Trying to Learn Linux

[Alyx]

So I had a job interview on Monday and they asked if I knew Linux/Unix much. I said I had a basic knowledge, enough to browse around and look at stuff but not enough to fix anything. This has spurred me into the idea of changing it so I've got a deeper understanding of the OS.

For a business setting which distros would I likely see most often? Which should I really put time into?

Any good books that you'd recommend?

Where would you start?


Edit: I did use the search feature and found a couple good threads, they didn't have everything I was looking for though. Thanks for any help!

 

[Khyron320]

Ive been in IT for 1 year and have seen:

Red Hat Enterprise server (webserver)
Suse (file server)
Fedora (webserver)
Fedora (DHCP / CMTS)
I have also seen an Asterisk box but im not sure what distro that is built on if any.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

All kinds of Fedora and Red Hat, maybe SUSE and CentOS.

 

[soonerproud]

The answer is simple really. Most businesses use Red Hat so you will want to start learning on Cent OS and Fedora. You might want to get familiar with both Suse and Ubuntu since these are making inroads into enterprise computing.

Cent OS is basically Red Hat with all the proprietary Red Hat stuff removed. Fedora is owned by Red Hat and is the bleeding edge community edition.

 

[sourceninja]

Go buy yourself a book for the LPIC-1 certification. Read it and learn it. If you can pass the practice tests, you are well on your way to be a professional support person for ANY linux distro.

 

[Kakumba]

LPIC-1 is a great suggestion, but the problem with it is that it focuses on a lot of old stuff, like how to manually configure a sound card. Doesn't hurt to know, but not something you are likely to have to do very often.. I think it is worthwhile though, and wholeheartedly recommend it.

Even better, though pricey, the Red Hat certs are well respected in my experience, and they start at a level which suits someone just starting out, moving up to quite advanced. AT least getting RHCT (Red Hat Certified Technician) is very advantageous. I would say, download Centos (5.1 is the latest, but 5.2 should be out soon), for the reason above, that it is Red Hat, but you dont need to buy a subscription. Ubuntu/ Fedora are both good distros to use at home, they are fairly easy to use, and plenty of people to help you. SuSE, from Novell is also widely used, my government department uses SuSE primarily, with Red Hat as second choice. For that, I would say OpenSuSE, as a place to start.

The main thing is to simply download VMWare Server (other VMware stuff is available, but I like and recommend Server), as its free, and allows you to play as much as you want, and if you completely destroy the OS, it doesn't matter.

The other thing, is that this only covers Linux. For Unix, the big players are AIX, HP/UX and Solaris. Solaris is a good choice, very common, gaining market share in the Unix space from what I can tell, free, and if you download Solaris 10, Sun should email you with 50% off their online courses, to get Solaris 10 certified. Well, they emailed me with that when I downloaded it earlier this month.

Hope that lot helps. I know its a lot, but thats because its a big field.