Agreed. In a classroom for sysadmins, maybe make them aware of the
distros, but the ones to teach would be a rhel, debian, and aws. Those are
the ones used mostly in jobs. I, personally, found Gentoo and then LFS
extremely useful in learning how to troubleshoot issues and get a better
handle on how to do more advanced things. Doing stuff manually and then
forming a good mental model before adding the distro's tooling on top of
what does what automatically.
Something I have to do with new sysadmins is having to train them on how
boot works, MBR vs EFI boot, what arch they're on and how x86_64-v2
requirement in newer rhels means updating that virtual hardware, how rc
scripts and/or systemd work, how to configure a bonded NIC, OSI model and
how it maps to how to troubleshoot in linux, etc. To make them more ready
for employment, that'd be a help. Also, setting up httpd, tomcat, nginx,
haproxy, etc and configure those ciphers! Oh, and automation! Be it
puppet, ansible, chef, whatever. At least some experience with a
state-based configuration system. I will absolutely argue that the need
goes away with proper architecture, but it's a fundamental tool that almost
all jobs are going to have.
I know with solaris training back in the day we separated it out to general
familiarity and build. Then "advanced" topics like fiddling with driver
settings and doing disk stuff (solaris volume manager was interesting).
Then troubleshooting (broken libs, broken boot, broken start scripts) and
security. AIX training was different, but AIX is ... different.
If training for k8s, docker, podman, whatever, it's a different story. A
lot of that is kind of unique to that environment and will often also be
dependent on which of the various bits and bobs are getting plugged in, k8s
especially. Containers aren't new, but the OCI standard has made some
things better defined.
On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 6:51 PM Matthew Crews via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
> I do not recommend teaching people Void Linux in a classroom setting.
>
> I know enthusiasts tend to like it, but for people that want to learn
> Linux (and potentially use it in a commercial setting), it does things
> different enough from the major mainstream distros that it's actively
> counter-productive to learn it.
>
> But that said if there is going to be a lecture or two on the
> differences between A distro and B, C, D, etc., distros, then it would
> be a good one to include.
>
> Ditto for NixOS, antiX, Alpine, and honestly Slackware at this point.
>
> -Matt
>
>
>
> On 2/6/25 17:02, Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> > On Wed, 5 Feb 2025 12:07:15 -0700
> > James Mcphee via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
> >
> >> I'd add that if your students want to learn linux well, they should
> >> use one of the other distros as well. Arch, gentoo, LFS, etc.
> > Please add Void Linux to this list. It's very close to the metal,
> > highly conforming to POSIX, and it's fairly simple (in terms of moving
> > parts and thin interfaces, not in terms of having things done for you).
> > Unlike Arch, the Red Hat biosphere, and the Debian biosphere, it uses
> > the ultra simple runit init system rather than the 1.3 million LOC
> > all-encompassing systemd. Like Arch, Gentoo and Funtoo, it's a rolling
> > release, but Void Linux does a much better job of rolling release.
> >
> > SteveT
> >
> > Steve Litt
> > Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
> > Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
> > ---------------------------------------------------
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> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
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--
James McPhee
jmcphe@gmail.com
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