Need to learn Linux for my new job.

[American Samurai]

So I am working as a contractor for a Data center company and I need to learn Linux asap.

Bought the book "The Linux Command Line" by William Shotts Jr. but I need to get maybe Ubuntu on my desktop PC at home.

I'm thinking I don't want to install it just yet and would prefer to just boot from a live CD on my PC. I'd prefer not to pay for it if possible as I have so many other expenses ie. college that I am currently paying for right now.

[d4v0s]

Download virtual box, you can run it as a vm. You shouldn't have to pay a dime aside from the book.

Trick with learning anything is to set goals. What are they going to have you do in the data center?

[ElvenSoul]

Couple of Unix on a stick flavors.

USB Drive is probably the best way to go.

[ElvenSoul]

http://www.pendrivelinux.com

[American Samurai]

Download virtual box, you can run it as a vm. You shouldn't have to pay a dime aside from the book.

Trick with learning anything is to set goals. What are they going to have you do in the data center?

Some hardware stuff on the nodes, like upgrading memory, Sata doms, to answering JIRA tickets from Engineering on complicated PXE issues. Pretty much just problem solvers for the Engineering team. The toughest tickets we get are PXE issues, and for this we must know Linux.

[d4v0s]

Also I imagine they are running Debian or suse, maybe redhat.

If your going to be hosting LDAP or Web servers then you need to focus on that specific niche. Linux is easy, truthfully command line stuff in the windows side had always been more powerful and the trick is its harder to administrate something when there isn't a gui. My advice is to start documenting things you Learn and walk through. If I died tomorrow a monkey could take over my job if he just followed my notes. If it takes me longer than 5 minutes to do something, I script it and document my logic. It also helps my network admins when I leave the office or something goes wrong. My walk throughs are easily converted to standards and procedures which in turn makes it easy to write up and fire morons who don't really know what they are doing.

Sure. Some of that may not apply now. But I still use documents and scripts I wrote at 16.

[watt79]

Download virtual box, you can run it as a vm. You shouldn't have to pay a dime aside from the book.

Trick with learning anything is to set goals. What are they going to have you do in the data center?

+1 on setting up a VM. I would recommend a Linux distribution that is more enterprise oriented, like CentOS.

[d4v0s]

Ok, so your hosting various images on a PXE server. I would find out what flavor of Linux your servers are at work, set up a virtual server, and then setup another virtual box with the OS of your users to troubleshoot.

Because different flavors of Linux have so many quirks, you won't find much crossover in setting up just any distribution and playing with it.

[American Samurai]

Also I imagine they are running Debian or suse, maybe redhat.

If your going to be hosting LDAP or Web servers then you need to focus on that specific niche. Linux is easy, truthfully command line stuff in the windows side had always been more powerful and the trick is its harder to administrate something when there isn't a gui. My advice is to start documenting things you Learn and walk through. If I died tomorrow a monkey could take over my job if he just followed my notes. If it takes me longer than 5 minutes to do something, I script it and document my logic. It also helps my network admins when I leave the office or something goes wrong. My walk throughs are easily converted to standards and procedures which in turn makes it easy to write up and fire morons who don't really know what they are doing.

Sure. Some of that may not apply now. But I still use documents and scripts I wrote at 16.

Not sure about the bolded parts, but for this job I have to get very familiarized with DOS,Linux,Cisco, as well as the Hardware stuff. It's an exciting opportunity and I am very fortunate to have it at the moment and the Management seems to be pretty patient with the fact that a lot of the stuff is way above the Contractors pay grade , but I still want to do a great job and work hard at it so I can possibly earn the right to be hired perm.
The advice you gave sounds solid, thanks.

[ocabj]

Essential System Administration by AEleen Frisch 3rd Edition - http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Syst.../dp/0596003439 - I used this book back in my Systems Administration class when I was a Computer Science major in college (albeit older edition). It's really good.

Learn Linux in the context of systems administration to get an understanding of the ins and outs of using Linux quickly and effectively.

Linux is free. VirtualBox is free. Download any ISO. Install in a VM environment.

You should know both Redhat/CentOS and Debian-style (e.g. Ubuntu) distribution environments since they have different nuances (e.g. different init systems).

[yellowsulphur]

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming (3rd Edition) by Mark Sobell is fantastic.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/013308504X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687642&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0201895498&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1WKC5TR4XE53Q3FD7SC5

[the86d]

You can run Slackware on just about any retired machine at your home.
(You may have to use a different NIC, but that's about the only issue I've had w/ Slackware... lean and mean!)

(It doesn't help your "quick" situation, but it can keep you using the CLI.)

[elx144]

You should run Gentoo. You should also try installing a custom kernel in the other distros. Gentoo will help you understand how the system boots. Also play around with Grub, so you can boot your new kernel. Also learn everything about DHCP and TFTP if you don't know already. That should get you going with PXE booting.

Here's what I would do on a Ubuntu system:

cd /usr/local/src
wget https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...4.4-rc3.tar.xz
tar -xvf linux-4.4-rc3.tar.xz
ln -s linux-4.4-rc3.tar.xz linux
cd linux
make oldconfig
make && make modules_install && make install

So, that's download a Linux kernel, unzip it, then compile it. In most production systems you don't want to do this, but for learning this is a good step.

One more thing to learn is loadable kernel modules. It's possible you run into hardware that won't work until the right module is installed. Figured out the "lsmod" and "insmod" commands. This is like installing drivers on Windows.

I hope that helps.

[strongpoint]

+1 to the Sobell book.

[Cartridge]

I would suck it up and install some distro on bare metal, then install VirtualBox and start installing different guests like CentOS and Debian. Find a 64bit desktop that nobody wants and start from scratch, booting from live disks is not where it's at if your job depends on learning Linux.