Which Unix Certification is the most needed these days? This is a big question think about it...

- SUN unix certification?
- SCO unix certification?
- SOLARIS unix certification?
- ....

AIX 4
AIX 4.1
AIX 4.2
AIX 4.x
BSDI 2.0
FreeBSD 2.2
HP-UX 10
HP-UX 10.10
HP-UX 10.20
HP-UX 10.x
HP-UX 9.x
IRIX 5.x
IRIX 6.2
IRIX 6.5
IRIX 6.x
Intel Solaris 2.4
Intel Solaris 2.5.1
Linux 1.2
Linux 2.0
Linux 2.0 (glibc)
Linux 2.2
MkLinux 2.0
NCR MP-RAS
NEC EWS-UX
SCO OpenServer
SCO OpenServer 5.0
SCO UnixWare 2.1
SCO Unixware 7.0
SINIX-N
SINIX-Z
SPARC Linux 2.0
Solaris 2.4
Solaris 2.5
Solaris 2.5.1
SunOS 4.1.3
SunOS 54 (x86)
Tru64 UNIX

[Edited by Dominic on 11-09-2000 at 12:06 PM]

Most needed for what? Personal knowledge, employment opportunities, technical competence...?
Most of those that you listed are pretty outdated. For example, I think you would find it impossible to become ceritified in Solaris 2.4 these days...

I think the answer is that you should be certified in what you need. Most good employers will send you to the training classes anyway if they relate to your job. Get certified in what you will be using (or plan to use), then pick up any others later if you think they will enhance your resume. IMO, most Unix systems are similar enough that a certification in any of them will look good to a potential employer...

Most big Unix shops are probably running Solaris, HP-UX or AIX as their primary systems...become comfortable with one (or all) of those and you will be good to go.

Needed for Personal knowledge, employment opportunities, technical competence... I mean there's always a begining and your answer just make sens... Thanks PxT.

A word on 'certification'

I've been working on UNIX-based systems for over 15 years, including almost every flavor of UNIX under the sky. Never, in my career, have I meet a great UNIX person who was 'certified'. All the great system administrator and programmers have the same thing in common - a lot of reading and hands on experience on the job. There is no classroom experience that can substitute for crashing a live server for a major corporation at 3 am and having the responsibility to get it back on line before business opens or you are 'toast'.

I've worked in places where the system administator was in a training class for a week and while they were away, the backup tape for the major systems was full and ejected itself. They had a automatic email in place to warn, but they were in class Then, a consultant who was working on a difficult codeing project for a month lost her files. She went to look for the backup tape to restore the files and found the tape ejected !!!! She cried, really.

I've worked with a lot of folks over the years certified on routers, UNIX, MS, etc. I'm sorry to say that none of these people were 10 percent as competent than the people who had a passion for reading and building, hands on. Most certifications are just ways for vendors and suppliers to make money selling training papers.

Want to be great at UNIX? Get a version of UNIX (Linux, BSD, whatever), build a server from scratch and start building and writing C code. Get Rich Stevens books on system level programming and learn to program at the system level. Write your own server and client code, debug the code, work on interprocess communications, debug memory leaks, build shared libs, build static libs, fix corrupt file systems, etc.

Certification is not good for personal knowledge. It is useful when you are just starting to get your foot in the door of a company who requires certification, but you can bet your paycheck that the experts do not have these 'waste of time' pieces of paper. Do you think that Rich Stevens, who wrote the best books on UNIX is 'certified by a vendor?'
How about Linus Torvalds, inventor of Linux? No, they are great UNIX people because they did not take any vendor shortcuts. Patiences, practice, discipline are what builds the foundation for being great at anything, not quick certification classes.

I recommend you go to http://www.amazon.com/ and \ buy Rich Stevens books and start programming network based UNIX projects and learn the internals. This will make you a great UNIX person.

[Edited by Neo on 11-09-2000 at 11:53 AM]

It's all true, I have worked most of my time with Microsoft Network System and I'm seriously planning to get the best experience that I can on Unix system, First I'll need to get one of the Unix Os and after get those books you've talked to me about. I've already took a course in AIX but it was for very basics commands... Maybe the self-paced way is the best way, like you say experiences as no replacement. Thanks to you Neo. Your experiences are well appreciated here.