[CLUE-Cert] [lynnd@techangle.com: Re: CLUE certification group meeting]

[Crawford Rainwater]

My $0.02 on the certification issues and study topics
(of course from the shadows on the email lists):

> -----Original Message-----
> Samba is something that's covered in the Sair Network materials.  I'm
> pretty familiar with that already, but I'd be willing to help go over it
> if the rest of the group is interested.  Comments?
>

SAIR does have a Level 2 course that is Samba only.  However,
with the past events of late last year with SAIR, the material
in this course and text are vintage from that time as well.
Since then some things with Samba have evolved and changed some
in regards to Samba, but I am not sure how much these changes
would effect the existing texts.

For the basics, SAIR's Networking text as well as O'Reily's Samba
texts are a pretty good start.

> At one point we had talked about staying with certification, but switching
> over to the LPI program.  How does everyone feel about this now?  Should
> we forge ahead with material in the Sair Security study guide or review
> LPI materials for a while?
>

The downside is the declining availability of texts for the LPI
certifications, but this is for certifications in general, not
just Linux only ones.  Corollis (SP?), the publisher of the Exam
Cram series went under, and with that other publishers are erroring
on the side of caution in mass producing IT certification materials.
(This has become a recent topic of discussion with the LPI folks
in general.)  O'Reily has a text that covers the LPI 101 and 102
exams out at this time.  Aside from that, if you can find the Corollis
Exam Crams for LPI 101 and 102, that is the next best bet.  Bear in
mind, these are for the prior generation of exams (LPI just refreshed
the exams earlier this year), but there is not a "big" difference
overall (sort of a 2.2 vs. 2.4 kernel difference at this point, aside
correcting erratta).

On the LPI Level 2 materials, several groups have things in the works,
nothing out on the market to date.  This includes courseware, which
reminds me to take down the links for the LPIC-2 courses ITEC offers
(opps).

For general review and what topics are covered by the four LPI exams,
the LPI web site has a break down of topics in there (I do not have
the links handy at this time, but it is not that hard to find per
memory).  Personally, I would use this as a start and build from
there with the O'Reily and Exam Cram texts.

For what it is worth...

--- Crawford