On 1/12/10, Jeremy C. Reed <[email protected]> wrote: > If earning the BSDA certificate has helped you professionally or > otherwise, please let us know. Please share your story.
I had had difficulty getting over the Unix hump with Linux. My workplace was a Windows environment. It seemed like the most common Linux distributions featured a default Windows like environment - Red Hat, for example. When I heard about the certification, I jumped at it. The test is cheap ($75 ?) as tests go and I liked the opportunity to attend the conferences where it was offered. The main benefit for me of the process was learning Unix from the command line. The tested items force you to do that. Did you take the > exam to advance in your career? Not really. I like Open Source software and its communities. To be part of that you really need to know something about Unix. Personal interest? Yes. How did you prepare > for it? It took me two times to pass. The first time I studied the Unix Command sheet (the link to which I can't find at the moment). I had a general idea of the names of things, but no real grasp of the concepts behind the more sysadmin intensive commands. The second time, I set up a couple old desktops with OpenBSD and NetBSD in addition to my FreeBSD laptop. I walked through the BSDWiki (http://bsdwiki.reedmedia.net/wiki/Table_of_Contents.html) in front of the three machines with particular emphasis on the two parts I really messed up the first time (Security and Networking). If I didn't understand a concept (network addressing, anyone?), I read the Wikipedia page for it and tried to get my head around it. The second time around I did a lot better - even got a perfect score on the Security part of the test. I'll never be a sysadmin, but I feel a lot more confident on the command line and I'm actually having some fun with it. What advice can you suggest for others? I'm biased toward the BSDWiki - it's a fantastic resource. Use it! > _______________________________________________ > BSDCert mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert > _______________________________________________ BSDCert mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert
