If, like me, you've developed your knowledge of Linux in a rather piecemeal and ad hoc way, a brush-up on your skills might be a good idea. At the very least there might be gaps in your knowledge and, furthermore, some tasks that you are labouring over might actually be easier than you think.
I've just completed the Linux Foundation's LFS101x.2: Introduction to Linux course. It's on-line, free and very flexible. The tuition takes you form the basics of Linux – bootloading, kernels, distributions filesystems, shells, editors – right up to common applications and GUIs. There was a lot of stuff in there that I'd got away without knowing so far, but I'm glad I've learnt it.
 My top tip is to learn how to use the vi editor. You can used from the command line in a non-GUI environment – a bonus when you a re ssh'ing around for example – and it is just so quick to use when you are dealing with things like config files, or even code.
There's an 'honor code' exam at the end. And you can pay to have an 'id-verified' exam too. Here's my certificate on the left.
I spent around 20 hours on the 18-unit course. It's worth not skimping on the 'Labs' at the end of each section. Here you can try out your knowledge. It helps if you have a Linux system where you have root access – either a Pi or something running under VMWare works a treat. I even had a go at CentOS (Red Hat) using VWWare on Windows. You can sign up here www.edx.org/course/introduction-linux-linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-2 |
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