Re: Request for advice

2012-06-14 Thread Super Bisquit
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Dru Lavigne  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.
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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-12 Thread Eitan Adler
On 12 June 2012 14:15, Jared Barneck  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
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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-12 Thread David Chisnall
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/

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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-12 Thread Jared Barneck
> 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
>
>
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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-12 Thread Dru Lavigne
>>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 




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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-12 Thread Dru Lavigne

> 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
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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-12 Thread Jakub Lach
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.

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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-12 Thread David Chisnall
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.

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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-11 Thread Super Bisquit
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  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
>
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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-11 Thread Dru Lavigne
> 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

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Re: Request for advice

2012-06-07 Thread Dag-Erling Smørgrav
Petrus  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
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