Re: [vox] linux+ certification

[Jim Lowman <jmlowmanMAPS@sbcglobal.net>]

Although this thread lived a short life, I found it interesting since 
I'm working on a UNIX/Linux
certification at UC-Riverside, and have a MCSD certification under my 
belt.  Note that these
are *certificates* of having completed a prescribed sequence of classes, 
and *not* the M$ or
Linux certifications.

I've heard others say that one has to learn things "the Microsoft way" 
for their certification exams.
Also, their exams went "adaptive" a year or so ago, so Mr. Postal may 
have found himself facing
increasingly difficult questions.  Then again, he could have been 
befuddled by the textbook-M$
answer to the question.

Pete, I'm curious about your view of certifications being mostly bogus.  
In one of the SQL Server
classes that was taught by a consultant, his opinion was that employers 
are paying more attention
to certifications these days than to degrees (I assume he meant the BS 
degree) because colleges
are falling down as far as preparing students for employment in the real 
world.  Of course he may
have meant that colleges don't focus on industry-standard applications, 
such as those developed
by M$

Interesting!

Jim

Peter Jay Salzman wrote:

> 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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