[ale] LPIC-2 or equivalent worth it?

Wed Feb 27 14:23:12 EST 2013

Red Hat has used virtualized systems for the RHCSA and RHCE for some time.  What Chis is referring to is Individual Exam Sessions which were rolled out this year.  I'm not aware of any of the machines being at Prometric or Vue testing centers.  The one in the Atlanta area is at the Red Hat training location.

I wouldn't classify the use of virtual machines as 'simulation'.  They are a full install of the operating system and behave accordingly.  If you rm -rf /*, its going to be messed up.  A couple of years ago I got to look at another Unix Vendor's attempt at a hands on certification where they did use a simulator.  They wrote this thing in Java that looked like a csh.  Then they would engineer a response into it to comply with the tasks being requested.  For example, if you were adding a user, the simulator had a user add command.  It also had vi if you wanted to edit /etc/passwd, but if you rm -rf /, it would give a csh style error like:
sh:rm command not found.

Additionally, when it was time to move to the next task, you got a new java csh thingy programmed with inputs and outputs for that task, so decisions made at the task level didn't have a cumulative effect like they might on a single complete machine.

-Scott

On Feb 27, 2013, at 12:37 PM, Chris Ricker <chris.ricker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Just a note to add - when I took it for renewal last summer, I was surprised to find that the Red Hat exams has been moved over from a physical lab setup to a simulator format using virtualized machines somewhat similar to the SuSE exam. That was at the Red Hat Summit, and they said they were starting with it virtualized there, and rolling it out that way nationwide to their standard classrooms as well as to some Pearson centers
> 
> It's pretty well done though and I didn't find the virtualization got in the way
> 
> 
> On 2/27/13 9:56 AM, Beddingfield, Allen wrote:
>> I see I'm a little late to the party in commenting on this one, but here goes.
>> I have the following:
>> LPI:  LPIC-1 and LPIC-2
>> Redhat:  RHCSA and RHCE
>> VMware:  VCP4 and VCP5
>> I plan to get the SUSE CLE, BSDA, and LPIC-3
>> 
>> You will get the most mileage from the RHCSA/RHCE track and the VMware VCP.  It is just more recognized in the US.  My employer is willing to play for classes and test, so I have taken advantage of this to get these certifications.  Here is a breakdown:
>> 
>> LPIC-1 and lPIC-2 are a joke in my opinion.  I'm not saying that they are easy - they are not!  I'm saying that they have failed in their mission to have a distro-neutral certification and failed to test on useful subject matter. While they claim to be independent of any distro, just assume that you are getting a Debian certification.  Everything is Debian centric, with just enough neutral and rpm-based stuff thrown in to not be 100% Debian.  The test format for both of these is the standard Pearson-Vue multiple choice test.  They ask really specific and not-so-applicable-to-real-life questions, and when I took it, there was a lot of really dated stuff (pre-2.4 kernel).  They are supposed to be doing a complete re-do of their tests in Q2 of this year, so you may want to hold off on taking it.  I have run into some of the LPI folks at conferences, etc… and they are a good group of people who really believe in what they are doing, but in my opinion, they need to change the test a lot.  It is difficult, poorly written, poorly executed, and not relevant.
>> 
>> RHCSA/RHCE:  This is a hands-on/practical knowledge test.  It is probably the best designed test I have taken.  I did the RHCSA/RHCE rapid track course.  This condenses all the RHCSA and RHCE material into a four-day class (quick moving, no time for questions, you need to look over the material in the evening) with the RHCSA and RHCE exams on the last day.  There is an option where you can pay a little extra, and they will give you one retake on either test if you do not pass.  The test is a couple of machines that you are given to do a specific set of tasks with.  They are not simple by any stretch, but if you know you material, you should have no problem with the test.  Since this one was hands on, instead of remembering facts, I thought it was much easier than LPIC-1 and LPIC-2.
>> 
>> VMware VCP:  VMware requires that you take a course before getting certified.  You can go to Pearson-VUE and take the test, but they won't give you the certification until you have taken the class.  VCP-4 was horrible.  It asked a lot of specific details (memorize the configuration minimums and maximums to have a good portion of the test down).  VCP-5 is much improved.  I took it through the early adopter offering where they allowed previous VCPs to take the VCP-5 test without a class for a couple of months while they were getting the classes prepped.  VCP-5 actually tests on relevant material.  I could have probably benefitted from the class, because they tested on a lot of the specifics in 5.x, and I had not done a 5.x implementation yet.  I just poured through the new features, etc… and attempted and passed it.
>> 
>> SUSE:  SUSE does their tests in a simulator with some instructions that are poorly written.  Yeah, it sucks as bad as you think it would.  You are given a VNC connection to a couple of VMs in a remote datacenter and a list of tasks.  Somehow when you are done, they have some tests that run against it and grade it/give you a pass/fail right then.  The laggy connection is the biggest downfall of this test.  I attempted and did not pass the CLP 11 test. I have to retake that one soon.
>> 
>> Ironically, of all of these, I think the RHCSA/RHCE was a breeze for me, and the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 were the most difficult.  I just do better with practical/real-world scenarios than with being told to memorize facts and details.
>> 
>> Allen B.
>> --
>> Allen Beddingfield
>> Systems Engineer
>> The University of Alabama
>> 
>> From: dev null zero two <dev.null.02 at gmail.com<mailto:dev.null.02 at gmail.com>>
>> Reply-To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org<mailto:ale at ale.org>>
>> Date: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 7:29 PM
>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org<mailto:ale at ale.org>>
>> Subject: [ale] LPIC-2 or equivalent worth it?
>> 
>> 
>> any of you have your LPIC-2 (or 3) or equivalent level Linux certs? any of the Novell or Oracle ones fun?
>> 
>> if so, was it worth pursuing? the LPIC-1 was a joke but from what I've heard of 2 and 3, it's a lot more kernel hacking than admin stuff. tho the one guy I know with 3 is a Debian maintainer :-P
>> 
>> Sent from my mobile. Please excuse the brevity, spelling, and punctuation.
>> 
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