Re: Request for advice
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Dru Lavigne dru.lavi...@att.net wrote: I'm curious. When will the examination cover other architectures such as POWER/PowerPC, SPARC, and ARM? Having an exam for such architectures would get the BSDs recognition as a reliable system with the Power group. Support for ARM in the exam could increase the use of the BSDs in embedded devices; and, the same is also true for certain Power architectures. I am aware that the standard architecture being used is i386 and amd64. I am also aware that development is taking place on the architectures mentioned. The BSDA exam is for system administration, not development. Cheers, Dru Such systems require that the administrator know Forth or other commands for the boot loader. These commands are also needed for accessing different settings prior to booting the OS. On POWER/PowerPC systems, booting a different installation requires the person to know the exact partition because the boot loader will look for the first available UFS2 partition. If nothing else, such should be added for those who wish to administer or do administer such systems. It can be added as an optional section. ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
Hi Dru, On 11 Jun 2012, at 20:33, Dru Lavigne wrote: The BSDCG gets requests quite often from employers who are looking for admins with BSD skills. We refer them to our BSDA certified linked in group as its members are all BSDA certified. There is also a linkedin group for those interested in BSD certification which is a good resource for networking with other admins who are interested in BSD. Do we currently have any references to or even mentions of this on the freebsd.org web site? And are there any more open alternatives to LinkedIn? It would be great if we could host job adverts for FreeBSD admins and developers somewhere easy to find from the main site, even if it's not actually part of the site. David___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
1. I believe that exam is architecture-neutral. 2. I fail to see specific administrative skills needed for ARM (especially*), PowerPC and SPARC. * BSDCG is not how to build embedded system exam, the more- course. -- View this message in context: http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Request-for-advice-tp5715922p5717744.html Sent from the freebsd-advocacy mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
I'm curious. When will the examination cover other architectures such as POWER/PowerPC, SPARC, and ARM? Having an exam for such architectures would get the BSDs recognition as a reliable system with the Power group. Support for ARM in the exam could increase the use of the BSDs in embedded devices; and, the same is also true for certain Power architectures. I am aware that the standard architecture being used is i386 and amd64. I am also aware that development is taking place on the architectures mentioned. The BSDA exam is for system administration, not development. Cheers, Dru ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
The BSDA exam is for system administration, not development. Out of curiosity, is there a market for a FreeBSD Developer cert? We have not done an analysis to see if there is a market. There has been interest since we started the program, which came as a surprise to us seeing that an open source developer can prove their skills by pointing to the code that they have contributed. Whereas, there really isn't a way for a system administrator to point to their body of work or for someone starting in the system administration field to prove that they do indeed possess the technical skills required for the job. When putting together the exam, we work with employers to determine which skills are needed on the job and use that information as the blueprint for putting together the exam's questions. Cheers, Dru ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
I'm curious. When will the examination cover other architectures such as POWER/PowerPC, SPARC, and ARM? Having an exam for such architectures would get the BSDs recognition as a reliable system with the Power group. Support for ARM in the exam could increase the use of the BSDs in embedded devices; and, the same is also true for certain Power architectures. I am not sure if having a certification itself brings recognition. I used to believe that, but reality proved otherwise. I think we need a product to bring recognition. I think we need to advertise FreeBSD to embedded, point-of-sale (POS), or appliance systems manufactures and get a lot more users and business on our side first. Or you could start a company that uses FreeBSD on such systems and see if you can make it... I am aware that the standard architecture being used is i386 and amd64. I am also aware that development is taking place on the architectures mentioned. The BSDA exam is for system administration, not development. Out of curiosity, is there a market for a FreeBSD Developer cert? Cheers, Dru ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
On 12 Jun 2012, at 22:15, Jared Barneck wrote: Or you could start a company that uses FreeBSD on such systems and see if you can make it... Someone did: http://semihalf.com/ David___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
On 12 June 2012 14:15, Jared Barneck rhy...@yahoo.com wrote: I'm curious. When will the examination cover other architectures such as POWER/PowerPC, SPARC, and ARM? Having an exam for such architectures would get the BSDs recognition as a reliable system with the Power group. Support for ARM in the exam could increase the use of the BSDs in embedded devices; and, the same is also true for certain Power architectures. I am not sure if having a certification itself brings recognition. I used to believe that, but reality proved otherwise. I think we need a product to bring recognition. we don't just need a certificate, or a product, or any one thing. We need an ecosystem that encourages use and contribution. -- Eitan Adler ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
Hello, I'm currently planning on taking the BSD Association certification, as described here. (http://www.bsdcertification.org/) Although I am primarily doing so for personal, rather than economic reasons, I did want to ask whether or not it possibly *would* add to a resume, in the opinions of people here. As much as I've loved using FreeBSD myself, I've been looking for trend and market share numbers on the Web recently, and what I've found has been fairly depressing; the indication usually seems to be a gradual, long term decline of the three major BSDs, with virtually all UNIX market share moving in the direction of Debian Linux. With that said, I've also noticed that FreeBSD is still visible on Netcraft's list of the most reliable ISPs. I consider this tragic, because after close to 15 years of at least intermittent use of both systems, I have developed a belief that FreeBSD is vastly technically superior to any form of Linux that I have used, including Debian. So I wanted to ask; how possible is it still, to become gainfully employed as a BSD administrator? Once I have the BSD certification, will it be necessary to concede to reality, and also seek certification in Linux as well? I have long considered that idea, but the problem is that Linux training generally costs a minimum of $2,000, and I do not have that type of money available. Disclaimer: I'm the current chair of the BSD certification group (BSDCG). The BSDCG gets requests quite often from employers who are looking for admins with BSD skills. We refer them to our BSDA certified linked in group as its members are all BSDA certified. There is also a linkedin group for those interested in BSD certification which is a good resource for networking with other admins who are interested in BSD. We have also received several reports back from certificants indicating that the reason why they were hired over someone else was because they were BSDA certified. I wrote an article for the February issue of BSD Mag (available for free download from bsdmag.org) that describes why one would want to be BSD certified, even if not motivated by economic reasons or even if one is already happily employed. Bottom line, if you're interested in system administration, the more Unix-like skills that you can get, the better. A Linux certification will only provide a subset of these skills. Having both Linux and BSD certification provides a fuller skillset. Cheers, Dru ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
I'm curious. When will the examination cover other architectures such as POWER/PowerPC, SPARC, and ARM? Having an exam for such architectures would get the BSDs recognition as a reliable system with the Power group. Support for ARM in the exam could increase the use of the BSDs in embedded devices; and, the same is also true for certain Power architectures. I am aware that the standard architecture being used is i386 and amd64. I am also aware that development is taking place on the architectures mentioned. On 6/11/12, Dru Lavigne dru.lavi...@att.net wrote: Hello, I'm currently planning on taking the BSD Association certification, as described here. (http://www.bsdcertification.org/) Although I am primarily doing so for personal, rather than economic reasons, I did want to ask whether or not it possibly *would* add to a resume, in the opinions of people here. As much as I've loved using FreeBSD myself, I've been looking for trend and market share numbers on the Web recently, and what I've found has been fairly depressing; the indication usually seems to be a gradual, long term decline of the three major BSDs, with virtually all UNIX market share moving in the direction of Debian Linux. With that said, I've also noticed that FreeBSD is still visible on Netcraft's list of the most reliable ISPs. I consider this tragic, because after close to 15 years of at least intermittent use of both systems, I have developed a belief that FreeBSD is vastly technically superior to any form of Linux that I have used, including Debian. So I wanted to ask; how possible is it still, to become gainfully employed as a BSD administrator? Once I have the BSD certification, will it be necessary to concede to reality, and also seek certification in Linux as well? I have long considered that idea, but the problem is that Linux training generally costs a minimum of $2,000, and I do not have that type of money available. Disclaimer: I'm the current chair of the BSD certification group (BSDCG). The BSDCG gets requests quite often from employers who are looking for admins with BSD skills. We refer them to our BSDA certified linked in group as its members are all BSDA certified. There is also a linkedin group for those interested in BSD certification which is a good resource for networking with other admins who are interested in BSD. We have also received several reports back from certificants indicating that the reason why they were hired over someone else was because they were BSDA certified. I wrote an article for the February issue of BSD Mag (available for free download from bsdmag.org) that describes why one would want to be BSD certified, even if not motivated by economic reasons or even if one is already happily employed. Bottom line, if you're interested in system administration, the more Unix-like skills that you can get, the better. A Linux certification will only provide a subset of these skills. Having both Linux and BSD certification provides a fuller skillset. Cheers, Dru ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Request for advice
Petrus petr...@tpg.com.au writes: Although I am primarily doing so for personal, rather than economic reasons, I did want to ask whether or not it possibly *would* add to a resume, in the opinions of people here. What you should ask yourself instead is can it possibly hurt? So I wanted to ask; how possible is it still, to become gainfully employed as a BSD administrator? Once I have the BSD certification, will it be necessary to concede to reality, and also seek certification in Linux as well? It is undoubtedly much easier to get a Linux job than a BSD job, unless you are willing to relocate to where the BSD jobs are. I have long considered that idea, but the problem is that Linux training generally costs a minimum of $2,000, and I do not have that type of money available. I got LPIC-1 without any training, after only a few months of using Linux. There is a lot of overlap with FreeBSD and other Unices. The exam itself costs $173 at any Pearson VUE location. The BSDA exam costs $75 and is usually given at F/OSS conferences and user group meetings. DES -- Dag-Erling Smørgrav - d...@des.no ___ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
