[Wylug-discuss] Linux Training

[Robert Burrell Donkin]

On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 11:24 AM, Stephen Franks <stephen at franks.org.uk> wrote:
> Hi all,

Hi

> I've been lurking on this list for a while, and now summoned the courage to
> ask a question.

Welcome, and good to hear from you :-)

> The background is that I work for a large international IT company, and do a
> lot of consulting on Microsoft AD (along with related stuff), including
> writing lots of (PowerShell) scripts. I feel I know this area very well, and
> might even be the company's most senior AD expert.
>
> I see Linux and related open source software increasing in importance, a
> trend I think will continue. I already work with open source experts on many
> projects, and I have always tried to bring together the (sometimes
> antithetic) Microsoft and open source people I work with.

(FWIW more than a few really very good open source folks are now
employed at Microsoft)

> I'd like to bring up my open source technical skills; with particular
> interest in connecting Linux to AD, and also OpenLDAP and identity
> management systems. Of course this is ambitious, and it will take more then
> just training courses: but that only means I need to get started sooner
> rather than later.

Sounds like you have an itch to scratch :-)

> To try to teach myself, I have run Linux (mostly Ubuntu and Mint) on my home
> computers for years; set up servers (for example I have a DreamPlug running
> Apache as a reverse proxy); built a MythTV home DVR; and generally messed
> about a lot. I find it all quite fun. :)

Projects like this are IMHO one of the best ways to grok linux

> So (finally!) my question is: can anyone recommend any training that might
> be suitable for me?

High quality commercial training can be very expensive.

So maybe think about a free, open, online undergraduate course from
one of the US universities (apparently, UK institutions plan to start
offering this sort of stuff next year).

Some of the interactive on line courses can be fun, but there's a
wealth of good quality material already out there. Google does some
excellent expert classes on YouTube, for example.

Yes, its old skool but I still find myself going back to TLDP[1] and
Advanced Bash Script[2]. These days open source langauges like Python
and Ruby have lots of advantages for scripting. In particular,
learning some Ruby is useful for hot topics such as Chef, Puppet and
Vagrant.

GTG, so hopefully other people will jump in with more...

Robert
[1] http://www.tldp.org/
[2] http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html