On Jun 13, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Cindee Phillips wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I realize this is a bit off-topic for this list, but I'm hoping
> someone might have some advice or recommendations for me concerning
> Unix training.
>
> I moved from cataloging to our systems position two years ago. At
> the time, we were on a maintenance contract with our ILS vendor,
> meaning I only needed to do very basic things with the server (my
> job primarily entailed running reports against our data and working
> with some other locally developed Access applications.)
>
> Last summer, we joined a consortium and migrated our catalog to
> their servers, and would like to do something else now with the
> server we were previously using for our ILS, probably along the
> lines of archiving locally produced media on it.
>
> But I obviously need more training.  It's a Sun box, running Oracle
> 9, and I've looked at several companies that do short term classroom
> training (i.e., www.learningtree.com ( http://
> www.learningtree.com/ )), but I've also been considering online
> coursework, either by Sun (http://www.sun.com/training/) or, perhaps
> O'Reilly http://www.oreillyschool.com/.
>
> I learn pretty well on my own (I figured out by myself most of the
> basic Unix stuff in respect to copying and moving files, working
> with vi, working with the crontab, etc.) but would want any course I
> sign up for to have an instructor to ask questions of.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with any of these programs they'd be
> willing to share?
>
> I'm sending this to several lists, so apologies for cross-posting.



Some of the most valuable lessons I've learned with any tool is when
actually using them. You say that you learn pretty well which is half
of the battle. Get familiar with Sun's "man pages" assuming your have
Sun Hardware/Software and you will be okay. The lessons learned from
just using it will beat any class you sign up for.

I do recommend Essential System Administration which is general and
specific enough to be useful in the fundamental tasks in Sys.
Admining. ISBN=1565921275

I also keep the UNIX System Adminstration Handbook close to me.  I
cannot say enough good things about it.

ISBN=0130206016

./fxk


=====
Francis Kayiwa
Library Systems
http://www.uic.edu/~kayiwa