Linux Quick Hacks - Troubleshooters
http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/quickhacks.htm

NZ Linux sites
XsM.co.nz and the home of xSiRC
http://www.xsm.co.nz/nix.html
NZLUG
http://www.linux.net.nz/

Linux training in Melbourne
Les Bell and Associates Pty Ltd
http://www.lesbell.com.au/default.html
Cybersource Linux support (Jennifer Vesperman et al)
http://www.cybersource.com.au/

Open source turns the training tables

By Eric Wilson
February 19 2002
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While the training market for proprietary operating systems has shrunk during the past 12 months, demand for Linux training seems to have escaped the downturn. Les Bell, author of several Linux books, believes it is growing, and is launching two Linux Professional Institute certification courses in Sydney and Melbourne

"The market for training, like all IT, is a bit soft," he says. "But for Linux training it's still growing slowly. We get people from all areas - government, medical small business and corporates."

The Linux education market turns out to be very different from the certification-driven world of commercial vendor product training. This is because training for Linux is mainly seen as a skills acquisition exercise rather than a prudent career move.

"Certifications don't carry that much weight in the Linux and Unix world," Bell says. "With Microsoft certified system engineers you create a short-list and try to choose the best. With Linux, there's not enough candidates to keep the certified ones and toss the rest into the trash."

Con Zymaris, chief executive of Cybersource, agrees Linux training isn't about bums-on-seats for certification but meeting the needs of individual clients: "We see ourselves as a professional services boutique player," he says. "The training we did as the first in Australia in '99 was a response to customers rolling out Linux infrastructure boxes. It was a sideline to what we were doing. It still is a sideline today. We don't do that many courses in a three-month period and only two of the 40 people would train in Linux where it's needed."
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Bell says not having a certification-driven training industry has meant Linux has not been able to muster a herd mentality among systems engineers. He singles this out as the main factor holding back Linux adoption in Australia.

"Out on the streets you can wave and a dozen Microsoft certified system engineers will show up," he says. "Finding Linux-trained people is much harder. That's something I'm trying to change."

But Zymaris says part of the reason why Linux training is conducted on an as-needed basis is because often it's not needed at all. This is the case with an amazing 50 per cent of the company's database projects now deployed on Linux, even though the company has traditionally consulted on Solaris and Windows platforms.

"Oracle are saying their own database requirements will be moved to Linux in the next four months," he says. "Running Oracle on a Linux box isn't very different from Oracle on Solaris and only marginally different than Oracle on Windows. There's no reason for us to provide auxiliary training in that space."

Although database operation may not require much Linux-specific training, the more common use of Linux as a firewall, file and print, Web or proxy server requires considerable knowledge. Perhaps one of the most interesting scenarios is the use of Linux as a router, which Bell says is much more powerful than corresponding services in Windows. A course covering advanced Linux routing is planned for this year.

But Bell says all that students need to attend his basic course is an understanding of file-names and path names. He believes Linux command line interface to be an advantage for systems administration, especially for "left-brain thinkers who are verbal, not visual".

Linux training costs are similar to Windows or Unix counterparts. Cybersource (www.cybersource.com.au) charges $440 for one-day courses and $1760 for four days. Both Les Bell's (www.lesbell.com.au) courses cost $2500 plus GST for five days of training.

ecw@compuserve.com