Earlier this week, I asked if anyone was interested in a loose-knit Red Hat study buddy group to finish 2012 with some Red Hat certifications. The response was positive and so far we’ve got five eight ten eleven twelve participants signed up to end the year with more letters after their name, and start 2013 with greater possibilities!

List of Participants:

Kenny: A man of many talents on ServerFault. Kenny is gunning for his RHCE. He already has his RHCSA.

Noe Gonzalez: SysAdmin with mostly Windows and Mac experience who is dabbling in the realm of Red Hat. He wants to get his RHCSA.

Simon: Attempting to slay the EX200 in his quest to attain the RHCSA honor.

Cole: Walking brain, currently working for NetApp. Has been working with Linux for many moons. Wants to do the EX200, but might also be able to hit up the EX300 for the RHCE just based on sheer experience.

Jeff C.: Already an RHCSA, Jeff has tried to complete the EX300 to earn his RHCE but been just shy of completing it. This attempt will be his triumph.

Shashi: An experienced Linux administrator who works on RedHat systems, this participant wants to get the RHCE by the year’s end.

Matthew: Already LPIC-1 certified, he’s going for the RHCSA/RHCE combo! No, wait — he’s going for the RHCSA. He’ll tackle the RHCE next year.

AdamD: Already been studying for the RHCSA but now wants to get in with a group of like minded penguins.

Ahmed Helmy: SysAdmin from Cairo Egypt going for the RHCSA.

Eddy Webster: Going for the RHCSA.

Leon Carter: And a late entrant emerges!

The Wesley: That would be me. I’ve been working with RPM based Linux distributions for a year and a half, so I’d like to have some official endorsements of my knowledge as well as have a structured means of exposing my deficiencies.

Study Buddy Hangouts

I made a thread over on the SysAdmin Network titled “Welcome to the 2012 RedHat study buddy group.” Go post a “hello!” message! I think the SysAdmin Network would be a good place to have direct discussions about specific topics as you slice through the Red Hat materials,

I was also considering the possibility of occasional Google Plus hangouts to have discussions and chats concerning anything that comes to mind. Perhaps we could have a bi-monthly schedule of every other Friday evening… or whatever time works best.

If anyone else has other and better suggestions for how to go about socializing and force multiplying our experiences so that we can all have better chances of passing our exams and, more importantly, learning useful information, let me know in the comments below or over on the SysAdmin Network.

Starting Lesson Plan

There’s really no official lesson plan for this little group, however it might be nice to have some kind of basic plan. I’m using the RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Certification Study Guide (Exams EX200 & EX300), 6th Edition and find it to be pretty solid. The labs require some virtual machines, and I assume that everyone will have some spare equipment around to spin up some VMs, but if not, comment below and I’ll see what I can arrange.

If anyone has suggestions for other good training materials and sources, post about it on the SysAdmin Network. I’m not planning on taking any classroom courses, at least not for the EX200 material. I don’t know of any good RedHat focused video training courses. I’m just sticking to old fashioned books and breaking things on my own.

So for the first week  (Oct 8 through the 14th) I’m going to have a goal to do the following:

  • Scour the RedHat site for hints, tips, and the official synopsis for the EX200 test.
  • Set up some virtual machines with the latest CentOS (Sorry Scientific Linux)
  • Read one, maybe two chapters in the RHCSA/RHCE book including the labs.

Follow along if you’d like and share your experiences in the comments, but mostly over at the SysAdmin Network. I’ll post again on my blog in about a week concerning the topic of the study buddy group. I’ll include my commentary on my studying to date as well as with my plans for the next week of study. By the way, my goal is to be ready for the EX200 sometime in the first week of December to leave time for a retake if necessary.

Thoughts? Comments? Adulations? Detractions? lolcats?