Linux Essentials Certification

The Linux Essentials Certification is ideal for those starting in IT or who know very little about Linux. The exam price is also very appealing!

This certification is the gateway to a whole new world!

The Linux Essentials Certification validates the beginner IT professional or one who knows little about Linux to:

• Have knowledge of open source applications in the workplace, as they relate to closed-source equivalents.
• Know basic concepts of hardware, processes, programs, and Linux operating system components.
• Know how to work on the command line and with files.
• Know how to create and restore backups and compressed files.
• Know about system security, users/groups and file permissions for public and private directories.
• And how to create and run simple scripts.

The best part is the exam price: US$ 105, which comes to around R$ 400.00.

Certification Topics

1.1 Linux and Popular Operating Systems

TOPIC 1: LINUX COMMUNITY AND A CAREER IN OPEN SOURCE

Description: Knowledge of Linux development and major distributions.

Knowledge Areas:

• open source Philosophy
• Distributions
• Embedded Systems

Terms:

• Android
• Debian, Ubuntu (LTS)
• CentOS, openSUSE, Red Hat
• Linux Mint, Scientific Linux

1.2 Major Open Source Applications

Description: Knowledge of important applications, as well as their uses and development.

Knowledge Areas:

• Desktop Applications
• Server Applications
• Development Languages
• Package Management Tools and repositories

Terms:

• OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, GIMP
• Apache HTTPD, NGINX, MySQL, NFS, Samba
• C, Java, Perl, shell, Python, Samba
• dpkg, apt-get, rpm, yum

1.3 Understanding Free Software and Licensing

Description: Open communities and open source software licensing for businesses.

Knowledge Areas:

• Licensing
• Free Software Foundation (FSF), Open Source Initiative (OSI)

Terms:

• GPL, BSD, Creative Commons
• Free Software, Open Source Software, FOSS, FLOSS
• Open source business models

1.4 ICT Skills and Working in Linux

Description: Basic Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills and working in Linux.

Knowledge Areas:

• Desktop Skills
• Getting to the Command Line
• Industry uses of Linux, Cloud Computing and Virtualization

Terms:

• Using a browser, privacy concerns, configuration options, searching the web and saving content
• Terminal and Console
• Password issues
• Privacy issues and tools
• Use of common open source applications in presentations and projects

TOPIC 2: FINDING YOUR WAY IN A LINUX SYSTEM

2.1 Command Line Basics

Description: Basics of using the Linux command line.

Knowledge Areas:

• Basic shell
• Command line syntax
• Variables
• Globbing
• Quoting

Terms:

• Bash
• echo
• history
• PATH env variable
• export
• type

2.2 Using the Command Line to Get Help

Description: Running help commands and navigating the various help systems.

Knowledge Areas:

Man
Info
Terms:
man
info
Man pages
/usr/share/doc/
locate

2.3 Using Directories and Listing Files

Description: Directory and system navigation and listing files in various locations.

Knowledge Areas:

• Files, directories
• Hidden files and directories
• Home
• Absolute and relative paths

Terms:

• Common options for ls
• Recursive listings
• cd
• . and ..
• home and ~

 
2.4 Creating, Moving and Deleting Files

Description: Create, move and delete files and directories in the home directory.

Knowledge Areas:

Files and directories
Case sensitivity
Simple globbing and quoting
Terms:

mv, cp, rm, touch
mkdir, rmdir

TOPIC 3: THE POWER OF THE COMMAND LINE

3.1 Archiving Files on the Command Line

Description: Archiving files in the user's home directory.

Knowledge Areas:

• Files, directories
• Archives, compression

Terms:

• tar
• Common tar options
• gzip, bzip2
• zip, unzip

3.2 Searching for and Extracting Data from Files

Description: Search and extract data from files in the home directory.

Knowledge Areas:

• Command line pipes
• I/O re-direction
• Basic Regular Expressions ., [ ], *, ?

Terms:

• grep
• less
• cat, head, tail
• sort
• cut
• wc

3.3 How to turn commands into a script

Description: Turning repetitive commands into simple scripts.

Knowledge Areas:

• Basic shell scripting
• Awareness of common text editors

Terms:

• #! (shebang)
• /bin/bash
• Variables
• Arguments
• for loops
• echo
• Exit status

TOPIC 4: THE LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM

4.1 Choosing an operating system

Description: Knowledge of major operating systems and Linux distributions.

Knowledge Areas:

• Windows, Mac, Linux differences
• Distribution life cycle management

Terms:

• GUI versus command line, desktop configuration
• Maintenance cycles, Beta and Stable

4.2 Understanding computer hardware

Description: Familiarity with components used in building desktop computers and servers.
Knowledge Areas:

• Hardware

Terms:

• Motherboards, processors, power supplies, optical drives, peripherals
• Hard drives and partitions, /dev/sd*
• Drivers

4.3 Where data is stored

Description: Where various types of information are stored on a Linux system.

Knowledge Areas:

• Programs and configuration, packages and package databases
• Processes, memory addresses, system messaging and logging

Terms:

• ps, top, free
• syslog, dmesg
• /etc/, /var/log/
• /boot/, /proc/, /dev/, /sys/

4.4 Your Computer on the Network

Description:  Querying vital network configuration and determining basic requirements for a computer on a local area network (LAN)

Knowledge Areas:

• Internet, network, routers
• Querying DNS client configuration
• Querying Network configuration

Terms:

• route, ip route show
• ifconfig, ip addr show
• netstat, ip route show
• /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/hosts
• IPv4, IPv6
• ping
• host

TOPIC 5:SECURITY AND FILE PERMISSIONS

5.1 Basic security and user type identification

Description: Various types of users on a Linux system.

Knowledge Areas:

• Root and Standard Users
• System users

Terms:

• /etc/passwd, /etc/group
• id, who, w
• sudo, su

 5.2 Creating users and groups

Description: Creating users and groups on a Linux system.

Knowledge Areas:

• User and group commands
• User IDs

Terms:

• /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group, /etc/skel/
• id, last
• useradd, groupadd
• passwd

5.3 Managing file permissions and ownership

Description: Understanding and manipulating file permissions and ownership settings.

Knowledge Areas:

• File/directory permissions and owners

Terms:

• ls -l, ls -a
• chmod, chown

5.4 Special Directories and Files

Description: Special directories and files on a Linux system, including special permissions.

Knowledge Areas:

• Using temporary files and directories
• Symbolic links

Terms:

• /tmp/, /var/tmp/ and Sticky Bit
• ls -d
• ln -s