[lug] System Administration - First Dive?

[Maxwell Spangler]

On Tue, 2011-04-19 at 19:12 -0600, Erik Lenderman wrote:
> Hello, 
> 
> I am primarily familiar with the basic GUI of Linux home OS's, but I
> am interested in exploring a career in system administration and
> beyond.  I would like to learn how one could best acquire the
> knowledge and skills necessary for developing a Unix/Linux expertise.
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A lot of us who have been using Linux and Unix some years would argue
that to truly appreciate and master *nix systems you need to get beyond
the GUI desktop tools.

Many of us learned Unix before Linux and we did so in more primitive
environments where you had to learn the fundamentals first.  So we spent
plenty of time working with shells, typing commands, writing scripts,
and getting comfortable with the omnipresent editor, vi.

If you do this -- if you set aside the GUI and try things the 'hard way'
-- it will either scare you away, bore you, or introduce you to a very
elegant and powerful side of Linux that offers great rewards.

I would specifically recommend:

* Learn enough vi to do basic editing on files.  Just basic editing so
you could open any file and make some simple changes.

* Start studying scripting to understand how commands can be gathered
together to do more complex chores.  This will teach you scripting but
also introduce you to the individual commands involved and how scripting
methods are used to link them together.  This is the sorcery of
Linux/Unix systems.

* Start exploring how things work behind the scenes.  Read about
start-up scripts and how important the many text based configuration
files are in *nix systems.  Things are open in Linux and you can change
them to make things happen in ways you can't on closed systems hidden by
GUI frontends.


Think Unix came out about ten years ago but does a good job of
explaining the philosophies and practices of Unix.

http://www.amazon.com/Think-UNIX-Jon-Lasser/dp/078972376X

-- 
Maxwell Spangler
========================================================================
        Linux System Administration / Computing Services
        Photography / Graphics Design / Writing
        Boulder, Colorado
        http://www.maxwellspangler.com