Thought I would go though something I did recently. Since I switched to Linux in 2021, I have learned a lot of things. I’ve gone though countless distributions (currently on Manjaro and PopOS), expanded my knowledge into Docker, came to enjoy two great text editors (Doom Emacs and VIM), and was able to take that knowledge to help others.

About 3 weeks ago, I had finished the Watchguard Essentials Certification. This took me a couple weeks of study and wasn’t bad as I am in Watchguard Firewalls all day, every day, and sometimes in my sleep. After passing on the first go, I was still in a study mode. With this I looked at my skills on my resume and asked myself “Is there anything I am saying I have some knowledge on, and can take a test on?” This might seem like an odd question but my reasoning for it was this, I wanted to be able to prove to others that I did understand a topic. I just proved that with the Watchguard Essentials Exam, so what else is there to take.

Well, the first thing that came up was Azure. I have had the AZ-104 for a while. I have taken some additional Azure certifications but they did not touch on what I do as part of my day to day with a MSP. Most small business just need either a small virtual machine and a vpn or go Entra ID. Nothing crazy. That was coming up in June for another renewal. With that, I sat down and went back over Microsoft’s Learning material, watched a refresher course on Youtube, and passed that in the first go. No problem there but it wasn’t much of a challenge.

The second thing I saw, and this ties back to my opening statement, was Linux. Before I switched my home systems to Linux, most of my knowledge on the operating system came from my time in Baker College years ago. I had dabbled with it off and on but it wasn’t until I made the full-time switch was that I really got into it. For Linux certifications, the leader in this is LPI. As part of my journey on Linux, I had come across Shawn Power’s videos that went over the LPI Linux Essentials exams. Sure its not as noteworthy as the LPIC or Linux+ exams but I decided to give it a go.

I kept the same cadence that I had with Watchguard. First thing was I went over the material and took hand-written notes. This I found works better than when I was taking notes for the CISSP. With the CISSP I did everything in Markdown. While that was able to help me upload my notes and help others quicker, I think it caused me to spend more time studying and didn’t help with data retention. With the Watchguard cert, I hand wrote my notes and did well on topics I was weak on. For Linux Essentials, I went though all of Shawn’s videos as well as utilizing the practice tests from Dion Training. One thing I didn’t do but probably should have (and didn’t for time) was utilize LPI’s Learning Material. One thing I did do was bust out the terminal on whatever Linux machine I was on and practice the commands that we went over. When I sat down and took the exam today, I was confident and passed with a very high score.

With that, now that I have that done, I am going to keep in this learning mode that I am in. I picked up a book from the latest humble bundle on forensics that I think I will go though, along with build up my Try Hack Me Profile which, needs to be used.

For anyone who is looking to take the LPI Linux Essential’s Exam, Learn Linux TV has an exam voucher (along with some really great training videos) to get started.

73’s and take care guys.