- Website of the course
- Monthly "Linux Upskill Challenge"
- Table of contents and full lesson source
- Chat with Discord
This course is squarely aimed at two groups: (1) Linux users who aspire to get Linux-related jobs in industry, such as junior Linux sysadmin, devops-related work and similar, and (2) Windows server admins who want to expand their knowledge to be able to work with Linux servers.
However, many others have happily used the course simply to improve their Linux command line skills – and that’s just fine too.
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a preparation course for any Linux certification exam, like LPIC, RHCSA or LFCS. It can help you, sure, but please refer to a more specific cert training if that's what you are aiming for.
The course always starts on the first Monday of the month. One of the key elements of the course is that the material is delivered in 20 bite-sized lessons, one each workday into the subreddit.
Depending on your experience and dedication, you can expect to spend 1-2 hours going through each lesson. The first few days are pretty basic, but there's generally some "Extension" items to spice things up a bit.
But don't worry, you can totally self-pace this if you want, the resources and discussions are kept for reference forever (of for as long as Reddit allow us).
Feel free to post questions or comments here in the subreddit – or chat using the Discord server (https://discordapp.com/invite/wd4Zqyk) run by u/cobaltrune.
If you are inclined to contribute to the material and had the means to (i.e. a github account) you can submit an issue to the source directly.
The magnificent Steve Brorens is the mastermind behind the Linux Upskill Challenge. Unfortunately, he passed away but not before ensuring the course would continue to run in his absence. We miss you, snori.
Livia Lima is the one currently maintaining the material.
Yes, if you’re in the target audience (see above) you definitely should. The fact that such a server is very remote, and open to attack from the whole Internet, “makes it real”. Learning how to setup such a VPS is also a handy skill for any sysadmin.
Instructions for setting up a suitable server with a couple of providers are in the "Day 0" posts. By all means use a different provider, but ensure you use Ubuntu LTS (preferably the latest version) and either use public key authentication or a Long, Strong, Unique password.
Of course, you’re perfectly entitled to use a local VM, an old laptop in the corner or a Raspberry Pi instead – and all of these will work fine for the course material. Just keep in mind what you are missing.
The notes assume Ubuntu Server LTS (latest version) and it would be messy to include instructions/variations for every other distro (there are tons of distros). If you use Debian or CentOS (also good server choices), you yourself will need to understand and cope with any differences (e.g. apt vs yum).