A Self Taught Path To Linux Admin

Hi!

Soo im 24 and transitioning from the medical field into IT.

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Im working on going the self-taught route and have had a love and curiosity for tech since I was a kid.

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It started with learning video game systems and computer hardware, progressed into learning windows systems, and then progressed to rooting phones.

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Then I discovered Linux and specifically Ubuntu, when I was 16 and have loved it ever since. Besides the multiple times, I have bricked a hard drive.

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I know some networking and security and basics but just the very basics. I learned HTML & CSS, Javanoscript was a nightmare. Python I enjoy but haven't taken the time to fully learn, and coding is boring.

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Over the years, I have distro hopped a ton and learned the basics of Debian as it's the one I enjoy the most through trial and error. Arch is still a nightmare for me but back to what this post is about.

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Im wanting to pursue a career in IT and, specifically, a role as a Linux Admin eventually. I have excellent soft skills/customer service skills, and knowledge. I currently work as an unemployment claims examiner/help desk, so I know how enterprise systems/databases work (or so I think)


Im familiar with virtualization and setting up VMs but nothing outside the basics.

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My question is, where really should I look to start if I want a career in Linux?

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I hear certs are useless and a waste of money, so Im tempted to learn the material and not get the cert, and then another part of me is like, "it's gonna get your foot in the door so get it!!!"

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Whereas other certs like RHCSA I know can prove, I have practical knowledge, so Im not sure what cert path to go if I did decide to.

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I also would like some insight regarding job security in regards to someone wanting to specialize in Linux. I mean im guessing it's one of those things that's like, "if you're good, you're good."

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Long (LONG) term, Id like to work with the cloud and specifically GCP, but I have dabbled in AWS.

Im is sorry if Im all over the place, but I am a bit lost on where to begin this self-taught Linux career path.

https://redd.it/lgyass
@r_linux

I have old Potato Laptop and i want to get advantage of it by turn it to small family server is that possible ? And what us the best OS for that ? And can i connect to the server from my android phone?
https://redd.it/lh0lnt
@r_linux

running binaries off of nfs mounts

New linux user question..I have 2 linux computers that I'm playing with. They both have nfs mount points to my NAS. I read that you should store common applications on the nfs mounts so you can run it from either computer.

Is there a performance impact? How does it work? Are the binaries copied to RAM? on local hard drive?

https://redd.it/lh2t4m
@r_linux

If FreeBSD is so better than Linux why even caring about Linux?

Hello, pretty hot topic here. I was doing some research on the "Linux vs BSD" topic, and for the most part you only find people and articles praising FreeBSD as the best OS avaiable, better than Linux for licences, speed, security, and so on, while Linux just has a bloated kernel, it is slow, too fragmented, etc...
Now, since I'm a human being capable of thinking (I suppose, I'll check it out later) my question is: why aren't we all switching to using FreeBSD (or any other BSD OS), is Linux so bad as they say it is in confront to FreeBSD or are these just based opinions? Is there something Linux does way better than FreeBSD? Basically all sort of questions on "Why choosing one over the other if one looks like Jesus Christ on land?".

PS: If a flame war starts... I'll grab some pop-corn to eat...

https://redd.it/lgy1b3
@r_linux

Most private linux distro that I can install to my drive and can run on my PC.

I'm looking for a Linux Distro that is private and isn't Qubes, Whonix or Tails. Whonix and Tails aren't installed to your drive and Qubes is very resource intensive. If you know a good distro that fits all if the above please tell me.

https://redd.it/lh5g3o
@r_linux

The history of my professor during live course (subnoscriptd)

https://redd.it/lh6p4c
@r_linux

How fast Linux actually is. Switch from Windows after two years

Hi everyone, I wanted to share with some of you this story about my switching from windows

I had a bit slower laptop running windows and I heard a lot of things about linux, so I made my first linux mint dual boot. I was really impressed with the speed and I immediately uninstalled windows and set up ubuntu I think.

After half a year I got a new laptop with pretty powerfull i7, 16gb of ram. It was running windows smoothly and I was happy, but I really wanted to try even faster linux. And the story repeats. Now I have tried multiple distros (ubuntu, kali linux, pop_os, debian, fedora) but now I settled on Arch and I cannot think of going back to windows.

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For Windows users. Linux is actually not (much)harder to use than windows. You can get something like ubuntu and you will not have any problems at all, the small ones you can easily fix. You will absolutely love the speed of loading apps.

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(Don't know which flair to choose)

https://redd.it/lh5u89
@r_linux

Can you build a PC using something similar to an Apple M1?

So the Apple M1 is making big news. I've had ARM laptops before, though, including earlier chromebooks, lenovo's yoga book line, and then there's alot of small arm based SOCs people use in projects. Support for these things has always been iffy. The lower end boards got better support due to the diy & education community. I've always loved ARM chips in laptops/desktops due to low noise, low power, low heat, etc, but I've never had anything that ran fast enough to truly be a daily driver.

Is there any openly available, non apple hardware that is similar to the apple M1? There are so many SOCs floating around these days.

https://redd.it/lgxr0h
@r_linux

It looks like former SCO CEO Darl McBride, who tried to sue Linux out of existence, has filed for chapter 13 bankruptcy.
https://unicourt.com/case/pc-bk5-darl-charles-mcbride-1290201

https://redd.it/lh9rul
@r_linux

Using WPS Office (or any app you want) with blocked internet connection

Hi everyone!

As you know Linux suffers from the lack of Microsoft Office and users are forced to seek alternatives. Amongst some of the best are LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, WPS Office etc... I've tried them all and the one that, for me at least, has better compatibility and the best UI is WPS Office. However I was always afraid of using WPS privacy-wise because it's a closed source Chinese-made software.

Today I've taken the effort of blocking the internet connection of WPS office so that I can use it comfortably, and I wanted to share my steps with you as it might be useful for someone in the same situation as I. It's fairly simple, and works for any app you want to use with blocked internet connection.

Start by installing firejail (open source): "sudo apt install firejail". From now on you can run any app with blocked internet connection via terminal: firejail --net=none (appname)

If you want to run WPS from the desktop icon instead of the terminal, all you have to do is alter the ".desktop" WPS files in "/usr/share/applications/", more specifically by changing the "Exec" to include the firejail command. Example: "Exec=/usr/bin/wps %U" becomes "Exec=/usr/bin/firejail --net=none wps %U".

Hope this is helpful to someone!

https://redd.it/lhb8pd
@r_linux

Ive abandoned dual booting for just windows. Likely not going back to linux.

Yeah, i’m leaving linux as a whole. Going back to windows. I tried, i gave it a honest try. 6ish months of dual booting, i’ve given up on linux.

Between worse stability, having to constantly build and re-build wifi drivers, lack of programs, having to work around a ton of things, and finally a recent crash that was not recoverable with grub rescue after updating ubuntu, i’ve abandoned it completely. No more.

my old thought on linux still counts and not much has changed.


At this point, i don’t have the patience to tinker with it anymore. I need my systems working not spending 5 hours tuning dials to save a couple of seconds on a render or save a handful of frames in games.

So, this is goodbye. I gave it a shot, but i’m out.

https://redd.it/lgz326
@r_linux

Know, Prevent, Fix: A framework for shifting the discussion around vulnerabilities in open source
https://security.googleblog.com/2021/02/know-prevent-fix-framework-for-shifting.html

https://redd.it/lf6ka8
@r_linux

I love this feeling when I get exactly what I want from my Linux experience

I just wanted to share this with someone. I'm not a computer-savvy but I love Linux. Once you get to know it, you start finding out it's actually very simple: whatever you'd like your PC to do, there's surely a way to do it. And whenever I manage to accomplish what I wanted my PC to do, I get this satisfying feeling, maybe it isn't big deal but I did it and it works exactly the way I wanted it to!

These small goals go from deactivating the touchpad by just adding a single command to my '.profile' file of my old Lubuntu laptop to writing short bash noscripts and key-binding them. From testing different window and file managers to sticking to i3wm for a while. Then I start wondering what would it be to test different tiling wm's and realize that maybe there's a whole new world of possibilities! (But right now I'm pretty comfy with i3wm, to be honest.)

Anyways, if you ever feel proud of your own small and simple goals, you're not alone!

https://redd.it/lhfhg3
@r_linux

My Dell XPS runs better on Linux than Windows

I've always been the kind of OS-agnostic user, having Windows at home and using Linux at work not by open-source passion, but because it's the most efficient tool for the job. But recently I gave Ubuntu 20.04 a try on my personnal Dell XPS 15 that had minor issues with Windows (mostly with the sound card, power management and badly scaled apps at 4K HiDPI), and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Why Ubuntu? I'm usually a Fedora/CentOS user, but using Ubuntu doesn't change my workflow a lot. I previously tried Solus a few years ago on the same machine but wasn't able to fix some big Nvidia GPU issues at install. Now the Ubuntu ISO includes the Nvidia drivers, and Dell ships similar versions of my XPS (Precision 5520/5530/5540) with Ubuntu so I figured I'll have better hardware support out of the box.

Also most people at work use Debian or Debian-based distros, even if there's no policy for the OS of choice as long as you're able to do your job and collaborate. We even have a guy running an obscure fork of Arch Linux so...

What worked as well as on Windows:

Mostly everything. Keyboard FN keys for sound, brightness, connectivity and backlight keys worked by default, with a nice popup to indicate action. Nice touch.

The 4K screen was recognised and scaled flawlessly (HiDPi at 200% by default, nice) as long as I used GNOME or Budgie. The transition to GNOME was a bit hard as I used good old XFCE since they dropped GNOME 2, but I'm kind of used to it now. I preferred Budgie but the performance was worse than GNOME. GTK consistency means that I didn't encountered apps that scaled badly outside of some snaps.

The touchpad works great unless I use Wayland (bad acceleration settings I can't seem to change), so back to X11 for now. By the time Wayland is ready for LTS (22.04 ?) I'll have a new, less capricious laptop I guess.

The touchscreen worked by default, but I prefer to disable it thanks to [this trick](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/ggyq8g/disableignore_touchscreen_on_ubuntu_2004/). Apparently not possible when using Wayland.

Not gonna lie, having most of the hardware working out of the box is awesome.


What worked better:

Sound card: on Windows the MaxxAudio drivers are set up with too much bass that made the audio quality horrendous whatever the headphones, and I had to apply Kevin Shroff's modded Realtek audio drivers to get rid of that at first, but had to reinstall them at every Windows 10 yearly update, and since the 20H1 update they don't seem to work anymore.

I still have a weird bug when (a few times a month, randomly) the sound will become distorded and I have to unplug the jack and plug it back again, but it's not really annoying and not frequent. I also wish I could disable the popup asking me what device I plugged in the jack (headset, headphones, mic...), it's always the same.

Battery life: I might look into CPU throttling to squeeze a bit more minutes, but I'd say the laptop's battery life improved a bit, maybe by 15-20% than what I had under Windows. This might have to do with the [PopOS GPU switcher](https://support.system76.com/articles/graphics-switch-pop/) that allows me to disable the GPU most of the time, I didn't had this choice on Windows.

Sleep/wake up: Unlike on Windows, my laptop doesn't go into "deep sleep" and can wake up instantly on the password screen when I open it, like my former Macbook. Really convenient as I move a lot, and trying to get the same behavior on Windows lowers the battery life significantly.

One thing I didn't expect was BIOS updates through the Ubuntu software center. Impressive.


What worked worse:

Weird issues with snap apps being badly scaled, for example Spotify. But as snap coexists with flatpak I might get rid of the former, if I can

My Dell XPS runs better on Linux than Windows

I've always been the kind of OS-agnostic user, having Windows at home and using Linux at work not by open-source passion, but because it's the most efficient tool for the job. But recently I gave Ubuntu 20.04 a try on my personnal Dell XPS 15 that had minor issues with Windows (mostly with the sound card, power management and badly scaled apps at 4K HiDPI), and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Why Ubuntu? I'm usually a Fedora/CentOS user, but using Ubuntu doesn't change my workflow a lot. I previously tried [Solus](https://getsol.us/home/) a few years ago on the same machine but wasn't able to fix some big Nvidia GPU issues at install. Now the Ubuntu ISO includes the Nvidia drivers, and Dell ships similar versions of my XPS (Precision 5520/5530/5540) with Ubuntu so I figured I'll have better hardware support out of the box.

Also most people at work use Debian or Debian-based distros, even if there's no policy for the OS of choice as long as you're able to do your job and collaborate. We even have a guy running an obscure fork of Arch Linux so...

**What worked as well as on Windows:**

Mostly everything. Keyboard FN keys for sound, brightness, connectivity and backlight keys worked by default, with a nice popup to indicate action. Nice touch.

* The 4K screen was recognised and scaled flawlessly (HiDPi at 200% by default, nice) as long as I used GNOME or Budgie. The transition to GNOME was a bit hard as I used good old XFCE since they dropped GNOME 2, but I'm kind of used to it now. I preferred Budgie but the performance was worse than GNOME. GTK consistency means that I didn't encountered apps that scaled badly outside of some snaps.

* The touchpad works great *unless I use Wayland* (bad acceleration settings I can't seem to change), so back to X11 for now. By the time Wayland is ready for LTS (22.04 ?) I'll have a new, less capricious laptop I guess.

* The touchscreen worked by default, but I prefer to disable it thanks to [this trick](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/ggyq8g/disableignore_touchscreen_on_ubuntu_2004/). Apparently not possible when using Wayland.

Not gonna lie, having most of the hardware working out of the box is awesome.


**What worked better:**

* **Sound card:** on Windows the MaxxAudio drivers are set up with too much bass that made the audio quality horrendous whatever the headphones, and I had to apply [Kevin Shroff's modded Realtek audio drivers](https://github.com/kevinshroff/KSMRD-Modded-Realtek-Audio-Drivers) to get rid of that at first, but had to reinstall them at every Windows 10 yearly update, and since the 20H1 update they don't seem to work anymore.

I still have a weird bug when (a few times a month, randomly) the sound will become distorded and I have to unplug the jack and plug it back again, but it's not really annoying and not frequent. I also wish I could disable the popup asking me what device I plugged in the jack (headset, headphones, mic...), it's always the same.

* **Battery life:** I might look into CPU throttling to squeeze a bit more minutes, but I'd say the laptop's battery life improved a bit, maybe by 15-20% than what I had under Windows. This might have to do with the [PopOS GPU switcher](https://support.system76.com/articles/graphics-switch-pop/) that allows me to disable the GPU most of the time, I didn't had this choice on Windows.

* **Sleep/wake up:** Unlike on Windows, my laptop doesn't go into "deep sleep" and can wake up instantly on the password screen when I open it, like my former Macbook. Really convenient as I move a lot, and trying to get the same behavior on Windows lowers the battery life significantly.

* One thing I didn't expect was **BIOS updates through the Ubuntu software center**. Impressive.


**What worked worse:**

* Weird issues with snap apps being badly scaled, for example [Spotify](https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux/Ubuntu-19-04-GNOME-Spotify-is-not-scaling-with-GNOME/td-p/4796242). But as snap coexists with flatpak I might get rid of the former, if I can

without breaking the system. Those universal packages are kind of a mess.

* Home laser printer isn't recognised, even after installing a metric ton of bloated drivers. [I hate printers anyway](https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers).

* Some USB-C devices (DAC, SD card reader) weren't recognised, but I put that on cheap/rare chinese-grade hardware because my Dell USB-C docking station worked flawlessly despite having 2 DisplayPort monitors, Ethernet and a plethora of USB-A devices plugged into it.

* Not hardware related but I really need to get a better office suite than LibreOffice. I'll try out the less known suites this month when I find the time.

https://redd.it/lhhtsd
@r_linux

Booting into Windows changes boot order

I used to use Windows 10 and only switched to Ubuntu about two weeks ago. I’m using a dual boot system with grub as my boot-loader. I love Ubuntu and I don’t see a reason to ever go back to Windows for good. But occasionally, I have to boot into Windows to do whatever. I just select it from grub and it boots fine. But then it changes my computer’s boot order so it just boots straight into Windows the next time. I can change the order in my BIOS settings and put Ubuntu first. Then I get grub back. My grub order is Ubuntu then Windows. Does anyone know how to stop Windows forcing itself to the top of the boot order? It’s not a massive problem, it’s just annoying.

https://redd.it/lhi60k
@r_linux

Guess the Linux Distro and Desktop environment

Never thought that Linux is visually this beautiful. with minimal modifications this looks awesome. The most i like about Linux is its customizable. Linux made me to love programming . It gave me freedom to look at the internals of an OS, customize it and play with it. this made me simply love Linux.

https://reddit.com/link/lhherf/video/8dh80k72ltg61/player

https://redd.it/lhherf
@r_linux

SDL (very reluctantly) moving from mercurial to github
https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/sdl-moving-to-github/28700/5

https://redd.it/lhksri
@r_linux

Find and Share files online quickly with one simple command.

Hello everyone,

This is a little trick I use to share my files quickly on any chat application or email.

I also have a video on this.

First you can use find command to search all files in your Linux -

find $HOME -type f

Now many people don't know they can use curl to share a file -

curl -F"file=@filename" 0x0.st

This will give you a shareable link.

Now in above command what is 0x0.st?

It is a platform which allow you to store your files on 0x0.st server for some period of time. It provide you a shareable link which You can send to anyone. To share your file.

Note - If you worry about your data privacy or you want to share files with large size you can make your own **0x0.st** server. They provided the **program** it's open source.

At last Just mix these two things and you will get rid of inbuilt chat application feature of browsing and sharing file.

fzf version -

curl -F"file=@$(find $HOME -type f | fzf)" 0x0.st | xclip -selection c

dmenu version -

curl -F"file=@$(find $HOME -type f | dmenu -i -l 25)" 0x0.st | xclip -selection c

You can also use Rofi.

Here xclip -selection c will put your shareable link in clipboard.

You can even create a noscript with a notify-send in last because sometimes file take long time to upload.

Make sure to read 0x0.st rules on 0x0.st website.

or watch my video I explained all terms and services.

https://redd.it/lhonmz
@r_linux

All of the "linux is hard or linux is not beginner friendly" post make me laugh and scratch my head.

So last night I was reading through various linux related subreddits and keep seeing a ton of post of people complain that linux is complicated, or that it is not beginner friendly and all of this other mess. Windows is somehow easier for people. I don't understand how this is the case. You can literally install a lot of distros in like 20 minutes and then after that their is a graphical interface for installing apps, there is a graphical interface for updating it couldn't get more easy.

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I have seen way too many people that don't know how to use a PC very well destroy a windows installation. I have seen it a million times. They fall for the stupid ads on the sketchy web sites they were own so they download some dumb program that makes their pointer have a rainbow unicorn follow it and oh by the way it has malware attached to it, they get sucked into the web sites that claim there is something wrong with their PC and get charged for someone to remote access their computer and do god knows what and so on. You put a linux distro on these peoples PCs and you know what you never hear form them ever again? "my computer is slow, I keep getting all of these random messages popping up all over the place, I got charged for some one to fix my computer and it didn't fix anything" you show them how to use the app center, app store or whatever the distro has as default show them how to update and they are happy as can be. My 70 something year old grandmother uses linux and has been for the past few years and she is the least computer literate person ever.

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Also their seems to be this strange affliction with people that decide to come to linux on their own that feel like they need to start with Manjaro. As a more experienced person none of us should be recommending that for a new user even if you your self like it (which is fine) but the problem is it does take some work to keep it running well bottom line you can't argue with that. We as a community should be pointing them to the distros that they can just update will little chance of it breaking and them having to go search for answers. Manjaro being the new face of linux for what ever reason to me gives new people a bad perception of linux.

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Rant over.

https://redd.it/lho16i
@r_linux