UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm a newbie so I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right section... if I didn't, please forgive me
I've been looking all over the web for information on system administration. I'd like to become a Unix System Administrator but I want to find some more info about the job. Can someone please give me some information(or links to websites with info) about what to major in to become one, salary figures, hours a week you would work?...
Also, if anyone is a Unix System Administrator... do you like the job? What could I expect for a starting salary? Salary after 5yrs? 10yrs? Is there good demand for this job?
Thanks

moved from apps to q&a.

welcome to unix.com

Welcome aboard.

HOURS_PER_WEEK=168 ; export HOURS_PER_WEEK

If you are not actually on a job, you will be planning a job.

There is good demand for this job.

This is a worldwide forum. Salary expectations depend on where you work.

Thanks for the info...
are you serious? 168 hrs work per week? there's only 168 hrs in a week!
oh, and sorry... I didn't realize this was a worldwide forum. I'd be working in the US. Probably Pennsylvania for a while, and then move out to Colorado. So, I'm not sure what the salary expectations are in the US(for the two states).

Unless you're working for a very large company which has on-site staff around the clock, you are working in a sense all the time since you can always be paged or called when there is a problem. Also, you will almost certainly be doing tons of middle-of-the-night and weekend work since you can't work on production servers during business hours. If you are interested in steady hours with little overtime Unix is NOT for you.

Salary varies widely. When I started about 10 years ago entry level unix admin jobs were in the 50-70k range. It is a fairly well-paying field and finding jobs is not terribly hard once you're established and recruiters/managers/other admins in your city know you.

And one of the best ways I found to learn was to get hold of a Unix based machine and repeatedly break it/fix it.

the easiest (and cheapest) way to do that is use Linux. And if you are really serious about it, I would recommend going through the pain of building linux from scratch:
Welcome to Linux From Scratch!
It is hard work, tough to understand at times, but the support is great, and the end results leave you with a nice warm feeling in the pit of your tummy. (though it can by no stretch of the imagination be called a usable system, but it is the bare minimum to get you started.

BTW if you haven't already, at some point in the future while you are investigating Unix systems you will be thrown into the vi editor, and at that point you will not have the faintest idea of what to do - remember this ":help<cr>"

Also, here in the UK sys admin ave salary is £35-50,000 or around £400 / day contract rates. depends whether you like rain or not, but we don't bite (much) and our documentaries don't keep repeating what they have just told you 36 times after every advertising break :-)

Aw man... I didn't even think about the hours too much. I just assumed it would be regular working hours. I definitely want steady working hours though. I really would like to do something IT related though and Unix System Administration was like the closest I could find to what I want to do. Does anyone know any jobs similar I might be interested in with steady regular working hours? I was looking into web development too and that's the next closest thing to what I'm looking to do.
Thanks for the info!