Sponsored Content
Full Discussion: Advice on pursuing a career
The Lounge What is on Your Mind? Advice on pursuing a career Post 302173148 by Smiling Dragon on Wednesday 5th of March 2008 06:53:43 PM
Old 03-05-2008
The unix job market is quite different to the windows one in that qualifications are usually treated as a positive point but the actual subject of the qualification is largly irrelevant - it's more of an indication you can study and learn. The windows makret is generally interested in seeing a list of certifications and quals to get your foot in the door.

Unfortunately, this means that it's quite difficult to get into an interview for a good unix job. As well as knowing your stuff, you need to find the opportunity to show it. Without getting lucky or knowing someone, you might well have to work your way up from a lowly sys-admin or operator.
The job markets that put more weight on certs are easier (for those that have the certs) to get to the interview stage where they can sell themselves.

Skills that are sought after in a unix engineer that might help get you onto the interview list:
  • Experiance: Ok so that's not going to be much of an option for you but try to get some part time work (even free work) to give you exposure to unix in the 'real world'.
  • Understanding that Unix isn't DOS and Linux is not identical to all other Unix'es.
  • Hardware: Do you want to get into this? If so, start learning what's what and the various platforms and their architecture. You don't have to know the latest stuff but being in a position to appreciate how something new works will be very vaulable to employers.
  • System V vs BSD vs The hybrids - understanding the differences - try and get some time on several different unix's. Irix, Solaris, Digital Unix (AKA Tru64), AIX and HPUX would be a good start.
  • A solid understanding of server security: Get the hang of the basic concepts of security under unix - both at the network level and at the filesystem level. Learn how to user the multi-user nature of unix to seperate all the different subsystems from each other to minimise the damage of a security breach.
  • Knowing the commands is nice but knowing a wide range of ways to find the syntax for a new or unknown command quickly is better.
  • The phrase "No, I'm not familiar with that one but I'm keen to learn about it!"
  • Documentaion - Most engineers are crap at it, try not to be like most engineers Smilie
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Cybersecurity

Want Urgent career Advice

Dear All, I have finished my MS in chemical engineering from US university and presetly on OPT work permit. I do not have software background. I have received call from consultant company. They are offering me AIX UNIX training for four weeks and find me a job. My question is how difficuilt... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: saarth_desh
0 Replies

2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Want URGENT Advice:Career as UNIX Systme Administrator

Dear All, I have finished my MS in chemical engineering from US university and presetly on OPT work permit. I do not have software background. I have received call from consultant company. They are offering me AIX UNIX training for four weeks and find me a job. My question is how difficuilt... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: saarth_desh
5 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Career advice

I am new to scripting and I need some direction on which language to learn. Can you please advice and which skill is very marketable career wise.Thanks in advance. (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: etcman
1 Replies

4. What is on Your Mind?

Career advice

I am a junior unix sys admin (Tru64) I have been in this job for 9 months and I am quite worried. When I first got the job I was delighted as I was finally in a job where I could have the chance to be a specialist in a field rather than being a general support guy (i graduated from uni and got... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: supadid
5 Replies

5. What is on Your Mind?

career Advice

Hi all, I need a career Advice. About myself -- I have 2 years of work experience as a System Administrator (Linux and Solaris). I am Sun Certified System Administrator on Solaris 10.0 currently working in a MNC. As for career growth, I am doing 3 year MBA course from distance learning,... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: vikas027
4 Replies

6. Solaris

Career advice: Solaris & SUN support

I'm looking for career advice here. I've been working as a support engineer for Sun partners for 2 years now, and I worked with a lot of servers, tape libraries, and SAN storage. I have also done a lot of server installations and gone to a lot of trainings. Now, I'm offered to do Solaris... (13 Replies)
Discussion started by: Sun Fire
13 Replies

7. AIX

Need career advice please

Hi all, I'm a Solaris/linux sysadmin with a good general UNIX skills and with a little tiny background on AIX with no exposure to IBM's hardware ( just reading ) , but i think i can cope with it . UNIX jobs nowadays are rare here ( i mean hp-ux , solaris , aix ) not linux specially after the... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: h@foorsa.biz
6 Replies

8. AIX

Career Advice Asked

Dear All i am working on windows plattform and i am interested in Aix so i have done IBM Aix certification, can you please suggest Aix filed is good for my carrier,currently i am working as Desktop admin edit by bakunin: please understand that the question you raised has nothing to do with the... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: manzur13
1 Replies

9. What is on Your Mind?

Career Advice

Hi, I not sure if this is the right place to ask this question and if I'm wrong I apologize. I'm a systems administrator and have about 5 years of experience. I have worked on Solaris HP-UX *linux Visualization ( VMWare ) And I'm comfortable with shell and Perl. Of late,... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: maverick_here
0 Replies

10. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Need advice for my career growth being solaris/linux admin

Hi All, I am having 5+ years total unix admin exp in india (5years solarisadminand 2+ years on linuxadmin).Please advice me which technology I need to learn for my career growth and salary growth. Is it good to go for EMC SAN storage or vmware for higher packages. Please advice me or I... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: SolarisLinux123
4 Replies
Sys::Hostname::Long(3pm)				User Contributed Perl Documentation				  Sys::Hostname::Long(3pm)

NAME
Sys::Hostname::Long - Try every conceivable way to get full hostname SYNOPSIS
use Sys::Hostname::Long; $host_long = hostname_long; DESCRIPTION
How to get the host full name in perl on multiple operating systems (mac, windows, unix* etc) DISCUSSION
This is the SECOND release of this code. It has an improved set of tests and improved interfaces - but it is still often failing to get a full host name. This of course is the reason I wrote the module, it is difficult to get full host names accurately on each system. On some systems (eg: Linux) it is dependent on the order of the entries in /etc/hosts. To make it easier to test I have testall.pl to generate an output list of all methods. Thus even if the logic is incorrect, it may be pos- sible to get the full name. Attempt via many methods to get the systems full name. The Sys::Hostname class is the best and standard way to get the system hostname. However it is missing the long hostname. Special thanks to David Sundstrom and Greg Bacon for the original Sys::Hostname SUPPORT
This is the original list of platforms tested. MacOS Macintosh Classic OK Win32 MS Windows (95,98,nt,2000...) 98 OK MacOS X Macintosh 10 OK (other darwin) Probably OK (not tested) Linux Linux UNIX OS OK Sparc OK HPUX H.P. Unix 10? Not Tested Solaris SUN Solaris 7? OK (now) Irix SGI Irix 5? Not Tested FreeBSD FreeBSD OK A new list has now been compiled of all the operating systems so that I can individually keep informaiton on their success. THIS IS IN NEED OF AN UPDATE AFTER NEXT RELEASE. Acorn - Not yet tested AIX - Not yet tested Amiga - Not yet tested Atari - Not yet tested AtheOS - Not yet tested BeOS - Not yet tested BSD - Not yet tested BSD/OS - Not yet tested Compaq - Not yet tested Cygwin - Not yet tested Concurrent - Not yet tested DG/UX - Not yet tested Digital - Not yet tested DEC OSF/1 - Not yet tested Digital UNIX - Not yet tested DYNIX/ptx - Not yet tested EPOC - Not yet tested FreeBSD - Not yet tested Fujitsu-Siemens - Not yet tested Guardian - Not yet tested HP - Not yet tested HP-UX - Not yet tested IBM - Not yet tested IRIX - Not yet tested - 3rd hand information might be ok. Japanese - Not yet tested JPerl - Not yet tested Linux Debian - Not yet tested Gentoo - Not yet tested Mandrake - Not yet tested Red Hat- Not yet tested Slackware - Not yet tested SuSe - Not yet tested Yellowdog - Not yet tested LynxOS - Not yet tested Mac OS - Not yet tested Mac OS X - OK 20040315 (v1.1) MachTen - Not yet tested Minix - Not yet tested MinGW - Not yet tested MiNT - Not yet tested MPE/iX - Not yet tested MS-DOS - Not yet tested MVS - Not yet tested NetBSD - Not yet tested NetWare - Not yet tested NEWS-OS - Not yet tested NextStep - Not yet tested Novell - Not yet tested NonStop - Not yet tested NonStop-UX - Not yet tested OpenBSD - Not yet tested ODT - Not yet tested OpenVMS - Not yet tested Open UNIX - Not yet tested OS/2 - Not yet tested OS/390 - Not yet tested OS/400 - Not yet tested OSF/1 - Not yet tested OSR - Not yet tested Plan 9 - Not yet tested Pocket PC - Not yet tested PowerMAX - Not yet tested Psion - Not yet tested QNX 4 - Not yet tested 6 (Neutrino) - Not yet tested Reliant UNIX - Not yet tested RISCOS - Not yet tested SCO - Not yet tested SGI - Not yet tested Symbian - Not yet tested Sequent - Not yet tested Siemens - Not yet tested SINIX - Not yet tested Solaris - Not yet tested SONY - Not yet tested Sun - Not yet tested Stratus - Not yet tested Tandem - Not yet tested Tru64 - Not yet tested Ultrix - Not yet tested UNIX - Not yet tested U/WIN - Not yet tested Unixware - Not yet tested VMS - Not yet tested VOS - Not yet tested Windows CE - Not yet tested 3.1 - Not yet tested 95 - Not yet tested 98 - Not yet tested Me - Not yet tested NT - Not yet tested 2000 - Not yet tested XP - Not yet tested z/OS - Not yet tested KNOWN LIMITATIONS
Unix Most unix systems have trouble working out the fully quallified domain name as it to be configured somewhere in the system correctly. For example in most linux systems (debian, ?) the fully qualified name should be the first entry next to the ip number in /etc/hosts 192.168.0.1 fred.somwhere.special fred If it is the other way around, it will fail. Mac TODO
Contributions David Dick Graeme Hart Piotr Klaban * Extra code from G * Dispatch table * List of all operating systems. Solaris * Fall back 2 - TCP with DNS works ok * Also can read /etc/defaultdomain file SEE ALSO
L<Sys::Hostname> AUTHOR
Scott Penrose <scottp@dd.com.au> COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2001,2004,2005 Scott Penrose. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. perl v5.8.8 2008-03-12 Sys::Hostname::Long(3pm)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:58 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy