[vox] linux+ certification

[Peter Jay Salzman]

hi all,

just took the linux+ exam for shits and giggles, and as a resume
stuffer.  it was a _remarkably_ easy test.  i'd say the typical lugod
user with a year of linux use and some basic non-linux computer
knowledge would be able to pass the test with ease.  all in all, i put
in 5 hours of study, and i was WOEFULLY over prepared.  the test is 94
questions in 90 minutes.  it took me 45 minutes to not only finish the
test, but go over all the questions a 2nd time.

there was some simple non-linux questions too, like identifying scsi
ports, knowing things about 10baseT and friends, standard IRQ
assignments and BIOS related things.

there were actually two difficult parts of the test, which actually
might have required studying:

learning incorrect things
-------------------------
the most difficult part of the test was learning things that are just
plain wrong, but are "correct" as far as the test is concerned.  like
"learning" that ext3 partitions can't be resized, or if a hard drive
reports bad sectors, using the "vendor supplied diagnostic disk" rather
than first unmounting the partition and running fsck.

learning exotic things
----------------------
for example, pwunconv, grpunconv convert shadow passwords to nonshadow.
pwconv and grpconv do the opposite.  i've never run across these things,
and consider them to be the type of knowledge best left unstored in
neurons.  if i ever really needed to unshadow my system, a simple "man
-k password" or google search is MUCH preferable to committing this kind
of fluff to memory.


all in all, it was a pretty interesting experience.  the test was on
some kind of windows machine, of course.  the irony of taking a linux
certification.  but then again, comptia is NOT a friend of open source;
they're bedfellows of microsoft.

one guy in the test room appeared to be taking a microsoft
something-or-other certification.  midway through the test, he yells at
the top of his lungs "WHAT?!?!?", threw is chair down and stormed out of
the testing room.  he started yelling at the poor receptionist, who
really had nothing to do with the tests other than to say "sit here and
call me if you need anything".

i consider certifications to be mostly bogus, but as an academic-holic,
i really, really enjoy taking tests alot.  it's fun to try to try to
excel at someone else's base level agenda.  i've always been a good test
taker.  it was an enjoyable afternoon, and i got to witness some ...
interesting people (i enjoy people watching too).

anyway, it was a cool experience, and i think i'll take sair or LPI
next.  i've seen A+ and it looks pretty easy also.  sooner or later, i
plan on taking RHCE, which looks very difficult because the questions
are extremely "hand-on redhat tools" based.  i may need to install
redhat somewhere...  ;-)

pete

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