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Linux Pro's in the workplace

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mskarl:
OK I am curious how all you Linux Pro's get into Linux in you professional life's.  I'm almost 22 and work for a PLC programing company.  I went to a little well know tech school for 2 years and now have been doing PLC's for a 2 years.  

As I work in a small company I get to do allot of system admin stuff.  Well actually I get to do allot of the system admin stuff that we do in our office which isn't really anything compared to the real world.  
 
I'm interested in getting into Linux admin stuff.  I'm curious as to what the salary range's are.  Now I know it's 1k - 1000000k per year but please give me a real idea.  

Also how did you get into the job?  did you go to college for it?  As far as my beliefs are is that you don't need a CERT saying how well you can study but need to perform what you are expected.  Please give me as much information as you are able to.  

I'm very interested and have been applying myself into learning to setup a firewall (not really a good one) for the concept and Apache web server.  Since from what I can tell Linux is very much in the Web and Server world right?

badkarma:
Just two words actually in my case, "dumb luck"  

Went to college and did computer science, stopped with college for various reasons after 2 years, sat a year on my ass doing nothing and when I went looking for a job, got hired by the first company where I had an interview as a junior programmer and they (we   ) use linux (we're primarily a software shop as to a networking shop).

My advice to you is too look for a company which asks for jr's judging by your age (and without college education) and hope you get a good mentor  

voidmain:
Well, learning Linux is a great way to get a head start on learning *NIX in general. If you are good with *NIX it's not hard at all to make $100k+(US) even in lower end markets. Now it's not good to have *only* Linux on your resume so if you hurry you can still download Solaris8 x86 and play with it. Experience is worth more than anything else so don't expect to jump right in and make $100k. Doing some Linux projects may get you in the door though and *most* shops that run Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc also run Linux (even if they do it in secret).  

I happened to get my start as a mainframe programmer and took an interest in the old crappy 3B2 machine (which ran UNIX) but soon after we got some big IBM RS/6000 machines running AIX (IBM Unix) and because of my 3B2 experience I was asked if I wanted to head up administration on the RS/6000s. They didn't have to ask twice. From there I took some AIX classes although they were a waste of time as they didn't teach me anything I didn't already know.

Because of that experience I got another much higher paying job that happened to use Sparc/Solaris (Sun UNIX).  Again I took a couple of Solaris classes which were again a waste of time as I had already learned everything taught in the class on my own. In both places I brought Linux in where it made sense to do so (starting early 1993).

I guess what I am trying to say is, there is not a huge difference between the various vendor versions of *NIX. They are all much the same at their base, sure there are differences but nothing hard to pick up if you know the basics.  So if you try to learn as much as you can with Linux you'll have a great head start in becoming a *NIX systems person.  You might look into RedHat training as they offer professional training, but only if you can get someone else to pay for it (your employer). For a start I would suggest getting some O'Reilly books on UNIX/Linux Systems Administration, TCP/IP, and Shell programming.  These are the most basic things that will springboard you into other areas.

Oh yeah, a Computer Science degree helps in "some" places, however, when I hire people I could give a shit less about the degree or certifications. I've seen college edumicated and certifimicated people who are dumber than a box of rocks. If they can pass my technical interview then they have the job (some people leave crying after my technical intervew BTW.       I may ask you a simple question like "describe an inode").

Good luck!

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

dbl221:
Hehe that was a question on test last semester.  What other gems do you ask in your technical interviews?

ls -i

voidmain:

quote:Originally posted by dbl221:
Hehe that was a question on test last semester.  What other gems do you ask in your technical interviews?

ls -i
--- End quote ---


Well, I didn't mean how do you obtain the inode number of a file, but rather what *is* an inode, the definition, describe it's purpose, and it's properties.

But this would be a cool topic to start. Ask basic interview questions, answer said questions, compile a list. It would be great for both sides of the interview table. What sort of interview questions would you like? i.e. for what operating system? I can throw out questions for Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, *BSD, Windows (all versions except XP).

Say for Solaris I might ask "How would you recover from a lost root password?". Or "Describe the differences between NIS and NIS+". Or "what file determines the resolver order (name resolution order)?".  And of course you have to throw in some basic scripting questions.

Or I might get off into different RAID levels and the differences etc.  It depends on who I am interviewing and for what job and the level of expertise needed.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

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