It’s been a while since doing a guest post. Last time I was here I wrote about being a UCS newbie. Now I’m here writing about being a Linux newbie and my recent experiences learning the platform
Until now, I’ve been a Windows guy most of my life. I started on Windows 98 and ME and never really had a reason to jump into the Linux world, although I’ve been very interested in the other side. Before now, I’ve dabbled with FreeNAS, setting up home NAS solutions, owning a MAC and operating the UNIX environment via the command line. But professionally, I never had a great reason to expand my technical knowledge of the operating system.
Recently, I was contacted regarding a job opportunity that will require heavy Linux skills. I am always excited about new challenges and the role would be a great opportunity and career move. Plus, I’m always up for a challenge and one of my favorite parts of technology is having the chance to always learn something new. I jumped at the chance. What better way to prove to a hiring manager that I’m the man for the job than to have learned Linux from square one and walk into my first in-person interview with my LPIC certification.
I started by researching how to learn Linux. I’ve been successful with Udemy.com courses in the past, specifically Chris Bryants CCNA series (if you’re interested in CCNA or networking basics I highly recommend it). My search lead me to courses from Linux Academy. The site has in-depth video courses on everything Linux, from LPIC Level 1 & 2, AWS certifications, finding Linux jobs and much more. They have live labs built into many of the courses. The community is great, very responsive and has been incredibly helpful when I have questions. In the span of several weeks, I’ve almost completed the LPIC Level 1 exam 1 and my exam is scheduled.
At this point, to help my studying, I’m putting and trying Linux on everything I can. My home servers are running basic home web services and applications and I’m running virtual machines on my local box as well as AWS, and home networking gear. In the future, I plan to build out clusters using different Linux technologies on top of UCS (hopefully I will get to do it and write about it).
From here I’m shooting to get my LPIC Level 1 certification, the AWS solutions architect & SysOps Admin certifications by end of the year. I am passionate about pursuing a new opportunity working in the Linux field and expanding my Linux knowledge. So I will continue to work at it until I land this current opportunity or I will use the lessons learned from this interview experience to pursue other similar opportunities.
Thanks for reading and any advice or experiences you’ve had is always welcome!
Kevin
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