Crash Course in LINUX
 

I need something like Windows XP Weekend Crash Course; but to quickly cover the basics of Linux (specifically the Red Hat flavor). Any recommendations?

A former collegue of mine called me with a job opportunity at a new hospital that just opened about an hour from here. The vendor for the system I'd be running recently switched to Linux for the back-end of their new product, which I'm assuming they have installed here. If they haven't, then I won't ever be able to upgrade the system without (probably) hardware upgrades! But surely the vendor wouldn't sell them an obsolete system :::knock on wood:::

Anyway they're having an open house tomorrow where I'll get to meet the CIO. My friend told me the CIO said he'd interview me "on the spot" if I come out.

But, eventually, I will have to at least be able to fake my way through some Linux. This is a good opportunity for me to be panicked into learning something I need to know, either way.

just wear a black t-shirt and Birkenstocks, don't shower or shave, and snort condescendingly whenever anyone expresses an opinions.

They'll assume you're a linux genius.

That's basically what our new IT guy has done, and so far he's gotten away with it.

You could do worse than the Linux Pocket Guide. In general, O'Reilly is your go-to publisher for any books about linux, internet, or web programming topics.

I wouldn't suggest it as a "crash course" but the Unix System Administration Handbook was always very valuable. (I haven't gotten a copy since they split off and did a separate Linux edition.)

bc, are you suggesting he's actually clueless?

Also you can be a pilot. The engine starts with the key like a car. There's a knob on the right to make the engine run faster. The steering wheel thingie works like a steering wheel in the air, and also you can push it forward to go down and backward to go up. On the ground, you push the right floor pedal down to turn right, the left pedal down to turn left, and both down to stop. If you want to land, make sure you're lined up with the runway you want to land on. Oh uh don't pull back too hard when you take off. Good luck.

If you have an old PC lying around, download and install Fedora on it, to work with while you learn. Fedora is RedHat without the logo.

If you don't have a machine handy, and want to get familiar with it via the command line, you can sign up for a XEN virtual server slice at slicehost (my referral ID is shamelessly embedded in the link), have them build it with fedora, and then tweak to your hearts delight.

You can also download several different distributions as virtual machines that will play with the free version of the vmware player.

And "Live CDs", bootable CD versions that just run from the CD and don't bugger your Windows installation.

That was great. *wipes tear of laughter*

ha ha UT
 

Sarcasm duly noted and apprectiated; but I'm sure you know that as long as I know more about "being a pilot" than anyone else in the building, then they won't need to know (or care) that I'm Googling my way through learning the system one step at a time.

Actually, with this system, I'll probably have to "social engineer" the passwords out of the FEs before I can even get to the back-end Linux stuff; and that'll be just because I want to do my own firstline troubleshooting before calling the 800 number. And eventually, I'll know more about the system than the 800 number guys, and won't need them except to put tickets into the developers.
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Anyway, the update is that this job doesn't have enough hours to make an FTE for PACS Admin (it's a small facility), so half my hours will be DBA backing up all systems to an EMC Centera.
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Thanks to all for your suggestions. I've been looking for an excuse to get into Linux, but I couldn't justify it while working at a vanilla Windows facility.

what happened to that job opportunity you interviewed for a little while back?

That last job I interviewed for went to an internal referral from the CEO. Que sera, sera; it was a beast of a drive, and the opportunity I have now is ten times more appealing.

It is also a drive, but directly away from the high-traffic areas--a one hour straight-shot to a very rural (but fast-growing) area (with a lake). I might move out there if I get this job. :::fingers crossed:::

Right now, the IT dept is the CIO and one other dude, and the other dude is a guy I used to work with, who referred me to this position.

"Scuse you? I know a LOT about bein' a pilot!

Earned my pilot's license in '89 I did.

Dude, metaphorical pilot. Post #5.

Sort of. Fedora is the distribution that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is based on; Fedora is more bleeding edge --- kind of like the "unstable" branch of Debian.

@Flint: To get a good feel for RHEL, download the current verison of CentOS and run it from a partition. It's RHEL with all the Red Hat logos and proprietary (non-GPL) stuff taken out. The CentOS developers literally download the publicly-available source RPMs of the current RHEL edition. You won't get closer to RHEL without buying it.