Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator: Gabriel Canepa

fotoGabriel crop The Linux Foundation offers many resources for developers, users, and administrators of Linux systems. One of the most important offerings is its Linux Certification Program, which is designed to help you differentiate yourself in a competitive job market.

How well does the certification prepare you for the real world? To illustrate that, the Linux Foundation is featuring some of those who have recently passed the certification examinations. These testimonials should help you decide if either the Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator or the Linux Foundation Certified Engineer certification is right for you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the fold of the certified, Gabriel Canepa.

How did you become interested in Linux and open source?

I first became interested in Linux back in 2007 when a colleague showed me an Ubuntu 7.04 Live CD and offered to install it on my laptop. I was quickly impressed at the fact that I could have a high quality operating system and applications at no cost, with great community support. In addition, I had always been interested in learning to program and having Python available out of the box was a plus. Then a few years later, I had the blessing to find an online training center that offered Linux courses in Spanish (www.carreralinux.com.ar) that helped me a lot to deepen my understanding and polish my Linux skills.

What Linux Foundation course did you achieve certification in?

I recently achieved the Linux Foundation System Administrator certification. I first heard of it and about the LFCE certification when they were first introduced by the Linux Foundation around August of 2014. Living around 500 miles from the nearest LPI certification centers, I often felt frustrated by the fact that taking an exam would require to travel a long distance. Thus, I was very happy and excited at the possibility of taking a world-class exam and achieve a certification sponsored by the Linux Foundation from my own living room at a date and time I could choose as per my convenience.

Do you participate in any open source projects at this time?

At this time I am not involved in open source projects, but I look forward to doing so. One of my Linux-related hobbies consists of writing technical articles for popular sites such as xmodulo.com/author/gabriel, tecmint.com/author/gacanepa/, the community library of Digital Ocean, the Javacode Geeks Academy, and a book about Linux clusters that is being prepared for publication by Packt Publishing.

Do you plan to take future Linux Foundation courses? If so, which ones?

I am mostly interested in Linux system administration and development. Thus, it would be nice to take any of the courses listed on the Linux Foundation training site, beginning with “Advanced Linux System Administration and Networking.”

In what ways do you think certification will help you as a systems administrator in today’s market?

A certification issued by a prestigious entity such as the Linux Foundation helps immensely to increase the interest and trust, right from the start, of prospective clients and businesses. Additionally, importing the certificate and a link to the validation tool to your LinkedIn profile is very easy, thus increasing the chances of being contacted by people from all around the world when they’re looking for someone with proven Linux skills.

What Linux distribution do you prefer and why?

For the desktop, I prefer Linux Mint based on Ubuntu LTS. I am not as interested in having an operating system with the latest bells and whistles as I am with having one that is stable and supported for a long time. On the other hand, I prefer CentOS for servers, which — perhaps somewhat contradictory to the last sentence — has ignited a spark of interest in me for Fedora. We will see if I install a Fedora box in a virtual machine to test.

Are you currently working as a Linux systems administrator? If so, what role does Linux play?

Although it is not my main task today, monitoring two production Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers and the applications that run on them is still one of my responsibilities. Thanks to a very robust operating system, we’ve never had to open a support ticket with Red Hat. In addition, having access to a command-line environment I have been able to create customized productivity reports for plant directors and leaders, which has led to a significant increase of effectiveness in production lines and warehouse operations without the need to install any kind of additional software.

Where do you see the Linux job market growing the most in the coming years?

Undoubtedly, it will keep growing and growing as that is at the heart of open source. I believe we will be continually impressed by the places and devices where we will see Linux work and blossom.

What advice would you give those preparing for certification?

Make sure you love what you are doing, and do not forget to have fun, to experiment, and then to do it all over again and again, and make sure you learn something new each time.