Reddit mentions: The best linux certification guides

Coming from a seasoned (5year+) sysadmin with strong network knowledge, please don't expect a $105k salary within 2 years. Not being an ass, just being realistic (I am in Sydney, Australia on a roster of 40hours/week which usually does exceed 40hrs/w, but less than 50hrs/w. The salaries are slightly higher due to the cost of living here being stupid).

I work with CentOS on a day to day basis, and have been using OpenStack for well over a year now. I originally "learned the ropes" by doing the RedHat training and Certification for OpenStack on IceHouse.

Since then, I now use OpenStack with Kolla backed with Docker (containerised OpenStack). For those wondering what Kolla is, it uses Ansible playbooks with Jinja2 templates along with Docker.

Just a bit of background knowledge from my perspective.. Our implementation started with 6 utility style servers (ie. nova, neutron, glance, cinder, ceilometer nodes with redundancy), and 3 Ceph + nova-compute "beefy" nodes.

It's very specific to our company, thus requiring custom modifications based upon sable release of the current non-development release of OpenStack ("Kilo"). It's not recommend doing this as you are venturing away from standard, this was also highlighted by several speakers at the OpenStack Summit in Tokyo last year.

Being attracted to OpenSource has it's pro's and con's. You as a person, think it's great. But as a company, it's generally harder to get across the line due to the following (see this as an example):

• Learning curve on company dime (flip side is the long term savings due to it OpenSource).
  
• Product support in the time of crisis (potentially longer resolution times).
  
• "Fresh blood" requiring training (on the flip side, someone with knowledge generally comes at a greater cost).
  
  The list can go on. :)
  
  Anyway, I can safely say that you need strong Linux and Networking skills to understand a lot of the concepts that OpenStack has (As an example, have you heard of Network namespaces before? Heard of VXLAN? Heard of OpenvSwitch? Do you know what tcpdump or tshark is? Heard of LACP?).
  
  I very much agree with a lot of the other comments in regarding to focusing on your Linux skills before even attempting to tackle OpenStack.
  
  I would say an ideal method to build up your skills is to go through the support channels and work your way up.
  
  You gain very valuable knowledge from the perspective of "feeling the pain of the customer" in the scenario of an outage. It'll help you one day to put away the cowboy hat, and double check your work or write an additional if statement in a bash script. :)
  
  Passion should give you drive. You don't attempt to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro without knowing how to walk up a hill first. 5 years+ in the job, and I still study new things (heck, even old things to sharpen the skills - waiting on this to arrive: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071841962 ).
  
  Sorry for the wall of text, I just hope it helps. Feel free to contact me if you wanted some direction~

> Should I avoid the Microsoft world if I am certain on focusing in the direction of linux?

Assuming you are considering systems administration... In short, yes, avoid MS, and get to know Linux (when I say linux, I usually mean all of the Unix-like OSes). Most of the great sysadmins I know have OSX or Linux on their workstation, and work administering Linux systems. I can't think of anyone that knows both MS and Linux and prefers working with MS - although I am sure they exist. At the end of the day, it comes down to what you prefer, but there are a lot of arguments to be made for getting to know linux. #1 is the server market share, and #2, the F/OSS philosophy.

> What is the lowest "entry-level" job that I can get my feet wet while I study?

With linux, hmmm, good question... there are a couple of entry points. I'd start by teaching yourself. Again, it depends on what you are into. One entry level position would be tech support at a hosting company that hosts linux servers for their clients. The guys that you get on the phone/email when you have this service for example. Their tech support is usually tiered, so tier 1 is doing easy stuff and tier 3 is doing the hardcore stuff. I even poked around a found a listing. That's a great way to get your feet wet. That, or a linux-based startup that has a team and needs more hands.

> I know this is pretty far out, but how's the hiring like for linux positions? When the time comes, should I work with a recruiter, or sell myself to a start-up or company directly?

I wouldn't think it is so far out. If you are a "computer-person" smart and you got yourself a book like this and practiced a bit until you were good enough, you could get an entry-level job pretty damned quickly, I think. The market is quite hot in big cities. For proof, pick a big city, go to craigslist and type in linux under jobs. I picked LA In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with recruiters, it's nice having someone whose job is to get you a job. I've used them to hire and to be hired in my past. Just remember, they're salespeople, and they're selling you, so they are often put in a position where they are trying to persuade you.

>What should I get started on reading? What books would you recommend for a beginner? (I'll take "advance" ones too, I'll save them for the future). Also, if you know of any online communities or websites, I appreciate those as well.

As far as resources... That book above is great. It depends on what you want to know. The RHCT/E course material is great for practical sysadmining:
This is old, but I used it. Almost all of this stuff is good.
This is a classic, but it's quite old.

Online, no better place to start than:
http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/top/

/r/linux

http://code.reddit.com/wiki/help/faqs/sysadmin

Okay then. I'm glad that you have a can-do attitude and sound hungry. First let's get something settled. You're nearly as high up in the certifications chain as you can be with Microsoft and you're noticing it's not getting you the places you need to go. This is a supply and demand problem. Employers can get people like you on the cheap from contracting agencies, and often they needn't even be in the united states. You need to increase your value. Here's what you do, you're going to dive in head first. There are two distributions of Linux that are widely known to have some level of enterprise support, which means enterprises (the companies that will pay you lots of money) will be attracted to them. These distrubutions are Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Ubuntu Server Edition. I recommend that you start with Red Hat, but not necessarily because it's a better distro but because they have a well-designed certification program.

• Subscribe to /r/linuxadmin
  
  
• You're currently using Windows. This is going to be extremely uncomfortable for you at first but you will need to start using Linux on the desktop, and this shouldn't be your side project, this should be your daily laptop you rely upon for everything. There are two distributions that match RHEL exactly in every way but remove the redhat enterprise stuff so you don't have to pay for a license. These distros are Scientific Linux and CentOS. They're both fine to use for the desktop, i'd recommend going Scientific just a matter of personal preference.
  
  
• I typed the previous because of some encounters I've had with Windows admins who have been forced to learn the bare minumum of linux and hated it. They installed it on some ancient piece of crap computer or just on a virtual machine on Windows. They didn't have to rely upon it and therefore learned basically nothing. Linux isn't a toy for you to play with on the side, it's your primary computer now. I cannot stress enough how important this is if you are going to be successful. Sometimes things aren't going to work and you're going to have to figure it out.
  
  
• Go to IRC on Freenode when you have questions and can't find the answers from googling, there are general ##linux channels but there are also ones more specific to your distro like #centos or what you are trying to accomplish like #bash or #nginx
  
  
• From your linux laptop set up VM's there for your research. you can use virtualbox for a straight VM or it would be much more career relevant to learn how to use docker. You can also get a small number of free AWS machines in their free teir program.
  
  
• Your goal is to obtain an RHCE. Red Hat Certified Engineer. As a prerequisite, you will need an RHCSA, a Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator.
  
  
• It seems that now even every linux bash command has a video for it on youtube. There's a ton of resources on youtube now for linux training. Utilize them.
  
  Books
  
  
  • Red Hat RHCSA/RHCE 7 Cert Guide: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (EX200 and EX300)
    
    
  • How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know
    
    
  • Classic Bash Scripting
    
    Start drilling yourself. There's another less impressive certification called the LPIC which has three tests, there's sample tests all over the web for free, i recommend taking them often and when you don't get a question correct go into your VM and use what you were asked
    
    
• With linux you have the ability to, for free, set up any number of web servers, databases, authentication services, filesystems and security features. The only way you are going to learn is by doing, check out this post which is basically an outline of setting up every major system for an enterprise environment running 100% on linux. You could build up an entire company's infrasructure by learning how to do this, with no software licensing costs whatsoever.
  
  Pick a language, I recommend first getting really good at BASH then Python.
  
  Don't stay at jobs. We get raises by moving to new companies. Your median stay should be about 18 months if it seems like you've topped out. Don't be afraid to GTFO of Florida. I stayed close to home for too long and wasted a lot of time limiting myself in the Midwest. If you are able to relocate and have an RHCE i guarantee your salary will double in 3 years. DOUBLE. And it will keep increasing. And you'll be working on way more interesting stuff.

The best way to learn is to use it as your primary system, and you'll learn as you have to solve problems. If you're looking to learn its recommended you use something that isn't going to abstract everything like Ubuntu or Linux Mint does, and use something such as Debian etc. (or if you're adventurous and really want to accelerate your learning, Gentoo or others) where you're a bit more involved with less hand holding.

Since you're also wanting to peruse it for purposes of future career options, depending upon your location (NA or Europe) you'll see quite a bit of value from Red Hat certs if you're located in North America. For this there's a lot of reading you can do, but generally the recommendations come down to Jang or Sander books. The current RHEL OS is release 7, and the certification follows that so you'll have to make sure you're using up to date information for reasons of release specific changes (systemd as an example).

Additionally you'll want to make use of Administration guides and the official documentation. This will help you learn to use and administrate systems, but if you're looking to understand things on a lower level there are wonderful books such as How Linux Works to really understand what's going on underneath and help tie things together a bit.

At some point after you're familiar with Linux and you've been using it for a while comfortably you'll want to start learning BASH. Having a good handle on the command line with help with picking up BASH as you use the same commands strung together along with logic structures, error checking, and whatnot to accomplish the tasks you're trying to do. At least some BASH is recommended due to the power of it, and how all distros have a version of the bash shell so provided your script is built portable enough you'll be able to script tasks across systems.

This wiki links to a lot of valuable material, you'll want to go through it in conjunction with a guide such as this. As usual solving problems is a great way to learn, so if you give yourself a project to script and figure it out along the way is great.

Best of luck, this'll keep you busy for a while

  Hello /u/rennypenn,

 

I was in the exact same situation as you until just a few months ago. I was in customer service for over 10 years but technology was always my passion and I deeply wanted a career in the industry. Unfortunately, I did not complete a college degree and thought a career in IT would never be possible for myself. Then I was introduced to the world of certifications which made my dream into a reality and was able to land a help desk tech position.

 

Some people will tell you certifications are not very helpful and will not benefit you much. I've come to realize that people who say this usually do not have any certifications themselves so they've never personally benefited from them and assume certifications to be useless. Do not listen to them, certifications will help show potential employers that you have the fundamental knowledge to do entry-level IT work.

 

The following resources will make you more than ready for these exams.

 
• Professor Messer video course and study groups

 
• Professor Messer course notes and practice test

 
• Mike Meyers All-in-One book

 
• Mike Meyers 901 and 902 course on udemy

 
• CompTIA 901 and 902 objectives.

 
• Exam Compass

 
• Crucial Exams

 

After completing the exams and receiving your certification you should immediately begin a resume and work daily to perfect it. If you are not too comfortable with writing a resume you can visit IT staffing companies like TEKSystems who will give you free resume and interview coaching along with helping you get employment.

 

When you get a resume you are happy with, begin sending it to every IT job opening in your area listed on Indeed, Career Builder, Monster, and listings to jobs under the local Gigs>Computers section of Craigslist.

 

Apply for any IT position you see and keep in mind that 99% of job postings, even entry-level, will "require" a Bachelors degree, A+, Network+, Security+, ITIL, CCNA, and 5+ years of experience, and much more. Apply to these positions anyway. This is just wishful thinking of the recruiting team. If you apply to enough positions someone will eventually call you for an interview. Even if you really are under qualified for the position you applied to they may have an additional entry level opening that is just not posted yet and still call you. I applied to well over 150 jobs over a 5 week period and finally landed an interview and got the job as a help desk tech, but the job I initially applied was several levels above help desk.

 

If I can do it, anyone can. Just don't get discouraged and don't give up. Eventually someone will give you a chance and you will get your foot in the door. Good luck to you.

> Did you write down the commands for every topic Red Hat states in their website for RHCSA?
>

I did not - however, I've been a "Linux/UNIX admin for 15 years" so the commands are either quite familiar or easy enough to look up specifics from the test system during the exam. Now, the RHCE - I studied my @$$ off for. I know some people in this subreddit essentially don't care about the NDA, or skirt the line - I try not to do either, if I can help it. So, I can't answer your questions thoroughly, but I can still provide some advice.

> Also, are all those topics exactly what is going to be on the exam or that is a tough/general outline? Thank you very much...

The outline is pretty accurate as to what you can expect on the exam.

There are a few very important "tips" regarding the exams:

• know how to help yourself in a semi-disconnected environment. Know where to find the example configs, how to install the different documentation packages on how to use them (man, info, etc...)
  
• be sure you reboot and watch the console during the boot sequence (if you're really diligent reconfirm that the previous solutions are still applied - i.e. if you know that you updated the firewall previously, make sure those changes survived a reboot)
  
  Other tips:
  
  
• Get Michael Jang's guide - I thought someone had mentioned it had been released. Amazon is still showing a preorder. I have not used his guide for RHEL 7 - but his RHEL 6 guide got me through the RHCE (with a 100% actually).
  
• take a Red Hat class.. and yes, I know they are expensive. I thought you could access the RHEL 6 classes online now for free though (I'll try and find a link and update this thread).
  
  Some times you have to get creative. Like pulling down an RPM to look at the pre/post scripts and rpmbuild files to get some guidance on how to do something.

Let's go at this in an order that I feel is appropriate:

Frames Per Second (FPS) are how many frames of an image that is being loaded, rendered, and output to the screen at a given time, specifically seconds. A number, which for most computers and applications is around 1-100+, represent the amount of frames that were loaded in the current second. More things to render means that it will take more power from the graphics processor (GPU) to load the image in front of you. More particles, more 3D objects, and even more moving "entities" and "objects" can create difficulty on the GPU. Adversely, if the GPU is too powerful, and your graphics are too low, it will overcompensate and take longer to create frames, resulting in a choppier/"laggy" screen.

FPS is basically summarized as, "how smooth the video is run." 60fps is always optimal.

In short, Comparing CPUs/GPUs is simply comparing numbers. They both have a "clock speed" measured in Hertz (typically Gigahertz). A CPU is best represented through Clock Speed, Cores, Hyperthreading (Threads), and performance, the last is best measured through real performance tests viewable on most websites. cpuboss.com is one such way to determine the stats and comparison between two CPU chips, and rough estimates for benchmarks.

Graphics Cards (GPUs) are a little crazier. They're measured best by their clock speed, Floating Point Operations Per Second (GFLOPS), Rendering Processors, and RAM. Yes, GPUs have their own RAM. They eat it like spaghetti. Gpucheck has a fairly comprehensive comparison list based on average framerates (FPS) for each card. Obviously, more is better.

It's also good to note that there are Server cards, or Workstation cards, that are usually modified versions of existing consumer graphics cards for certain kinds of performance. In most instances they're much more expensive because of their optimization, but not much else.

Overclocking is the art of pushing the technology to their limit. I don't know too much about it personally due to some of my own concerns.

Linus Tech Tips also has many videos on Comparisons and Build guides, and overclock guides. I'd recommend him first and foremost due to the in-depth level he and his crew ensure for content. Just search on their page "Overclock" and there's a few full-fledged guides.

Everything else is best learned by actually looking it up and having real-world examples. The best place to find just about all of that information is the CompTIA A+ books. The one authored by Mike Meyers is a popular choice. You don't have to take the test accompanied with it, but the book is full of everything you might have questions about, and considered must-know for most techs. I have the Exam Cram variant, and it has everything in the aforementioned copy in a more textbook-like style.

Hope this helped!

I'd say that if you already have tech experience, like with the year long program you took, try to get into tech support somewhere. You won't need A+ if you already have that kind of background. When I got my tech support job, I didn't have anything, but I could do basic troubleshooting.

Here's what you actually need to be able to do to be good at tech support:

1. Is it plugged in, is it turned on
   
   Its amazing how many people don't understand that electrical things need electricity.
   
   
2. Turn it off, then turn it back on
   
   This blew my god damn mind when I got hired. I thought it was a joke. It was not. 85% of my job was telling people to unplug their router and plug it back in.
   
   That's it.
   
   You might think I'm kidding. I am not. For Tier 1 Tech Support, that is most of your job. Electronics need electricity. Rebooting solves most problems.
   
   Everything else you'll learn on the job. If you can, try to get in with a local ISP. You'll learn to troubleshoot TV, Phone, and Internet. If you live in a small town, like I did, you might very well learn to troubleshoot literally everything. People thought we were the damn power company.
   
   I haven't personally tried A+, but I passed net and security in the last few weeks, and net involved a lot of memorization of things like wires and speeds and other things you don't really have to know. I suspect is probably the same with A+.
   
   Try working through the Exam Compass tests, and when you come across something you're not really certain of, spend time studying that specific thing. No need to re-study everything.
   
   You might also try this. I used the passport books for net and security. They come with a bunch of practice test questions which really help. Focus on practice tests. Its far more effective than just reading. It's probably the reason you got a higher score the second time without studying, because taking the test the first time sort of counts as studying.
   
   For studying, work on 1-3 chapters a day. Do the practice questions at the end of the chapter, then do the digital questions for the chapter. At the end of the day, do a set of questions from all the chapters you covered. At the end of the week, do the same for all chapters you covered that week.
   
   And make sure to take a break between chapters. The time you spend not studying is as important as the time you take to study.

I worked in IT from the age of 18 (well, 14, if you count the freelance PC building work I did from 14-18) to 30, at which point I decided to re-skill and move into another career.

My advice about uni would be: unless you're planning on becoming a programmer, and maybe not even then, don't do it. Seriously.

IT is a lot like a traditional trade in that the most efficient way to learn best practice is to actually experience it on the job. Almost everything they will teach you in uni will be obsolete by the time you finish, or it won't be industry best practice.

I got my foot in the door at a company at 18, while my mates went to uni. By age 20 the company I worked for sent me over to the UK for 3 months to work in their new subsidiary as a senior technical advisor. Meanwhile, my mates hadn't even finished their degrees yet. When they did finally finish, they were taking help desk type jobs, while I was being employed as a systems engineer. And it's not because I was fucking brilliant or anything like that -- there's much more skilled individuals out there than me -- it was because I had 4+ years work experience over them by that point.

If you really do want to study, I would advise finding the industry standard certifications for your chosen area of interest, and doing them instead. For example, if you want to do networking, study for the CCNA exam, then go sit for it. With a CCNA you will get your foot in the door just about anywhere and it's much cheaper than a uni degree. You can find some study materials and exam guides at the following sites:

allITeBooks.com
Udemy / Udacity / EdX
Google 'moocs list reddit' for lists of even more free and paid online courses

I'd also advise you to get some sort of Linux cert. To do that you can get this book:

https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523303112&sr=8-1&keywords=jang+linux

Do all of the exercises, labs, and so forth, then go through each portion of each test on https://www.certdepot.net/.

Finally, understand that in order to succeed in this industry, you are going to have to do a lot of self-learning. That means creating a lab at home and fiddling with different equipment/products. If you don't have that sort of natural curiosity and love of learning, then I would suggest you find another career. IT is a field that is constantly changing and in order to stay on the cutting edge, you must do some learning outside of your job.

I hope this has been of some use to you.

Great News! I passed my exam yesterday! The materials I used to study was Mike Myers CompTIA A+ Certification Exam Book 1001 & 1002 textbook, Professor Messer Youtube Videos (1001 series videos), Mike Myers Total Seminars Training, and I am currently attend college for my IT associate degree. I took notes as I read Mike Myers books, Mike gives you exam tips which is very helpful. I also took notes while watching professor messer videos on YouTube. The day of the test I was nervous, my testing location was strict I had to take out any items in pocket and take item like my wrist watch off and leave it in the locker. Every topic you learn will help you but the exam is very heavy on troubleshooting. I had a total of 78 questions. Surprisingly not one printer question was asked expect connection issues. My advice to anyone is to read the text book watch the videos but be perpare that the questions the exam ask is all troubleshooting. Read the questions carefully and re-read if you must. Flag questions you are not sure about and come back to them later. I save the simulation questions for last. I wanted to get the rest of the questions out of the way first. Get hands on experience on the information the text book and videos teaches you. Remember K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid) when thinking of chosing the correct answer.

That's my take on the exam. I plan to use the same study strategies for my 1002 exam. Good luck and keep a positive mind and you will do fine!

Study Materials Link:

(Mike Myers Textbook)

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-1001-220-1002/dp/1260454037/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mike+myers+1001&qid=1565728603&s=gateway&sr=8-1

(Professor Messer Videos)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS9MJjNK6gA&list=PLG49S3nxzAnlGHY8ObL8DiyP3AIu9vd3K

The CompTIA A+ All in one exam book is what helped me when I took the older versions (https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479940713&sr=8-1&keywords=comptia+a%2B) It's $35 for it new, but if you can find a used copy for cheap, go for it. You'll want to supplement your learning between the Professor Messer videos (which are free) with a good certification book such as the one I mentioned.

Since it is a 2-part exam, this will mean you will need to purchase 2 exam vouchers. I know usually on Professor Messers website, he will have discount codes you can use to take off a bit of the cost towards the voucher. The vouchers are what really make it pricey, which is why I strongly urge that you really make sure you are ready for the exams before you go and take them since they are not refundable.

Congrats in advance on having a kiddo and good luck with your studies. This subreddit is pretty great to ask questions and get studying advice.

You sound motivated! First off you definitely won't stay at the same company. You certainly don't "need" to go to college. Get yourself a book for red hat certification, or whatever you think you might be interested in, like this https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962
And then get to reading and implement everything in the book on a computer at home in your free time. You can easily setup a CentOS VM(google!) to practice everything in the book. By the time you're done you'll have a a decent concept of how everything in the book works. Then do the same for Microsoft if you so wish, MCSA book+practice. Cannot stress enough that you have to actually make the thing work on a real server(s) or it won't stick with you and it won't make a whole lot of sense. It's time consuming, but it's still going to be way faster(and cheaper) than a college course and the struggle of figuring out things yourself will make you remember it.

As far as attracting employers, well, someone's gonna have to take a chance on you. If there's internal positions you can apply to that would be good, you aren't an unknown entity and if you ramp up your knowledge on the tech it will be obvious to those who are in a position to give you a chance. If you go internal, you won't get a raise worth a crap, you're gonna have to change companies, but by then you'll have some real experience under your belt and can command a higher salary. If you actually go and take the tests and get the certifications, you have a better chance of getting hired somewhere else in a junior position. What I like to ask in interviews is "how much opportunity will I have to work with X technology?" If it's a straight taking calls day in day out with no interfacing with the engineering groups then pass, but if it's a closer knit type of deal where you're just one cube over from the guy deploying production servers, jump on it!

> what schools offer courses where I can finish within a few months?

The School of Hard Knocks. Read a chapter a night and work through the exercises. Please don't go to school for a year and throw away a bunch of money to get an A+.

> seeing what I am good at and improving on within 2 years. I have three different areas where I might be able to get into (pharm, business, computer) and the experience and knowledge as well as room for improvement and the speed of getting really good at one of them and finding whether I enjoy one of them or not.

This is exactly what I advised you not to do. Deferring this decision for another two years is the easy way out, and it's going to hurt you big time.

For the sake of argument, say you do end up in IT. You're 25 years old. Most of your peers entered the workforce 2-3 years ago, so they already have a considerable amount of professional experience compared to you. Extend that out another two years, and you're already half a decade behind everyone else right out of the gate. On top of that, most of those people have had a lifelong passion for technology and spent their formative years immersing themselves in the subject matter so that when the time came to start their careers, they were already ahead of the curve.

How do you intend to win the race by delaying your start even further than you already have? You're already behind, and the answer is not to sit at the starting line and debate what brand of running shoes are most comfortable while your opponents begin lapping you.

If you start now and focus exclusively on one field, you still have a chance to catch up. If you keep waiting around and waffling for much longer, you'll be left in the dust. This isn't just true in IT - it applies pretty much universally in the professional world.

The A+ is an entry level cert, it's only "a joke" because it's entry level, the same way a HighSchool diploma is. If you can find an employer who can pay for it, great! (I did). IMO it gives you a good experience in how these certs work. Everyone recommends Professor Messer. I would recommend visiting /r/CompTIA to see what questions people have and what they struggled with. The book I read did not prepare me for a question regarding how to repair the Masterboot record (bootrec /FixMbr). But reading a book can be good too, Mike Myer goes but further in depth then is needed imo, but learning more is never an issue. Printers will be asked, I didn't think so but I messed up on them (I was asked about impact printers and had to guess).

I think you're looking at an old practice test as I took the 802 and don't remember anything about floppies. There were questions about Windows XP and a general question about IOS 6. The questions they ask are usually pretty general. They don't ask you about interrupts, maybe the basics of what a driver does, but I don't believe it would go further into it. Maybe a question relating to using a new driver to fix a problem. My book went indepth on how a processor communicates with RAM and vice versa. As well as HDD sectors vs tracks (was too indepth, and those Q's never asked).

A+ is very general, Network + is specific to networking, but again pretty general and entry level. If it helps you get your foot in the door, it's not "useless". A+ and Network+ would create a good base to start moving up from. The big thing is that they need to be renewed (tests retaken) every 3 years. So maybe try to aim for having a higher level cert in 3 years time so you don't need to renew your A+.

So for studying, Mike Myers Book
and Professor Messer would be good material. I just read the book and it was incredibly vague compared to what was on the test (general knowledge mostly). But it comes with a practice CD too.

also, everything /u/VA_Network_Nerd said.

I recently got my RHCSA back in February and I used the video series by Sander Van Vugt. He also has a book

I haven't used the book, but almost exclusively used Sander's videos (which are available on some....seedy websites? I think they're also available through Pearson). Also, Linux Academy has a similar video series that you can try for 7 days free.

Another useful free video source is the RHCSA Tip of the Week series on Youtube.

In terms of recommendation for studying, you NEED to be running CentOS VMs. You can use actual RHEL servers and signup for a free license as a dev, but CentOS is identical for the purposes of the RHCSA. Everything on the RHCSA Objective Page has a chance of being on the exam. You need to basically be able to step through each of the objectives by memory. This also isn't a written test, but performance based. So they wouldn't ask you how to do something, they would tell you do perform the action in a VM.

Also, learn the man, apropos, grep and find commands intimately and your life will be infinitely easier on the exam. The better you are at bash, the more time you can shave off tasks.

As you can imagine everyone's extremely circumspect about how to study for the test due to the NDAs: advice about what to study can be viewed as tantamount to saying "X, Y, Z is on the test."

Since you have RH 7.2 coming in your shop (congrats!) the best advice comes RedHat themselves: RHCE exam candidates should consult the RHCSA exam objectives and be capable of RHCSA-level tasks, as some of these skills may be required in order to meet RHCE exam objectives.

Having said that Jang's guides get pretty good reviews (Amazon.com). They're comprehensive although as always with a book this size there are inevitably errata. I've never used them but my several of my employees have and liked (CertDepot). Since you have this much time between now and the exam I'd dig deep into the (exam objectives) and make sure you can do those in your sleep.

Exam objectives aside all the shiny new stuff in 7.2 like systemd, networking and selinux are where you'll probably find the biggest gaps in your knowledge as 7.2 rolls out in your site. As a fellow old-schooler I just work under the assumption I'm going to get paged out of bed at 3 AM, I'll be shivering in the datacenter standing at the console of a downed production system and my cellphone can't get a signal, so all I have is what I remember and if I'm lucky the man pages.


Or if that seems unrealistic pretend you're going for a job interview at RedHat and that you must be able to describe commands and procedures to accomplish your job without referring to any external sites like Google or stack overflow.

If you're doing Linux+, go through the syllabus from CompTIA and review any concepts with which you're not familiar. LINK. The exam is multiple choice, so beyond very basic syntax, you just need a shallow understanding of popular commands and concepts.

I'm also a huge fan of the free NDG Linux Essentials course from Netacad. Most of it will be review but they get into some good stuff about half way though and it's done with a live terminal.

If you go for Red Hat's RHCSA, I think the best prep is one of the popular cert prep books. Link. Also keep an eye on Humble Bundle, as they put these cert guides up for dirt cheap quite often.

Good luck!

This book is a very good self study resource for Red Hat's entry level sys admin certifications. Covers RHCSA stuff (entry level), and RHCE (intermediate level). Start with the RHCSA items, it will run you through basics of setting up FTP, HTTP, DNS, Samba, etc. servers.

Also, there are efforts like this one that crowdsources preperation material for those above certifications as well.

But like others have suggested, install RHEL/CentOS in a VM, and just play with it. Familiarize yourself with common commands, services, tasks, installing software (yum), and google linux forums for answers.

Congrats! Welcome to linux administration, and best of luck.

Not sure what the difference is per say but I have this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/125958951X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517975927&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=a%2B&dpPl=1&dpID=51Vogw4seHL&ref=plSrch

I'm around 880 pages in of 1288 and I liked it pretty well it's just A LOT of material.

The disc questions are lame...they try to force you to buy stuff they are just sample stuff. The key to the disc however is that it includes a free copy of the entire book on PDF! I put the disc in and put the book on a flash drive to read at work during lunch. So it works out that I didn't buy a ebook version.

I would also suggest to go to udemy and buy his lectures they're for the 901 and 902...they should be $10 each and they complement the book perfectly....they like overview each chapter.

Once I finish the book I plan to rewatch the videos on udemy as a refresher as well as watch professor messer videos.

Download and install CentOS. It's the built-from-source version of RedHat Enterprise Linux. They are identical for all intents and purposes. Almost every business that's running linux is running either Cent or RHEL.

Use it as your primary OS, but that's not going to get you the experience you need to be a sysadmin. Use the RHCE Book to learn how to set up an apache server & other sysadmin tasks. Seriously, read the book & do the labs, you'll learn a lot about linux. (If you've got the $800 to spare, you can take the certification exam but IMHO the certifications don't get you much.)

Once you've got that down, check out the BASH Programming guide on tldp for shell scripting, and then maybe MIT's Introduction To Computer Science and Programming - completely free online course.

That ought to be a pretty good start. Good Luck!

Hi, All of those things are an excellent start, but I think you need more. Do the free practice tests on the Exam Compass site (http://www.examcompass.com/comptia/a-plus-certification/free-a-plus-practice-tests). Some of their questions are VERY picky, but overall they're good prep. Do the tests on the Crucial Exams site, too (https://crucialexams.com/exams/comptia/a+/220-901/). See if your library has the new Mike Meyers book (http://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X). Go through the questions at the end of each chapter. Use the CD that comes with the book as a source of more questions. Good luck to you!

Probably the new versions of the exam-prep books will be published in January or February.

I took the beta version of the new exam during October, and I'm pretty confident that I passed it.

Some of my preparation steps were:

(0) I had one of my PCs that already had Ubuntu 18.04 on it, on which I could practice some commands (I later put CentOS 7 on that PC instead). You can also get pre-built VMs from osboxes.org which you can run in VirtualBox. Or you could download an ISO, burn that to a DVD-R, create an empty VM, and practice the installation process.

(1) I learned many commands and their command-line options from "Linux Pocket Guide - Essential Commands, 3rd edition" by Daniel Barrett published by O'Reilly. I had heard that the current CompTIA Linux+ exams want you to know many command-line options and what they do.

(2) I learned topics for the current version of the exam from "LPIC-1 Study Guide, 4th ed." by Christine Bresnahan and Richard Blum, published by Sybex. See also my post where I evaluated books to prepare for the current version of the exam.

(3) I downloaded the PDF with the beta exam objectives

(4) For some topic areas that are on the new exam and not on the current exam, I read the chapters in this book by Sander Van Vugt about the Red Hat certification exams to get a basic understanding of those topics and learn the main commands for those topics. I liked that book; it has short chapters and is written in an easy style.

(5) For some things listed on the beta exam objectives, I also looked at the 'man' pages and read the Wikipedia articles about those things.

(6) I had previously passed the Network+ exam, and I think my understanding of networking helped with some of the questions on the beta exam.

(7) I registered for a free account at LinuxAcademy.com, and one of the courses available at the free level was named "Git Quick Start" (or something like that), which helped me prepare for the Git-related questions on the beta exam.

I've only passed the 901 and putting the A+ on my resume as "in progress" (listed it literally as "Certifications: CompTIA A+ (in progress)") has already gotten me a possible job opportunity. Guy knew right away what that meant and he just asked when I planned on taking the 902.

So yeah it'll definitely help with getting hired.

As for studying, look over the exam objectives and see how much of it you know. If it's less than half, buy the Mike Meyers book and read it front to back. If it's more than half, buy the Pearson ExamCram book and read that instead. Watch Professor Messer's videos in either case and use CrucialExams, ExamCompass, Professor Messer, and ExamCram practice tests. ExamCram had questions most like the ones on the actual test, ExamCompass is the hardest, and Professor Messer's pop quiz collection is the one that gave me a score closest to what I actually got (846 on the real 901 exam, 847 adjusted from a percentage on Professor Messer's pop quiz collection).

Good luck.

I actually took it to because I was switching roles within an organization - it wasn't required, but I wanted to be sure I was prepared. It is somethng employers look at, but that 3-for-1 package and the fact it doesn't expire make it worthwhile anyway.

The toughest thing wasn't the concepts, but the questions themselves. Linux administration is decidedly not multiple-choice, so I was often tripped up by the wording, or figuring out which of several close options they're looking for. I'd definitely recommend looking into a study guide or practice tests before you take it - your knowledge of the subject matter might be up to snuff, but the test can still be confusing. I also ended up using this book which contained study guides and flash cards in an (ironically Windows only) software package, and was organized more in terms of the test itself than the Sobell book.

Good luck!

Trying to address all your questions.

1. There are many different ways to learn, it kind of depends on how deep you wanna go. If you're just wanting to get your feet wet, put Ubuntu or CentOS on a VM (something like virtualbox) and fuck around with it. Try to follow guides on setting up a Wordpress or deploying some other software.
   
   For more in-depth, study like you're planning on taking the RHCSA/RHCE exam. The objectives (RHCSA/RHCE) do a good job of covering the fundamentals. The book by Michael Jang is an excellent resource for this.
   
   If you want a "fuck you, eat linux" type approach, I'd recommend doing a Gentoo or Arch install. This won't teach you everything, but you will learn about some of the lower level parts of the OS that make it tick. I'd still recommend this (especially the Gentoo install) after you get the fundamentals down.
   
   
2. Windows and Linux tend to have their roles, but I find Linux tends to be more flexible. Linux does have equivalents to some of the things you list off, for example I have a domain setup in my house using FreeIPA, but in the enterprise world the Microsoft equivalents are still king. Linux is just a tool, so it really depends on what you're trying to do.
   
   
3. Generally by the time you get to a senior level you'll have specialized into some niche or another, at least in my experience. The fleet that I help to manage at work has some Windows components, but I only work on the Linux parts. It really depends.
   
   There are definitely some distros that are more "enterprise" than others. Generally I see mostly these deployed for enterprise use:
   
   

• RHEL(Red Hat Enterprise Linux)/CentOS
  
• Ubuntu (LTS versions)
  
• Debian
  
• SUSE (much rarer than the previously mentioned)
  
  Other distros like Mint, Fedora, Gentoo, Arch, etc. are only really used for desktops unless you really hate yourself or your admins. I have seen some Gentoo or Arch servers out in the wild before that customers have deployed.. but it's rare. Generally the big three (RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian) are what are in demand skill-wise. There are some specialized distros used in enterprise that aren't as common (Scientific Linux, CoreOS, etc).
  
  CentOS is essentially RHEL with all the proprietary bits ripped out (some other small differences). I was able to study for my RHCE with CentOS without issue, they're that similar. You will run into trouble if you start going for some of the more specialized RHEL certs using CentOS.
  
  

4. Networking is a good skill to know. When I was first starting off I got my RHCE and CCNA since I didn't know which direction I wanted to specialize in. I ended up focusing on Linux, but my slightly-more-than-basic knowledge of networking has been a huge help. Hardware (other than the basics of switch vs managed switch vs router) isn't as important as networking concepts (how subnetting works, DNS fundamentals, VLANs and what they're used for, etc).
   
   I hope this helps!

I took some time to search a bit so I could give you a proper answer. I took the 901 and the 902 so I was sort of unaware of what's working for people for the new 1001 and 1002.

The ones I found that seemed solid are right here:

This is the cheap option. It's been recommended highly by quite a few people and seems to work for others.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1260454037/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AyWCDbFBQH7J7

The more expensive option is the updated version of the book I used. Don't be pushed away by the bad reviews, as the ones on here are irrelevant to the actual material covered in the book. (Take a peek at them for yourself if you'd like.)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0357108299/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_kNWCDbX20B2NH

I also highly recommend looking at free resources like certblaster.com
They have free exam notes which are incredibly useful and will help with studying and explaining things you dont understand.

Also check out Professor Messer's YouTube channel and watch the 1001 and 1002 exam training course. It's free and without a doubt some of the best videos out there for this cert.

I highly recommend using Sander Van Vugt's RHCSA/RHCE 7 book. I passed both exams from start of reading page 1 to passing 2mo on each. His book is comprehensive and covers the whole gambit of both exams. But, it doesn't hurt to seek more sources of information.

https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-RHCE-Cert-Guide-Certification/dp/0789754053/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sander+van+vugt+rhcsa&tag=hotogobr-20&qid=1561254657&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Set yourself up on VirtualBox ( https://www.virtualbox.org/ ). Create a bridged network to make networking easy. Make sure you sign up for a RH developer account and get the free 1 yr subscription (can renew each year) for a copy of RHEL. While CentOS is binary-compatible, I've run into some oddities with configurations and such while studying for the exams. Practice practice practice. Break things (it's only a lab VM!).

You're probably going to want to setup multiple VMs (at least 2) to toy around with things like SSH, pubkeys, SCP, Samba, NFS, and other network services. If you plan to go on to RHCE, you'll definitely want to setup a FreeIPA VM for LDAP and Kerberos-related stuff. Even the RHCSA touches on connecting a client to an LDAP authentication service.

For that particular cert I took a job where I'd be leading an effort to spin up an entire linux environment from scratch including centralized config/package management, etc, and I had no formal training at the time so my employer put me through the 5 Day Rapid Track course you're probably looking at. It was pretty good, but I probably learned more from just following the course material on my own and working with my environment. I didn't actually take the exam until a couple months after the class.

This book is pretty universally revered as an excellent resource. I still break it out once in a while. Disclaimer: there might be a new one but I believe this is what I have.

https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Guide/dp/0071765654

If you get through all of that and most importantly learn to effectively use the man pages and the existing in-OS resources (remember its a test on a live system so all commands are available including the documentation!), even if you come to a task in the exam that you've never done you will be familiar enough with "figuring shit out" to figure it out.

> Right, because there's totally enough of these jobs for everyone.

There are plenty of jobs in IT, Medical and Accounting field to name a few.

And while saying all you do is push buttons is a generalization, none of the other jobs like making food, filling orders, cleaning tables and taking out the trash is very thought intensive. Hard work yes, do you need to know a whole lot not really.

Look if your working in the fast food industry you should be learning that the job sucks and you need to get an education in something other then fast food. The lesson you need to take away from that is this I don't want to do this anymore.

Take some of your money and buy a study guide for IT work, get a few certs and get a job on a help desk some where, then you can study more and take some more high level certs and move up to a better paying job.

The CompTIA a+ 901/902 Test is around $225. Here is the guide you'll need. It goes for about 30 dollars.

The Network + guide Here is 40 dollars. The test is around $300.


So for $600 dollars, while not exactly cheap if you work fast food, you can get a better paying job that you can work into a career if you want to. The jobs and opportunities are out there if you look over that chip you have on your shoulder.

Here are 181 jobs that pay anywhere from 45K to 100K a year. Civilian Contract work pays real good. You just have to have actual skills a clean record and be able to pass a drug test.

> I'd love to see these people that are against higher minimum wages work at McDonalds for 7-8 hours or more a day during lunch and dinner rushes. Having to deal with asshole customers all damn day.

If that were indeed my life, I'd have to sit back and rethink it.

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501801312&sr=8-1&keywords=a%2B

Here is the Amazon book that I used. I found it to be pretty good overall, but the author is wordy and includes information that is not required to pass the A+.

https://www.youtube.com/user/professormesser

This Youtube channel has an A+ 901 and A+ 902 playlist, among many other useful videos. I watched the entirety of both playlists in addition to reading the Meyers book. I also bought the notes for these videos at:
http://www.professormesser.com/220-901-902-course-notes/

I found them to be very useful. They are straight to the point, and consist of bullet point style information.

My study plan was to first read the Meyer's book completely, watch the Messer videos, take practice exams on Examcompass.com, and then utilize Messer's notes and flashcards to memorize or reinforce whatever the practice exams showed that I was weak on. It seems like a lot, but it really wasn't that bad. I passed the 901 with a 759, and I am hoping to pass the 902 tomorrow. To pass the 901 you need a 675, and to pass the 902 you need a 700. These scores are out of 900.

IMO; The fastest IT career to get into is in Linux Administration. I don't know how your job scene is over there in the UK, but from my experience in the US it's pretty happening.

You can get started in under 3 months with under a grand and get a job making 50-60k starting.

Here's how:

1. Pick up this book;
   
   https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523303112&sr=8-1&keywords=jang+linux
   
   
2. Do all of the exercises, labs, etc...
   
   
3. Go through each portion of each test on https://www.certdepot.net/
   
   
4. Make a drill setup for each major area. Perform each drill at least 5x a day till you have the commands in your muscle memory. Now, turn over your drill list and attempt the task from scratch. Repeat until you can confidently execute each task from memory. Read 5 man pages per day, minimum.
   
   
5. Go get your RHCSA. Cost to take the test is ~400 USD, dunno what the exchange info is like. After you pass your RHCSA, then take RHCSE.
   
   
6. Go get a job at a webhosting company or a data center.
   
   
7. Keep learning. Learn to write scripts in Bash. After Bash pick up Python. Decide if you want to pivot into the security field, or if you wanna go deeper into Sysadmin. If you want to do security look into Cybrary for general learning security stuff.
   
   
8. Once you have a grip grab your nuts and get your OSCP cert. This is big boy level shit. This is spending 16+ hours on a live lab pen test certification. This is one of the most respected certs in the industry. You get that bad boy and you are going to be getting 100k+ hiring offers off twitter and linkedin regularly.
   
   
   https://www.offensive-security.com/
   
   If you wanna stay an admin go down the architect route with Redhat.
   
   Knock knock Neo.

First, read our Wiki. It is very thorough and answers a lot of these common questions such as

day to day? The Practice of System and Network Administration
And the topical reference books listed below.

Books to help in shaping a sysadmin? The above &:
The Phoenix Project
Time Management for System Administrators


Topical Books I see mentioned often and have been very helpful to me:
Powershell in a month of lunches
Learn Python the hard way
Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook
Windows Server 2016: Inside Out

Group Policy
AbsoluteBSD
FreeBSD mastery:ZFS
CCNA
RHCSA/RHCE
Pro Puppet
SSH Mastery

On my docket:
FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS

Michael W. Lucas and Thomas Limoncelli are very good sysadmin writers, you can't go wrong with a topic they have chosen to write about.

Most of the *nix stuff assumes a baseline knowledge of how to use a unix-based system. I learned as I went but did pick up an old copy of Unix Visual Quickstart Guide not too long ago at a used books sale, which seems like a good starting place for someone overwhelmed with sitting at a terminal and being productive.
I notice I don't have any Virtualization books, perhaps someone else can fill in good books. Most of my knowledge regarding virtualization and network storage has been a mix of official docs, video training, and poking at it. Seems innate but it isn't.

Kind of depends on your background with Linux! I have around 7 years Linux experience so I was already ahead when I went into the course. uCertify didnt really help me much (It was based off of LPIC-1 course, not LX0 series, but the material is fairly similar). I used this book to study mostly, and Labsim was very helpful as well. Good luck!

As an additive to this, if you cannot afford the training, the RHCSA/RHCE book by Jang is an incredible resource:

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Edition/dp/0071765654

I will be taking the test when I can afford it from only studying this and real-world experience through my job.

I'd also like to add on that if you want some easy real world experience setup a cheap VPS to host websites on, this will give you a fantastic taste in troubleshooting issues, installing software, securing stuff, etc... It's also an easy way to make a small extra income. :)

Training, and learning nix. Alrighty.

So, first thing's first, check out DCCCD and Collin College for some good classes. I've taken the shell scripting and intro nix classes at Richland and they were helpful. I'd already been a sysadmin for a year or two and learned a few tips and tricks from instructors who'd been there a few times already.

LPI - Linux Professionl Institue - lpi.org - Check out the essentials and LPIC I. A bit deeper than Linux+ (more on this in a minute), I hear, and a bit more respected in the circles I run in.

CompTIA - Linux+ - Because of course CompTIA is going to offer a moneygrab...err...entry level certification on Linux. It's basically, I understand, an LPI Linux Essentials with CompTIA's logo. Is that a bad thing? No, not really if you're looking to get your feet wet.

And if you're so inclined, I'm a big fan of Michael Jang's books (i.e. http://smile.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Seventh-Edition/dp/0071841962/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0714AZZ2G0DT3926CJTS ). Practical, no-nonsense, and it will take you from little to no experience, to ready for your RHCSA/RHCE session in a couple of months, if you're willing to put in the time. Two of my cow-orkers and I all used Jang as our primary reference followed by an RHCE bootcamp and got our RHCSA and RHCEs. And, I'm about to use my Amazon Smile account (you're using Smile, and benefitting TheLab, right? Ask me how if you're not!) to pre-order the RHEL7 update that's going to drop soon.

Hope this helps, feel free to get in touch or grab me at a meeting if you have other questions.

-I5
No, I'm not Init6.

I started reading the course material for CompTIA when I started looking at getting into IT but never got round to the exam. There was a fair amount of good stuff in the book I was reading, also a lot about stuff you really didn't need to know (like the max voltage of an IBM PCXT power supply from the last millennium).
If you are someone wanting to get into IT at ground level, with minimal working knowledge of a helpdesk, troubleshooting process or how IT as a field hangs together, I'd recommend at least reading the course material for CompTIA, then if you're still keen, do the exam, if nothing else it shows willingness to learn to an employer. After that look at the Networking+ and Security+ qualifications, or a Microsoft accreditation. Anything Office 365 these days is a licence to print money if you're looking to contract as an IT person (here in the UK as of the last 2 years or so at least).
This was the book I read, though that was about three years ago: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/125958951X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_R30vxbJ3FQJT2
Been in IT for just over three years, currently 2nd/3rd Line Engineer/Consultant and looking to go contracting in the next year. Any queries, let me know.

When I studied for the RHCSA, I found that Sander Van Vugt came highly recommended. Best of all? $Free (i.e. get the free trial and go for it)

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/red-hat-certified/9780134723990/

I also got the Ashgar Ghori book because the Michael Jang one wasn't out yet.

Jang's RHEL6 books were highly regarded, so I would expect his RHEL7 stuff to be held in similar esteem. Ghori's book seemed perfectly capable, though.

If you commit the time you could be ready in 30.


1: Make sure all materials you are using are made for the current- 901 / 902- tests.


2: If you're the self-study type, Mike Meyer's all-in-one book is recommended. Only costs 20 bucks, it's a useful resource even if you're not prepping for the test.


3: Professor Messer has a boatload of free videos for it as well.


4: You can always look it up on youtube.


Honestly the hard part is learning to pace yourself. You need to commit the time and it can be infuriating to put up learning things you already know abundantly well because you need to get through it to get to the stuff you're less knowledgeable about.

MIT Intro to coding and Computer science

This course gives fairly broad knowledge and allows you to learn coding from an excellent prof, all for free! I haven’t finished it yet but its fairly useful and I was able to follow along without prior knowledge. Granted, I still have to work hard and it is a decent time commitment.

Also, if you want to try for Certs, Mike Myers is an author of a bunch of textbooks, and they read like a novel (he has a sense of humor) Start with this one, provides general IT knowledge.
Mike Myers A+ Guide to tech support

Ps, I’m dx’ed ADHD- Predominantly Innatentive, Diagnosed at age 20. Medication has been one of the biggest help’s to me. My only regret about medication is that I didn’t start sooner.

I can recommend Jang's RHCE study guide as a good comprehensive introduction to RHEL, and it does a good job of going through the details of the installation process so you can be sure you didn't miss anything. Also check your support contract! You may be paying RH to help with this kind of thing.

The link that was posted is for the academic store. It's not a discount store and is only available for students. You have to go through a small process to prove you're a student and then you can purchase items there. Also, you are limited to only 3 items in a 6 month period and only 4 items total in general. I wouldn't rely on using that link for your materials.

Most people use the comptia A+ all in one guide by Mike Meyers (if they use a book at all), the Mike Meyers udemy video courses, as well as the free professor messer video courses. I'm using those items to currently study for my A+ and find them very useful.

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-1001-220-1002/dp/1260454037

https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=Mike+myers
Make sure to use the 1001 and 1002 videos as the 901 and 902 exams expired in July.

https://www.professormesser.com/

Hope that helps :)

As /u/Lisenet said, practice with a home lab environment is incredibly important. I personally found linuxacademy.com to be great for learning purposes. For my RHCSA, I used a combination of linuxacademy, small homelab, and 1 book (https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-RHCE-Cert-Guide-Certification/dp/0789754053).

​

I am now using those same resources to prepare for my RHCE exam.

​

Once you get a basic handle on everything, repetition of the exercises is the biggest help. Best of luck!

You know I signed the NDA and can't talk about the exam, but I can give you my personal opinion.

I finished the RHCSA an hour earlier than the given time, I found it quite easy, but consider that the majority of the Red Hat official objectives are part of my daily job (user management, LVM, scripting etc.) thus I rushed through the questions without problems. I usually work through the CLI because I really enjoy it but also becouse it's quite faster than the GUI.


The RHCE was a bit more difficult, Red Hat gives you less time and I felt the stress of the previous exam (I took both the same day, one in the morning and the other in the evening).

I studied for a couple of months using the M. Jang book. I found it very useful, particularly the labs and the exam samples.
I can just recommend you to do a lot of practice. Install CentOS, spin up a couple of VMs and go through all the labs and examples in the book. Then delete the VMs and restart from the beginning until you can rush through them without googling or looking up in the book.

Then just book your exams and pass them! :)

This looks, verbatim, like the CompTIA A+ certification study guide, and I strongly recommend picking up one of these: CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide by Mike Myers - I used an older edition a few years back before I took and passed the cert, and it was all I needed. This looks like an outline of this book for sure and will help you in this endeavor.

Good luck!

So. I read Michael Jang's RHCSA/RHCE book.

It took me 16 days to get through Ch1 - 10.
Chances are, if you can do all those things, you can get a job as a Linux Jr. Systems Administrator.

I knew nothing about Linux, read that, and -- I've been a rather successful Linux Jr Admin (soon to be Sys Admin) at my current job. It also allowed me to be an Infrastructure Director for a startup. So.

I mean. Really, knowing LAMP is half the battle. Pick a P, learn MySQL & Apache, and pick a flavor of Linux (I'm RHEL distros, obv). Master the basics, master the finer points -- and you're good to go. Having a few popular applications under your belt like puppet, aide, rkhunter, clamav (perhaps), configurations for php properly (secure) & mod_security ... a few things like that, and you're good.

Well, you could get yourself a RHCSA prep book (linked to the one i have and found useful) and go through all of the exercises. The way I learned was basically to set up my own servers, either physical or virtual, at home, and run them. I think FreeBSD, Gentoo, and Slackware were the most beneficial to me in that they don't really make choices for you, so you have to configure things for yourself which forces you to read the documentation and learn. They all have excellent documentation, btw. If you want to go a step further, linux from scratch will really teach you about the operating system from the ground up.

From there, come up with little projects for yourself. Like making a home NAS, setup NFS and Samba shares, install XBMC on a HTPC and hook it up to your tv to stream movies and music. Setup a webserver and owncloud. Stuff like that.

I rate this Redhat RHCSA and RHCE study guide which covers pretty much everything you'll need to know about Centos/RHEL. Maybe even take the RHCSA or an equivalent exam when you're ready (ie LPIC 1, Linux+), it'll certainly help you learn and get hired.

Ignore the gui tools as much as you can, typically they're not going to help you learn any quicker and you'll likely end up not bothering with them at all down the line anyway.

Once you have a grounding, just get out and find yourself a linux admin job as that's where you'll really cut your teeth. Don't be afraid to start looking sooner rather than later, just be honest about your level of experience.

Good luck!

The thing that helped me the most was this book:

http://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Linux-Powered-Professional-Institute/dp/1119021219

I read it several times. It has excellent practice questions that come with it. A great deal for $39.00

I also used Linux Academy. They have tons of videos you can watch and explain everything in great detail. They give you six real servers to use and play around with. It only costs $20 a month.

www.linuxacademy.com

I recently got a job as a junior admin and found Unix and Linux System Administration to be really good. There is also a nice CBT Nuggets series on Linux which is a great overview, especially when watched while reading LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell as the book complements the videos.

If he already knows another programming language Dive Into Pythion is great for getting up to speed quickly.

I really enjoyed this book while studying for my A+ certification:


https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495120816&sr=8-1&keywords=a%2B


Even if you don't go for the cert, it is still a very good read, as it basically covers a little bit of everything from networking to hardware to Windows. It is pretty long @ about 1600 pages (about 1300 main material), but if technology is something that interests you, you will enjoy it. And if you are able to absorb everything from the book and have the extra cash, you might as well take the exam and have an A+ certification to put on your resume.

Definitely not recommended. Make sure you look at what exam series the books you're buying are for - the current A+ is the 901/902. Mike Meyers' book is among the best and most popular, and he's great at explaining things from a more real-world, less technical view. (https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492880166&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+meyers+a%2B)

Sure thing, the Comptia certs do cost some money, I know some high schools/community colleges have reimbursement programs for them so that may be looking into in your local area. As far as study material I used these: A+, Security+, Linux+. PDF's of these books can be found online from various sources as well.

For exam practice I used a VCE exam player application and whichever vce file had the best rating per exam from examcollection. Hope that helps!

I didn't find many good free tests. I would say examcompass is ok for 1001 but they have some straight up wrong answers for the 1002.

Here is what I used- https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902-ebook/dp/B019HX5EOM

The book is 30 bucks and the book is ok if a little too in depth, but comes with free access to totalsem.com, which is amazing in terms of practice tests. It even has a few simulations that were actual PBQ's ripped from the test.

Between the totalsem tests and professormesser i just passed my A+ and got certified earlier today.

Michael Jang's books albeit hard to understand and read at times... are great for prepping for the RHCSA. I have my RHCSA, haven't started on my RHCE yet.

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Edition/dp/0071765654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397241140&sr=8-1&keywords=RHCE

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Certification-Practice-Virtual-Machines/dp/007180160X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397241140&sr=8-2&keywords=RHCE

Asghar Ghori released his updated book to his RHCT classic that I loved
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1467549401/ref=oh_details_o01_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My friend says this one helped him out a lot.

As for the command line, there's a ton of online crash coarse resources you can find with a Google search. Also, there's the lower 100 courses Red Hat has and I'm pretty sure they deal with command line if you have the bucks, or company funding for it.

I finished my RHCSA with a perfect score using only one resource. While getting access to official Red Hat resources could be better, if you have to fund this yourself, this is the best option for the money. Michael Jang helped me pass my RHCSA on RHEL6 and then again on RHEL7, with the current exam getting a perfect score. All you need to do is follow what is in the book and you'll have no problems passing. Just do the labs thoroughly enough until you no longer need to reference any help material and you'll be fine.

https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508331478&sr=8-1&keywords=michael+jang

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1495148203/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KV2Q1QP4DY2P9W4RPNHP

Best guide I've found so far to jumpstart your lab curiosity. Walks you through setting everything up. Also irc is your best friend.

Hey when I studied for the exam this book https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X and this guy http://www.professormesser.com/ are extremely helpful, he also does free YouTube lectures, good luck!

The Linux Documentation Project is a great free resource:
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming (4th Edition)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134774604/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_bh7QAb518JBC8

The first two are for learning Bash; this is an awesome resource for learning how to administer RHEL/CentOS7:

RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Certification Study Guide, Seventh Edition (Exams EX200 & EX300)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071841962/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_wj7QAbX8M0DG5

I agree, at least inasmuch as knowing (3) isn't absolutely dependent on knowing (2). But to really hit the "intersection of theory and application" bit, you need to have spent some time doing sysadmin things, especially since they teach you how things break. Having developer-tier competence without sysadmin-tier puts you more on the theoretical end of the spectrum.

This is unfortunate, since there's such a division in the industry between sysadmins and developers that most developers never get a good feel for what it takes to keep a system running. If your software runs on a Linux server, and you know the sysadmin-type and developer-type parts of Linux usage, that gives you the ability to do systems programming and build actual applications (as opposed to just the Perl scripts that a mere sysadmin will write).

Just my two cents. If you want to get a feel for the sysadmin side of things, knowing the kind of stuff covered in the RHCE exams couldn't hurt. Those certs are expensive, so I wouldn't suggest actually getting them (unless somebody pays for it), but if you're already competent at the low-level bits then flipping through an exam study guide should take you at most a weekend. More like a few hours if you know the core concepts and skip the GUI bits.

Then when you have to make a package out of your application, or write a network service that does enterprise-grade authentication, you won't be lost knowing where to start. The actual knowledge contained isn't very much, and you'll have done things like configured Apache and samba - so you can emulate those services when making your own applications.

I just got A+ certified last month.

Back in May I was in the same boat; wanted to take A+ classes through continuing Ed but just missed the boat, so I did self study instead. It honestly wasn't bad, and I feel like I still learned a TON. I know you said you want a classroom environment but I would encourage you to consider self study. I used a combination of this book and this guy's A+ videos/quizzes and ended up passing both exams after about 3 months of studying

Yes, Michael Jang's book - RHCSA/RHCE, this book is not cheap BUT it may be one of the best I have ever used. I've almost finished this and am hoping to try for my red hat cert in December. The book is literally step by step. http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-RHCE-Red-Linux-Certification/dp/0071765654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414968544&sr=8-1&keywords=michael+jang+rhcsa

I also don't really enjoy coding. I got into the industry by studying for (and not quite passing) the Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator exam. Took me a year on my own to get through this prep book cover to cover (note that the current version for the current test is here, though.) Of note, I only had about a year's worth of linux experience when I started studying. At that point, I had: stood up a basic LAMP stack, implemented Apache and Postfix/Courier/Roundcube. At the time I was working as a (not so successful) photographer, and my goal at that time was to create a web hosting company that would let models host their website portfolios and send/receive IMAP email through their own domains. A month after I got the whole platform running, a little site came along called https://www.modelmayhem.com/ . Oops. I'm still super glad I did; working as an infrastructure engineer is the most rewarding job I've ever had.

Anyway, I'm just saying that you don't have to be a programming guru, but you'd do well to at least master bash, and become intermediate in one scripting language (I usually recommend python.)

If you use Mike Meyers book

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-1001-220-1002/dp/1260454037/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=comptia+a%2B&qid=1572642240&sprefix=Compti&sr=8-3

And watch

Professor Messer's free video series its basically a guaranteed win IMO. That's true for A+ Security + Network +.

https://www.professormesser.com/free-a-plus-training/220-1001/220-1000-training-course/

I'm undefeated with that strategy.

Both are required for the A+ cert. They split it because it covers too much information for one test. My personal feelings are that the 1002 subject area is much easier than the 1001.

Professor Messer provides free videos on his youtube that break down every chapter.

Mikey Myers (not the Canadian comedian/actor) has a great all in one book.

ExamCampass has free tests for the 901 902 and 1001 1002. The 901 and 902 are out dated but still provided decent testing for a free resource.

Sure, I used the well known books from Michael Jang, both the RHCSA/RHCE one and the one containing the practice exams and virtual machines, I also used this resource sometimes, it contains useful information in a clear way.

Hope this helps!

Linux, I assume?

Studying for the RHCSA is a pretty good way to learn the basics of *nix administration. This book could be helpful.

You could also read through this PDF to get a handle on the fundamentals before branching out to deeper stuff.

Cisco has a nice guide for networking basics here.

SysAdmin work is a fairly broad field, so I couldn't really think of any catch-all guides to cover most of what you'd potentially need to know. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a breadth of nice beginning tutorials like programming does. So, you're more than likely going to lean heavily on reading, hands-on experience, and your Google-fu to fill in the blanks. It may seem overwhelming at first but once you get the core concepts down, things start to snap into place. Trial-by-fire tends to be the ultimate learning method that most of us had to go through in order to really learn any of it.

Some useful subs:

• r/sysadmin
  
• r/linuxadmin
  
• r/linux
  
• r/networking
  
• r/devops

Please take a look at these resources. They have been outstanding so far!
http://www.rhatcertification.com/

He has a complete video course (~$150 with discount)

Sander also has a partially completed book (pdf) for RHCSA/RHCE costing only $16 and will provide updates.

His book IS going to be published and can be pre-ordered (~$40) on amazon.com =
http://www.amazon.com/RHCE-RHCSA-Cert-Guide-Certification/dp/0789754053/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420367281&sr=1-1

The video tutorial is great! I signed up for the lab environment and contact hours. I'll be starting that in a day or two after registration is completed.

That's odd because it would appear the same book in the US is highly rated and is sold by Amazon at a reasonable price. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119021219/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_a5YIwb8AZR6WN

I'm currently about 30% of the way thru it and let me tell you it is very tightly packed with information and doesn't explain concepts in a way that's appropriate for a noob but that's fine because if did it would be 5x longer. Over all, more than half of the book talks about commands and their switches and is therefore a very dry read and involves a lot of rote memorization. I recommend making yourself a lot of flashcards. I've already made myself 380 or so, and at the current rate I'll easily have over 1,000 by the time I am done.

At my current rate of progress I expect to spend about 4-6 weeks working my way thru the book and studying my flash cards before I take the exams.

I used Meyers' All-In-One book for 800 series, very good and looks great on a shelf too -.-

Comes with a free pdf copy so you can put in on your ereader too, much more convenient to carry around. Oh and there are practice exams and some video training with it too.

For a book, I highly recommend CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition (Exams 220-901 & 220-902) 9th Edition

For best overall source of study material, I highly highly recommend
Professor Messer's CompTIA 220-901 and Professor Messer's CompTIA 220-902 A+ Certification Training Course playlists on Youtube. You could use this as your sole resource if you wanted to.

1. Download the Comptia exam objectives
   
   https://www.comptia.org/training/resources/exam-objectives
   
   ​
   
   ​
   
   
2. Pick a video training company, or go with Professor Messer
   
   Two vidoe training companies:
   
   IT pro tv
   
   CBT Nuggets
   
   The training companies have education coaches, virtual labs, and practice tests. The education coaches will help you reach your certification goals. Both providers have free trials
   
   
3. Get a book for the exam:
   
   I suggest Mike Meyers book, and the exam cram book.
   
   Links below:
   
   Mike's book
   
   https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X
   
   Exam cram:
   
   https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-220-901-220-902-Exam-Cram/dp/0789756315
   
   ​
   
   
4. Get a practice test
   
   check out measure up.
   
   https://www.measureup.com/
   
   ​
   
   When you do study make sure you use material that is for the latest exam. Comptia updates the exam every once in awhile, and the material that is tested on the exam changes.
   
   See if any friends on family have any old PCs you can take apart. You might be able to get one from a Computer repair shop.

<shamelessplug>

The best book for LX0-103/104 is: https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Linux-Guide-Certification/dp/1305107160

Trust me, it's worth the money ;-)

</shamelessplug>

My main source was the CompTIA Linux+ Study Guide: Exam LX0-103 and Exam LX0-104

CompTIA Linux+

However just make sure you know all of your commands/command line tools as well as the popular switches used with them. (Memorize them)


As well I went thru the Cybrary Course though it really doesn't have much content, it's just a quick overview of things.

I studied the Exam Objectives of the LPIC-1 101 and 102 on LPI since LPI and CompTIA came together on this cert I figured it would help. In which it did.

I recommend using both https://linuxacademy.com/ AND Jang's book https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Guide/dp/0071765654. Personally, I completed LA first and then worked through the entirety of the RHCSA section in the book, being sure to do every single lab and exercise along the way while also taking handwritten notes.

Using the above, I earned my RHCSA last month. Currently studying for the RHCE with the same two resources and study strategy. Good luck!

I've been using this book. If you join the rhel channel here in reddit, you will see a lot of people recommend it. RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Certification Study Guide, Seventh Edition (Exams EX200 & EX300) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071841962/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_sLY2Bb0ZTNBMM

Good luck.

This book is pretty much a RHEL bible:

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962

Great resource.

The exams give you some of the foundation blocks for a lot of the more advanced stuff. I think they are worth it.

Mike Meyers' book is also a great resource. It's a big book but it covers everything on both exams in deep detail. Once it gets closer to exam time there are all sorts of websites out there with practice exams for you to gauge how close you are to being ready. DO NOT USE THE PRACTICE EXAMS TO STUDY!!!! Another thing I like to do when taking practice exams is to not only choose the right answer, I go through all the other possible answers and explain why they are wrong. That helps if the question is oddly worded or if you didn't notice at first that it had multiple correct answers.

>I am pretty good with computers

There you go! Dedicate as much free time as you have to studying to get an A+ Certification, then start searching around for local IT/Helpdesk jobs. Once you're in and get some experience, there is all sorts of room for promotion. It all depends on the time and effort you put into it.

As far as what/where to study, there are a ton of resources out there. Professor Messer has a whole series of totally free videos for not only A+ certification, but most of the other major certifications as well. You should also pick up this book as it covers just everything you'll need to know for the exam plus a lot more.

I got my RHCE certs pretty easily with Michael Jang's excellent book.

I know this will probably get downvoted however the Comptia Linux+ certification will give you a lot of information when it comes to Linux that will apply to a lot of different distros for someone new. Load up a VM and run all the commands it suggests and if you are feeling pretty confident try for the cert!

My job is requiring more hands on with Linux/Open source so im starting with the Linux+ and then seeing if I can get my company to pay for something like the RHCSA. I have been working with Linux for a while now, however I have been picking up some things I didnt know going through the Linux+ book.

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/certification/rhcsa

I am using this book right now

http://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Linux-Powered-Professional-Institute/dp/1119021219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452174296&sr=8-1&keywords=linux%2B


Also check out the reddit linux sub

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/

If you can get your hands on a PDF of this guys text, you'll be glad to did. Well written, well structured, easy to digest and thorough.

It might be worth it for you to pick up a good study guide for the new material to give you a better idea of what has and has not changed. I have a copy of this one, it's very well laid out and covers a lot of ground.

If you are looking for a good foundation in computers then read up on the comptia A+ certification.
https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/a

This will give you a basis to build on for almost anything in technology. Here is a good book to get started.

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540790156&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=a%2B&dpPl=1&dpID=51Vogw4seHL&ref=plSrch

If programming and computer science is what you are after the I suggest this book.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_21?k=python+programming+an+introduction+to+computer+science%2C+3rd+ed&sprefix=python+programming+an&crid=25229NYRVDMH6

It is a good book to learn programming from to get a start.

There is an all in one A+ book on amazon (https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X)
This book is a good read through for general concepts - read it quickly, don't go super hardcore study mode on this book, its quite long. This along with professor messer (free, google it)after quickly reading through was all I used to get my A+.

If you have some knowledge of computers and perhaps built your own you could be ready for a helpdesk role already. I know all I had was "customer service" and some basic technical knowledge before I got my first job. Just be sure to word your customer service skills as if you were on the phone doing customer service - since this may be a large portion of the job. Asides from that - google common helpdesk interview questions, their answers, and then google the specific terms like dhcp and dns to understand how they work.

"Free" material outside of raw experience may be hard to come by. You can prepare for practically any test scenario on a RHEL server by downloading and utilizing Centos as an operating system, which would be free. To the same tune you can sign up and download as a RH developer and get a free copy of RHEL Workstation.

The objectives for the exam can be found on the RH site for the exam: https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex200-red-hat-certified-system-administrator-rhcsa-exam#Objectives

Other training options include purchasing a book, people really like Michael Jang's guide, or enrolling in the RH124, 134, 200 classes to prepare for the exam.

This option is $22 for Kindle version of Meyers book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019HX5EOM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_NPJwBb5D89824

Download a free sample and see if you like it.

You can also listen to it and it will turn pages for you if you have iOS or Android phone:

Check these links for setting up the audio feature:.

https://youtu.be/BxrkYFd63E8

https://youtu.be/0mXkme9abiU

If you like the features of the digital version, buy it and with the savings you can afford Messer's notes too!!

glad to hear it.

btw, here:

clicky A+
clicky Net+
clicky Sec+ <--careful, this test is being updated soon, the next version should be coming out in late 2017, with exam guides dropping early 2018. This specific book will be outdated, though still a fantastic resource. Might want to hold off if you're serious about taking the Sec+ exam until the next version, this one comes out.

grab a hardcover copy and start learning!

I can at least vouch for two books I used to help pass mine.

This one I found to be very thorough, but also can be a bit of a slog to read if you're starting from scratch. While not as in depth this one helped me with some parts I was fuzzy on, as it put it into much simpler terms. Also for practice tests I can definitely recommend total seminars.

Depends how familiar you are with Linux in general, the content isn't too bad if you have familiarity with any flavor of Linux and can use vi/vim. If you're able to use some work time to study or you dedicate a lot of your free time to studying it can definitely be done in 2 months.

​

Did you check out the objectives to see what you think you might have down and what you need to study? I haven't used Red Hat's training but Sander Van Vugt's book (granted this is for RHEL 7, most exams are for 8 at this point and his book on 8 isn't out yet) has some good pre-chapter Do I Know This Already quizzes and post-chapter review and labs, plus practice exams.

You can get your certification in about 30 days depending on what knowledge your already have now if you really buckle down and take this serious.

• Read Ch1 Mike Meyers book
  
  
• Watch the corresponding videos on YouTube by Professor Messer. Messer's videos are in order of the CompTIA exam objectives not the book, so you'll have to jump around a bit.
  
  
• Do the practice questions at the end of Ch1. Don't just figure out the answer to the question, but instead be able to explain why the other answers are incorrect. Try to create a question for each possible answer - this turns 20 questions into 80. Re-Read any portion of the chapter you have struggled with. You should be getting 90% or higher on the practice questions
  
  
  
• Repeat steps with the remaining chapters of the book.
  
  
  
• Take the practice exam at the end of the book.
  
  
  
• Based on your results of the practice exam, re-study the portions of the book you struggled with. TechExams has additional study material/practice tests. So does Skillset. Take as many practice tests as you can. Again you should be shooting for 90% or better.
  
  
• this is a great book too.
  
  More info here
  
  
  Do a chapter a day and you'll finish the Mike meyers book in 30 days or less if you read more.

I used the Mike Meyers Passport A+ book along with Professor Messer (youtube) for that as well. Those along with some practice exams/studying any wrong questions will give you a better understanding of the fundamentals of computers/operating systems and how it plays a role in a modern environment. Also it just helps with better studying habits.

I also suggest to be hands on while reading the book for some sections (like when they show you the inside of a desktop, have an unused/unneeded computer available so you can tinker around). Be hands on and write extra notes in a note book so you can really take in what you're learning and begin to apply what you learn on a daily basis.

book

Pretty much the defacto for Red Hat training. The best part is that much of it can be transferred to other Linux variants.

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Guide/dp/0071765654

Awesome! I'm feeling more and more confident about this now! I'll most likely attempt a networking certification through CompTIA as well, but later on. I believe you're referring to the book that I saw on Amazon:

CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition (Exams 220-901 & 220-902)

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/125958951X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_nTIlybCJWQ4J1

It's the one I was considering buying, but I saw 2015 somewhere on the page and didn't know if it was still applicable.

I used this book: https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Linux-Powered-Professional-Institute/dp/1119021219

Worked good enough with questions after each chapter. Pretty ok to do the 60 questions multiple choice exam back in december 2016.

I think you can only still take the test for 6 at the kiosk locations, which are more limited so depending where you're at you may have to take the 7 test anyways.

I think the Jang bookhttp://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-RHCE-Red-Linux-Certification/dp/0071765654/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415830084&sr=8-2&keywords=jang is still a good resource, especially if you want to get a good foundation of preparation, just keep in mind you'll need to also familiarize yourself with the changes in 7.

This has some useful information: http://www.certdepot.net/rhel7/

http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Certification-Nutshell-Adam-Haeder/dp/0596804873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314231504&sr=8-1

I never got any of the certs but I like this book, it is a good reference

Most people will recommend starting with the CompTia A+ Certification. I'd also recommend it, I really believe it helped me get my first IT job.

After A+ you'll probably get a lot of different opinions and really depends on what niche of IT you want to go into. Having said that I'd recommend going for the CompTia Trifecta and going for Network+ and Security+ before moving on to vendor specific certs.

This material helped me the most in studying for A+:

CompTia A+ Certification All-in-One

This Udemy course

Use Linux as a daily driver, figure how to do the shit you wanna do and it'll be a lot easier. Then read this.

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Linux-Study-Guide-LX0-101/dp/1118531744

Im looking to buy the videos / practice exams for A+. Should i just buy the practice exams if i plan on using messors videos? Or should i watch both?

Im just trying to gain more efficiency here.

Edit:
Also is this the book i need for the course?

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X

All credit to /u/ArchivisX as this is a copy paste from a saved thread:

Get into IT. The quickest route is probably to self-study yourself into an RHCE. Less than $100 in books, $400 in certs, and 2-3 months of your time and you could pick up an RHCE. If you're not making $60k on that alone, you'll pick up $40k with ease and be making $60k at your next job within 1-2 years. You'll be making $80-100k with 3-5 years experience depending on where you live/move.

If you look on Amazon, you'll find Michael Jang writes some of the best material out there, able to get you from zero to passing the exam, with labs and all.
http://www.amazon.com/Certification-Practice-Virtual-Machines-Second/dp/007184208X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435195588&sr=1-4&keywords=michael+jang+rhce
This is an example of one of his books. The last one I picked up was for the RHCE on RHEL 6. Red Hat only allows people to certify on 7 now. I would look for Michael Jang's books on RHEL 7 for the RHCE/RHCSA tests (RHCE is greater than RHCSA).
His books generally include a disc that has lab materials on them. The lab materials can be done within CentOS (about 99% identical to Red Hat and when doing the labs). CentOS is free. You can load it as a lightweight VM in Oracle Virtualbox (also free). So aside from the book, the OS, the VM, etc., is all free. Legit free, not pirated free.
Once you're ready to certify, you can go to Red Hat's website and local for a testing center. It cost me $400 + travel (90 minutes to the closest center for me) to get my cert. But why RHCE? Why not some other route? Because Linux Admins are in demand. I have no degree. I've never been to college. All I have are some certs and some experience and I get probed by recruiters daily by e-mail (non-spam, individual), and weekly by phone call. I haven't had a soft offer of less than $80k in over a year. By soft offer, I mean, a ball-park figure of salary being discussed at the first point of contact. I can usually negotiate $90-100k out of most places.
I'm willing to personally walk someone through getting started if a person is willing to go through the steps to learn, order themselves one of the books I listed and begin the process of going through the material. It is dry. It is boring. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but if you can understand everything in his book(s) to pass the RHCE, I know you're capable of doing 90% of what it takes to be a Linux Admin.
The exam consists of you sitting in an actual lab, with a camera watching over you. You're given a set of tasks to complete. There are no questions. You have no idea if you're right or wrong. When you finish the exam, you're given a score which may as well be as good as pass or fail, because it doesn't tell you where or how you fucked up, but if you follow that book, you'll be able to pass.

Good Luck OP

Red Hat RHCSA/RHCE 7 Cert Guide: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (EX200 and EX300) (Certification Guide) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0789754053/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_iKXFAbWY8CJKH

Sander Van Vugt has a great book that covers rhcsa and RHCE. I used them both to get my RHCE. Not really for beginners. You'll have to do a lot of researching to figure things out not covered in the book. Also plural sight is great video site with some Linux trainings. Linux academy is a great resource too but I think it's a bit pricey after the trial ends.

I believe they removed the Linus System Administration Essentials course. The Linux Foundation Edx page only show these two courses.

I think the industry standard is still RHCSA/RHCSE which might be cheaper than the Linux Foundation Course. Going for RHCSA is $400 USD for the exam, and you can probably attain the training material for about 60-70 USD.

I think going for RHCSA would better suit anyone who might want to pursue a career in Linux Admin work because the name would get picked up by HR filters or listings. Whereas the LS cert is still new and not really recognized by many companies.

This book, and the practice companion is about $30 USD each.

Or has there been a shift where Linux Foundation certs aremore valued over RedHat certs?

While a great deal of the replies you will receive will be along the lines of 'install this' I would recommend something else.

Sure choose a distro and install it but I'd suggest you do that first as VM under Virtual Box..

Then go to Edx: Introduction to Linux and learn about the OS and why things are the way they are. It's a basic intro and one I would recommend to all beginners.

If you are considering dual booting backup all your data and save a copy of your Windows registry. Just in case it all goes wrong.

You may also find a copy of this very useful -> LPIC-1

Professor Messer is great. But I would also recommend this book.
https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/

while i agree with pauly there, if you wanted an actual book I feel mike meyes all in one does a great job at going over the exam objectives

There are a lot of different ways to get in, and the only real requirements are reading comprehension and knowing how to use google.

Here's what I did: Read this book, took the A+ 801 and 802 on the same day, and applied for tech support jobs. I landed a decent phone tech support job with my second interview. Start to finish, it took about a month. I only made $15/hour to start with.

I immediately started using linux as my daily OS on all of my personal devices, and my skills really started to take off. After a year, I got a raise to 42k. Then I jumped to devops and started at 55k. I've increased my salary by roughly 10k every year ever since.

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I would start with Comp TIA A+ Certification.

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X

It's all the hardware inside and how it works, networking, and security. There are a ton of books with varying levels of detail and knowledge once you become familiar with the basics.

Definitely go with RHCE. It's a hands-on lab exam vs. LPIC which is multiple-choice. If you can pass it, you prove that you actually know your way around a Linux system.

I strongly recommend this book.

www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Edition/dp/0071765654/

I used it to it brush-up the last time I re-certed, and I've given it to two people who both passed their RHCSA on the first shot, and one who went on to pass his RHCE.

I have ordered these two books.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/111821854X/ref=pe_385040_30332200_TE_item

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071765654/ref=pe_385040_30332200_TE_item

I read some of the linux bible in a pdf and really enjoyed it so decided to order the two books.

I have also picked up the centOS CBT nugget videos and will VM it at home and hopefully in a couple of months I will know whats going on in RH.

Woof, that's a whole lot of questions, here's some answers!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompTIA/comments/9yieto/general_exam_tips_and_tricks/

Me personally, don't look at the whole of the cert, it's a mountain, take it one step at a time.

Also, the current edition of the A+ is going to be replaced shortly(start of the year) and there is a grace period of about 6 months. I would very much focus on the new edition, the 1001 and the 1002. My philosophy is this, whatever new stuff shows up on the 100x, you can't change the info you learn from the 90x series. a USB port on the 90x is going to be the same on the 100x, understand? https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/a#buyoptions

Also, just review some of the free options for study, but be prepared to throw some money out there for study materials https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542683036&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+meyers

I used Linuxacademy (the labs were great),

this book (mainly for review):

RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Certification Study Guide, Seventh Edition (Exams EX200 & EX300) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071841962/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_APKGAb828V3VF

And this video series right before the test to get the feel for it:

http://www.sandervanvugt.com/course/red-hat-certified-system-administrator-exam-prep-video-workshop-download/

All that plus labbing and I was able to knock it out. Good luck!

Go get Mike Jang's book on RHCSA/RHCE - If you can do everything listed in the first 9 chapters of that book without much thought, you will pass most entry level interviews.

Once you have basics, script everything you can in bash. Once you've done that, go learn ansible or puppet or chef. Turn all your scripts into runbooks. Once you've done that, recode it all to Python.

More advanced stuff: Learn AWS and an infrastructure as code tool like Terraform or K-Ops. Docker/K8s are also highly desired once you've got the above mastered.

https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Guide/dp/0071765654

Source: I screen candidates for my current department and will hire you for T1 if you have the basics listed above. T2 and T3 people need to know more code. My SREs need to know pure CI/CD and infra as code with containers.

I would try CLI the hard way first. Pretty good intro to command line. Then I would read The Linux Command Line or study for Linux+.

If you want to get into sys admin, or a linux job never hurts to go Linux all the way. I would say Linux+, Network+, RHCSA, and CCNA can help you go a long way. If you like Linux getting RHCE will open more doors. You don't necessarily need to get all of these certs but it helps your knowledge and what people will quiz you on the phone. At one point I was doing about 2-3 phone interviews a week that would just ask about 20-30 random Network, Linux, Windows, and basic trouble shooting questions.

The only thing I did was go through this book, write a bunch of notes to memorize commands/options I didn't know and practice on a VM. It's a pretty easy test though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Certification_Program

The industry standard is Red Hat. Get this book and study with your own box set up with either CentrOS, (the free Red Hat) or Scientific Linux (which is very much like Red Hat).

Book: https://www.textbooks.com/BooksDescription.php?BKN=1086948&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=9780071765657M&utm_source=googleshopping&kenshu=1e3e3c71-be9a-ff29-daae-000061e4f6c4&gclid=COinsr3-3LgCFWZk7AodzwIAeA

or
http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Edition/dp/0071765654

After you have done this, and proved to yourself that this is what you want, there are plenty of pay for training, exams and certifications to spend your money on.

Get your RHCSA and then your RHCE. For learning/study resources I recommend LinuxAcademy along with Jang's book (https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962). Even studying for and getting your RHCSA will teach you a bunch of fundamental Linux skills. RH certifications are also among the more respected certs in the industry.

Stop using Ubuntu, its not wildly different to RedHat but there are quite a few differencess (you may get confused if you're using both) use Centos instead. I suggest you buy a RHCSA & RHCE book. I've got this one which is pretty good -http://www.amazon.co.uk/RHCSA-RHCE-Red-Enterprise-Linux/dp/1495148203

Lol what?

Dude, you don't need any fucking classes to start out in IT

You can buy textbooks and earn certs while spending minimum amounts of money

Do not sign up for some fucking ridiculous 23k course. That's insane.

This field is so beautiful because you can dive in without any student debt whatsoever, don't hamstring yourself by going into debt like that

If you want an entry level job, go buy the A+ cert book on amazon

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549500043&sr=8-1&keywords=a%2B

Maybe do network+ too(that's the path i started out with so I'm biased I suppose).

You're talking like less than 50 bucks for the textbooks and then a couple hundred bucks for the tests(total), and with those 2 certs you can easily get an entry level help desk job and start working your way up.

It beats the fuck out of manual labor, that's for sure

> what is the best distro for this

You will get a lot of answers based upon a lot of opinions with that question. But if you want to be practical, go for CentOS (which is just a Redhat clone) as Redhat is one of the most widely used distros in the corporate IT world.

If you can do everything in the first 9 chapters in this book without much thought, you will be ready for your first full Linux Admin role. It's designed to help you get RHCSA but everything in it is hands on and very practical.

Go through the AWS Certified SysOps course over at acloud.guru, and get an RHCSA and maybe an RHCE through Michael Jang. Might take you a few months but that should be enough to get you interviewing for a Junior Linux Admin role successfully and start making the switch.

I used this for my study and passed with a great score. http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Guide/dp/0071765654

Check out Mike Meyers [901 & 902 set][1].

Also, I've heard some great things about CompTIA's [Cert Master][2] program.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X "901 & 902 set"
[2]: http://www.comptiastore.com/CompTIA-CertMaster-for-A-License-Set-p/cm220set.htm "Cert Master"

The Mike myers book is great if a bit wordy and half the price.

I see. I was looking at buying this book I figure it would be a good read as well.

Book One

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165

You won't need book two until you start looking at cloud based deployments or have a need for scalability.

There are a number of books for RHCSA I personally found Michael Jang's to be more digestible but that is more of a personal preference. I'd see if a local B&N has either and see which looks better if its an option. Also be aware that if you do intend to go for the cert; Redhat will be upgrading their exam to use the newer version of the Redhat distro which would make some of the material less relevant.

https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/

Not sure how basic you are wanting to go but before programming, maybe look at some of the more popular A+ certification books. Not saying you need this specific book but this is just an example of A+ book: https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495601834&sr=8-1&keywords=comptia+a

All depends on how much time you put into studying and how quickly you pick it up. Then the harder part would be finding your first job after that, as you just need someone to give you a chance. You'll be competing against lots of other people for the same positions, so how quickly you could make the switch likely will depend on your interviewing skills and how you tweak your resume (i.e. by emphasizing the computer-related aspects of your current position). I'd pay close attention to how you do throughout the studying process if you go this route to make sure you are even interested in it. Switching careers to something you do not enjoy any better will just make life more difficult, so keep that in mind.

Some good study sources to get you started:

Study guide:
http://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/

Professor Messor A+ videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG49S3nxzAnmlC1ZsppuM7yleDuYCMHrv
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG49S3nxzAnmLq5TLtC0udUaXSaRiPc4v

Everyone is pointing you at programming primers.... instead of that, how about the LPIC study guides. They cover all of the basics without getting too pedantic about the inner workings of shell scripts. Once you get the basics, then.. then look into mastering shell.

The LPIC 1 study guide is actually an excellent place to get stated with Linux

For my Linux course that I teaching, I really like the textbook we are using by Jason Eckhart. Besides the projects that are included in the book, there is a lab manually as well. Of course, these are considered to be textbooks, so the price is outRAGEous. If I had got to actually plan this class I would have choose a different set of books. If you shop around, you can usually find them for fairly cheap. I found the lab manual for $18 on Ablebooks.

For non-textbooks you can look at the Sybex study guide and work book. I've used the Sybex Workbook for the A+ many years ago and found it to be helpful.

Don't listen to the useless advice that says just keep installing and smashing your head against the keyboard until you learn something. Follow a course that gives you a study guide and an organized approach to the topic and you will faster, and better.

The topics are presented in a logical order that build upon each other.

Study for the RHCSA and go get it. The bonus is at the end of the day you can also get a job with it.

Resources (these two should be all you need):

https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468515373&sr=1-1&keywords=rhcsa+7

https://linuxacademy.com/

The newest series is $35 on Amazon. I also really like the Exam Cram book.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1260454037/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

The more popular book around for learning Linux is going to be the UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook found here: https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0134277554/ref=dp_ob_title_bk. If you are specifically looking to learn about everything CentOS or RHEL, my personal preference is to get this book here: https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-RHCE-Cert-Guide-Certification/dp/0789754053 which includes modules that you can complete as you read the guide (and it prepares you for the certification if you want to get it). The author of the book uses CentOS since they are basically the same OS (and it's free). My $0.02 on the matter.

I actually knew the 800 exams were retired. I was planning on getting either this or this, which are both study guides for the 901 and 902 exams. Which one do you recommend on getting?

>The instructor for the class told us to just init 5 when we get to a terminal and use the GUI for everything and we'd sail through it. But, I never got there because I got locked out with no root password, and didn't think that'd be the first thing they served up.

was this a certified RHEL trainer or some 3rd party random " I know linux" class? Because init its gone and changing the number in init does not boot you into root no more. With systemd its a little more complicated process. Red Hat does not even test on version 6 no more. Check out https://www.certdepot.net/ they have listed the process very well. This book is good too https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Seventh-Career/dp/0071841962/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491878007&sr=1-1&keywords=red+hat

Michael Jang's book is a good start.

Or just go look up the Exam requirements at Red Hat's website and self-study.

it's good for getting your foot in the door as a basic repair tech or helpdesk.

AFAIK Mike Meyer's book has been, and still is, the gold standard for books:
https://smile.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497277667&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+meyers+comptia+a

Michael Jang's study guide and the companion practice exams with VMs.
http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Edition/dp/0071765654
http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Certification-Practice-Virtual-Machines/dp/007180160X

The second book has some nice practice tests once you've covered everything.

This sub, but also this book. Goes in to good detail, and doesn't bore you to death. Explains a lot on hardware, and believe is a must read for all who build computers to truly understand what each piece of hardware does.

https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502133612&sr=8-1&keywords=a+certification

Sander van Vugt's book for RHCSA 8 is coming out on December 23th, this is what amazon says on their site :

https://www.amazon.com/Red-RHCSA-Cert-Guide-Certification/dp/0135938139/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=rhcsa+8&qid=1573059203&s=digital-text&sr=1-1-catcorr

​

You can also check out Red Hat Certs Slack Workspace that you can ask for help if you stuck with something.

I would read CompTIA A+ Certification by Mike Meyers. It will explain most of the basics and help you with your job.

It all depends on what kind of personal experience you've had. Most people would find the A+ to be easiest. It requires 2 exams (220-901 and 220-902) on a wide variety of topics such as hardware, networking, mobile devices, and security, but it doesn't go too deep into any particular topic.

You can use the Professor Messer videos on Youtube, Mike Myers' book, and the practice tests at examcompass.com and crucialexams.com to prepare.

Even more curious, that the book has been updated recently.