Anselm Lingnau wrote: > There's probably nothing wrong with using Debian GNU/Linux 8.x, which has the > added advantage that it can be configured to use either systemd or System-V > init, both of which are required for the LPIC-1 exams.
I was trying to balance the version with multi-arch, without going too new with too new of stuff. It _never_ hurts to learn on _both_ Debian and Ubuntu LTS. > CentOS is probably the easiest one to obtain from among these, It _never_ hurts to learn on both a RHEL compatible (more follows) and SLES (e.g., trial). In the case of RHEL ... I have a lot of North American colleagues who are going for both the LPIC-1 and RHCSA, so I usually recommend the US$99/year RHEL Developer Subscription. [1] It includes several add-ons not always rebuilt by CentOS -- let alone are _broken_ with Fedora EPEL (as EPEL builds the newer packages, not the Red Hat Enterprise sustained packages) -- as well as Extended Update Support (EUS) and full Customer Access Portal information, things that really differentiate when you're trying to find a job. I.e., most employers in North American that pay for "RHEL compatible" knowledge typically expect people to know their way around Red Hat's Subscriptions and Support. So it's worth it to learn it. > and YUM is sort-of a second-class citizen on SUSE systems > (which on the other hand bring along all sorts of extra baggage one probably > doesn't really want to be distracted by when preparing for LPIC-1)/ > Hence my choice would probably be: > - Debian GNU/Linux 8.x for apt/dpkg, systemd and System-V init > - CentOS 6.x for rpm/yum I have setup all four (4) VMs in my portable RHEV farm. > I totally concur with Bryan in that if you're preparing for an LPIC exam, > virtualisation is your friend. This applies not just to trying different > distributions (by all means look at others from the list just to get a feel of > what they are like) but also to being able to construct more complex lab > setups that would be a hassle to piece together on physical hardware. > I personally like VirtualBox because it is free, offers a wide range of > networking and other I/O options, can easily be scripted, Er, um, libvirtd is even more easily scripted. ;) I've also done a lot of VirtualBox v. QEMU/KVM tests and been extremely disappointed with the former's "reliability." > and allows straightforward “cloning” of VMs which is very convenient > when setting up networking scenarios involving multiple > similar-but-not-identical > machines. Obviously you've never used RHEV. ;) I.e., it's not just a "HyperVisor" or a "Player" with a single system "GUI setup." It's a fully managed virtualization solution -- 1 Manager (like vSphere) + X HyperVisor boxes (like ESXi). I.e., right down to plugging in the USB RHEV-H dongle, entering a few basic items (or even network provisioned), and letting RHEV-M update it from time to time. It's KVM + oVirt + all sorts of other things ... in a fully evolved stack, in a minimal footprint Enterprise Linux. Most people hve tried a "piecemeal" oVirt -- likely atop of CentOS -- and came away with "mixed feelings." One of these days we'll likely see the CentOS team fully rebuild RHEV so it's the full, Enterprise stack. After all ... the first thing I deal with when I teach OpenStack are those who say, "We're going to replace VMware [ESX/vSphere] with OpenStack!" I immediately have to say, "What you're more likely looking for is RHEV[-H/-M]." SIDE NOTE: CoreOS is doing similar for Containers, and is even lighter-weight than RHEL Atomic Host, although Red Hat has its DevOps solution in OpenShift (but that's getting away from sysadmin type training). > (The other virtual machine environments are probably also very nice indeed.) I prefer a fully managed environment. Unfortunately, as I said, there's no "free, full stack RHEV" yet from CentOS. What you end up doing is piecemeal building CentOS + oVirt + other things. It's not nearly as nice'n easy out-of-the-box. Hopefully Hughes et al. will get there. -- bjs _______________________________________________ lpi-examdev mailing list [email protected] http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev
