I may need some help.... *nice smile*

[Freston]

I'm thinking about turning Pro on Linux. Pro as in pay the rent.


Right now I work in the public sector, Health Care to be exact. But after ten years of cut-backs and facing a complete overhaul (read: downsize) of the system, all the fun is out of it for me. _My_ job is secure, that's a plus. But we need to do more and more with less and less people. But I digress.



My main interest goes to the Operating System itself. Applications don't really interest me. I have a _lot_ to learn, I am aware of that. And I don't think I am able to learn all of it myself, so I'll have to get some training.

I love systems. And I love designing systems. I'm not much of a programmer though. Every bash script I write at least reaches an 'unexpected end of file' three times before it works.... although my largest bash script is 900+ lines (mine is bigger ) and is a working data storage and retrieval 'program'. I'm not done with it, it'll be 1200+ lines when all the planned functionality is in there. And it's fast as lightning

Now I can see myself designing (or maintaining?? Dunno if that's fun, I loose interest after something works) networks and servers and systems in the future. I'm pretty proficient on the newbie scale. But I wont qualify anywhere near 'basic knowledge' on the pro scale. So I'm wondering where to go from here.

Who has some good pointers? Similar experience? Friendly advice? Random thoughts?

[techieMoe]

The most popular Linux distributions in the US for business are Redhat Enterprise, SuSE Linux Enterprise, and to a lesser extent Mandriva and Xandros. I'd recommend you get a handle on using and maintaining systems for RHEL and SLED first.

Redhat Enterprise Linux is not available without a service contract, but there are clones available that are built from the same source code, just without the Redhat branding. My favorite of these is CentOS. If you get proficient in handling CentOS, you'll be proficient in handling RHEL.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is available for free download from Novell's website.

Linux Desktop: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop by Novell

[Freston]

Wow, ok! That was quick

I'm downloading CentOS right now. I never had much for the .rpm based systems, so I tended to neglect them in my distro hopping... except for Mandriva, and OpenSUSE 10.0, but that was a long time ago. I should take a closer look at it. Thnx!

EDIT: techieMoe, your server is down! Wanted to look at your rants