UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I was guessing things wouldn't be the same administering a personal Linux/Solaris vs dealing with the issues on large Unix systems. Basically, I'm just trying to get started with learning about Unix. What do you recommend for starters(learning from linux-wise)?
Thanks

Hi,

you're usually working in a team of system administrators, some of them might hopefully have much more experience than you do when you start in your job.
As reborg stated, if you don't know what you're doing, don't do it. Never change anything on a production system if you haven't tested it before on a non-production-one.
Don't be shy asking questions. And yes, google will be one of your best friends at work - there is no reason to reinvent the wheel - most problems you are facing in the beginning had been faced - and solved - by other people before

Regards
zxmaus

Thanks I know I'd have to double check with other SA's when I actually start the job. What I'm trying to do now is start learning as much about Unix as I can and figuring things out. It's okay to work by "trial and error" with a home computer(while I'm learning), right? I definitely will use Google a lot while I'm learning. I was going to just try and learn as much as I can by, like other people said, starting with Linux fooling around and getting comfortable with the command lines. Then I'd learn how to build my own linux os(linux from scratch). Then I was going to move on to Solaris and learn what I can there too. and hopefully when I know enough to get started with server stuff I was thinking of buying or building a personal server myself and building the code for it. My parents have a business web site(nothing big...they're piano teachers so it's more of a small resource for information) and I manage that for them right now using Yahoo webhosting. So, after I have my own server built I was thinking of hosting their website myself. I thought maybe that would be a good start being it's nothing big and it would give me a little experience with managing a server. What do you guys think about this plan for starters?

Oh, I forgot to mention three other things.

Read, read and read.

Books and article are essential to the diet of a good sys admin, you need to know about new technologies even if you never use them in production.

I wanted to add a sidebar comment:

My first real UNIX job was as a systems programmer, gluing together HP-UX Rocky Mountain Basic (for a test assembly line of production radios) to a Progress database.

My first task, before learning the shell, or even how to set an environmental variable, was to write a C client-server (socket) program using system commands from both Progress and HP-UX RMB to transfer information between the two systems.

I had to learn shell, vi, system admin, etc. as a "side function" in support of being "tossed" into a systems programming job.

So, I tend to disagree that you must reach a "certain level" before you can be a systems programmer. I started out as a systems programmer and learned the UNIX environment in support of my task, not years before given the task.

My advice, based on my experience, is to "jump in feet first" if you want to learn. Do something hard, like create a systems level program to glue to systems together, then learn the rest of the admin skills, to support your task, not the other way around.

That is my take on things, which is a bit different than many of the opinions expressed in this thread.

Actually it's not different than my opinion. I think we differ more on what "System Engineering" is. System programming does not require the same skillset as system engineering as the term is used in the UK and Ireland. System engineering is more about creating system integrations, complete end to end solution designs, creating deployments and the like and usually has little code involved.

Also the industry has moved on, when I started what Neo described was possible or even normal.

I have both systems engineers and systems programmers working for me and they have two very distinct skillsets, most of the SE's could do the SP work to a reasonable level but also have the big picture knowledge only one or two of the SPs could function as SEs.

There is also one other type of job that has not been mentioned, and probably the last place that you can still get a job that allows you to truely jump in feet first as Neo describes. System integration and/or professional services. Some companies provide ground-up solutions for various systems - OS, 3rd part apps and in-house apps or customised and managed custom solutions and all of the admin and system programming that goes along with that. If you can find a company doing that kind of work you can get lots experience very, very quickly.

Not sure if it is germane to the discussion, but I forgot to mention that I had already completed my university degree in electrical engineering and had experience programming in assembly and early PCs (like the C 64, early Mac's etc. - BASIC and Fortran) before jumping in "feet first" to production C systems programming.

I have always love systems "glue".... and miss those days, long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away......