCA/RHCE.

Too much toys so little time, I am still in the process of wrapping up ICND2.

I have to prepare myself, for a mass lay-off at a company I am working with, since I already got a notice from the managers.

UnixGuy

not difficult...pick up a good entry level book and follow it...setup a testing machine and work out all the examples...

msteinhilber

As others have mentioned, it's really about installing, configuring and breaking things and you'll learn a fair amount. I'm not what I would consider an expert in Linux but I know a fair amount. All of my knowledge came from trial and error really. One of the things that helped me quite a bit early on is about 8 years ago when I had some websites hosted, I was discouraged of the shared hosting packages so I co-located a server of my own. That really put me in the deep end of the pool at the time but I learned a lot quickly. If you want to pickup a bit of extra experience with it and get some other useful things from it then you might also consider doing some open source monitoring stuff with it as well. I setup a Nagios server at the office as well as another box with rsyslog and phpLogCon to act as a repository for server log files. Gives me an added benefit in the office and also acts as a couple more Linux servers to maintain and troubleshoot here and there.

Good luck with your employment situation!