UK: Linux support training and jobs?

[James7]

I wondered if anyone here could give me a good unbiased take on the job market in the UK for Linux support staff.

I am thinking seriously of getting qualified to support Linux, though I don't know exactly the best way to go there either.

I love Linux and know it quite well as a moderately advanced desktop user, but I think I would like to take things further.

Any advice here would be much appreciated! :D

[slackthumbz]

The market is actually pretty good. Bear in mind that any organisation that needs to do large amounts data crunching; e.g banks, anywhere that does research, etc is pretty much guaranteed to be running linux/unix for their backend server infrastructure. Salaries are good too, often ranging from £35k - £50k.

I'm a web dev at a charity funded research institute that runs primarily on linux. We have a 2,000 node server farm for cluster computing and pretty much all of our servers and many of our desktops run debian. Interestingly when I started here 3 years ago I didn't know a great deal about web development but they took me on because I have extensive experience with *nix, can write perl (which we use for our CGI) and I rock hard on the CLI :)

I got my 'qualification' as it were through sheer experience and having been running and administrating *nix systems since I was 14 but there are companies that specialise in training and certification.

I'd recommend looking at the Linux Professional Institute (http://www.lpi.org/) because they offer non-vendor specific certification. I'd also recommend having a go at Linux From Scratch (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/) as a learning exercise.

[James7]

Thanks, that's excellent to know! I had before been intimated by LFS but I should just go for it (and I will), and I appreciate the advice about the LPI.

I have never had classes but used to use Windows and switched to Linux in 2007. I used to build versions of Ubuntu to my liking, but that was easy--nothing like LFS!

I am looking over the LPI site now. I'm thinking LPIC-2 might be good to set as a goal. I do know a lot about Linux, but it all feels rather partial, as I learnt it as I went. So perhaps a structured series of courses would help fill in the gaps.

Thanks again! :)