Where Do You Go For Linux Training?

Spritzer writes "I work for a rather large corporation with multiple divisions around the world. Nearly all user computers in the company are Windows systems, and there is no plan to move to Linux in the future. However, a good many of our products are now designed to run on Linux systems for security and stability purposes. Obviously, the design/development teams are knowledgeable in the use of Linux operating systems. Unfortunately my field service teams are not, and their is no in-house training program. This has begun to affect our ability to provide efficient, quality service to customers when in the field. So, we need training and would prefer to stay away from online, self-paced courses and get our people some hands on training with an instructor. What training services have you used in the past to get people trained in the basics of using?"

Where?

[Anonymous Coward]

I go to the man.

Empirically

[Eddi3]

If you really want to be proficient with an OS, the only way to really do it is through experience. In school, I took a class where I learned how to use MS Office (I've been to hell and back a few times), and after the semester, do you really think I understood how to use it?

Same goes for Linux. The only reason I know how to use it (fairly) well is because I've been using it for a few months.

I suggest you have your teams just start trying stuff and looking online (I know, I know) for reference.

Eddie

man(1)

[dos]

man(1) and their sister organizations apropos(1) and whatis(1) meet most of my training needs. Sometimes I have to go to their less organized competitor /usr/share/doc, or the overly bureaucratic info(1), but most of the time all I need is man(1), man.

I go to the man

[markov_chain]

...pages, of course!

Get to like rice

[extrasupermario]

I thought I was pretty good with dozens of system installs of Redhat 6 through 9 but it wasn't until I got through a couple of Gentoo installs that I felt my linux skill set was worth a damn. Say what you want about Gentoo but as a Linux learning tool, there is nothing better. Their documentation is first rate and much of what you learn by installing Gentoo carries over to every other Linux flavour.

You must be kidding!

[xtracto]

How can you suggest that a company which might have thousands of employees should let them train for such skill as Linux admin/setup "Empirically"? Empirical learning is OK for the mom-basement geeks which might just put their web server online. What are they going to do? are they going to give the guys 2 daily hours to mess around with some computers? uh, *great* use of time (and money).

I would definitely suggest getting some formal (read *real*) training. As others have stated in the thread, there are lots of Linux certification programs. What companies usually do (at least the ones I have been which does not have a lot of money to send 100 monkeys to learn about X or Y technology) is to choose 2 or 3 people and send them to take a course and certificate on the technology (some kind of Linux administrator cert. on http://www.lpi.org/ [lpi.org] for example) and then arrange some time to let these guys teach the other people in your place. That way you will have a structured plan of learning.

Of course you may want to have practical sessions (to "try stuff and look online") but you will know what to try and look. I can just imagine a chemist going to the laboratory to "try stuff" in order to learn about the effects of nitroglycerin when combined with different reactants...

If you are a lone consultant, sure just google your way to get this new set of knowledge (of course do not get pissed of when the guy who has the Red Hat Certified Engineer cert. gets your job...). But for big companies, you'd better get real training (to justify the time/money you will be spending).

Re:IBM

[donaldm]

There are many commercial organisations offering training in Linux and prices vary enormously, however from my personal experience I have found Redhat courses are excellent but pricey since you get both theory and hands on fault finding because the instructors do break your software and it is your job to fix it. It must be stressed that all the theory in world is not going to help you much unless you develop a comfortable attitude to faultfinding.

In my opinion the best way of learning Linux is to get a "dull bleeding edge" distribution like Fedora or even OpenSuSE and install it on a laptop. I will guarantee you are going to have issues however there are many forums that can help. In doing this you will either learn or just give up in disgust and if this is the case you can forget about the "bleeding edge" distributions which would be the next logical step after feeling comfortable with something like Fedora.

When picking a forum to subscribe to pick one that is about the same level or just a little higher (can be hard to judge) as your current expertise but please don't go to the advanced forums and bug the people there. In fairness to advanced users who will say "RTFM first" they are more interested in advanced or complex issues than trying to help a new user who wants to know how to "list files". Visualise yourself in the position of someone who has all the kids in the neighbourhood coming round to ask you how do you add 2 plus 2 and you can see why an advanced user is standoffish to new users.

Please note there are a huge number of Linux distributions, some easier and others harder to maintain. Just about all are almost boring to install. You do need to do some reading (ie RTFM before asking) and decide what path you wish to follow, keeping in mind that if one distribution does not work or is too hard for you there are many others that may be more suitable and the cost to you is minimal.

If you want to work on commercial Linux try CentOS which basically is Redhat. The latest version now has Xen setup to make virtualization much easier so you can play with more unstable distributions without having to blow away your base OS.

From what I have read and heard Ubuntu is the most stable Linux for the desktop. This is a excellent way of having a stable base OS and you can still use Xen to install and play around with other Linux distributions. I have heard that you can even install Open Solaris under Xen and this can be a very marketable skill in the future.

Re:You must be kidding!

[jguthrie]

What you're supposed to get in college is education, not training. The difference being that an education is not directed toward a specific purpose, while training is all about learning a particular set of skills. Education is supposed to increase your broad knowledge level while training is supposed to make you able to do some specific thing. My opinion is that education is important, but most training is pretty useless for me. Although other people find formal training to be quite useful, the utility I get from it lies mostly in the training materials, which I can refer to when I actually get to the point of doing real work.