10-05-2001
First the bad news: After 12 years as an engineer, you were probably making a pretty decent salary. Since you have limited Unix experience, you might only be able to find an entry level position, so you would probably end up taking a pay cut.
Since you are asking this question I assume you are willing to live with that. The good news is that you do not have to be certified to land a decent Unix job. Of course many employers will be happy if you are certified, but I have yet to find any that require it. Certification has been discussed several times here in the past, and the general consensus has been that certification is only one step in the career process, with experience generally being a much more important factor to your overall marketability.
If you are serious about this career path, I would suggest learning all you can. Check the forums for some good book recommendations. Install some version of Unix on a spare home machine if you haven't already. Try to become familiar with some of the details of the system. Many community colleges offer classes in Unix Basics and/or System Administration -- they are often a good inexpensive way to get some hands-on exposure.
It sounds as though your knowledge of computers in general is reasonably high -- I would guess that you could step into a Junior Sys Admin position pretty easily if you spend the time to learn some of the basics, and the company is willing to offer you some training. Maybe try to leverage your strengths by looking for a job in which you would be supporting systems for an engineering firm/department.
Just my 2 cents...
Good luck
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LEARN ABOUT OPENSOLARIS
ggz
ggz(7) GGZ Gaming Zone ggz(7)
NAME
ggz - The GGZ Gaming Zone
DESCRIPTION
The GGZ Gaming Zone is a standards-conforming online gaming infrastructure which provides many applications and games to people who like to
play on the internet or in local networks.
APPLICATIONS
There isn't a single executable named ggz, instead a multitude of programs is available to the user, and even more which operate on the
system level or are used by developers and administrators. Users will most likely want to connect to a GGZ server on the internet, such as
ggz://live.ggzgamingzone.org, to play games against other people. Core clients are used to perform this task.
GAMES
Games are usually launched by the GGZ server, with corresponding game clients running on the user's desktop. Plenty of games are available
for GGZ, most of them coming from the GGZ project itself but several independent game projects do now provide GGZ support.
While some GGZ game clients are suited for online gaming only, others also run locally like normal games happen to do. Those will be found
in the desktop's application menu.
FILES
/usr/bin
GGZ applications, tools, and the games which provide single player mode.
/usr/lib(d)
GGZ game client and server libraries.
/usr/share/ggz(d)
Data files for game clients and servers.
CONFORMING TO
GGZ Design Document and Protocol Reference, available at http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/docs/design/
GGZ Client-Client Protocol Reference, available at http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/docs/design/clientspec/
GGZ Server-Server Protocol Reference, available at http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/docs/design/serverspec/
Freedesktop.org specifications for desktop integration of games and applications, more information at http://www.freedesktop.org/
File Hierarchy Standard for unix-derived operating systems, at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
SEE ALSO
ggz_h(3), ggzcore_h(3), ggzmod_h(3), libggz(3), libggzcore(3), libggzmod(3), attributes(5), ggz.modules(5), gnome-interfaces(5), ggz(6),
ggz-config(6)
GGZ Gaming Zone:
http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/
AUTHORS
The GGZ Development Team <ggz-dev@mail.ggzgamingzone.org>
Last edited by Michal Pryc, Sun Microsystems Inc., 2008.
The GGZ Development Team 0.0.14 ggz(7)