.. so where i am now, well i feel like i am capable desktop user and would be ready to full-time switch aside from full on gaming ofcourse.
I still feel a bit weak in the process management area, task manager in windows is kinda easy compared to the amount of processes running in linux reported by top or system-monitor.
And i am still a bit overwhelmed at the sheer number of packages and stuff to look at when viewing through synaptic or aptitude, searching packaged and their descriptions are kinda weak.
but i am a windows sysadmin and i want to keep going in getting better with linux.
I am asking for your suggestion(s) where to go next for learning?
might not be specific to linux but you could turn your attention to setting up linux to run services.
As a sysadmin, have a look at docker, it's like a virtual machine in that processes are isolated in their own environments but ecah environment isn't a whole virtual machine.
That is good suggestion. I would start looking on Virtualization stuff.
You could start looking into KVM/QEMU or XEN virtualization or NAS OS like FreeNAS.
That indeed takes some getting use to. That is why the Software center exist in the more user-friendly Distros.
I believe the best way to remedy that is to use distros with very thorough documentation on the packages like Arch, Debian or Suse and use the wiki to get the needed information.
You could work on making a Linux domain controller and/or email server, etc. Any sort of project, really, should broaden the knowledge. My next personal project, for example, is to try a PCI-E pass-through for VMs.
Yes i am freshly familiar with docker, it is very cool and i like the suggestion but it wouldn't be practical and honestly impossible to test in my home environment.
As for linux domain controllers; are you talking about "Microsoft active directory" here or some other linux specific network management tool? why would Microsoft even allow a linux active directory server?
You are talking about some serious enterprise solutions here and although i like the ideas it not attractive to me as something to do at home, and imo testing it would be impossible.
The email server idea is pretty good though and worth doing, got any links to get me started?
Hey THATS what im talking about, nice link and thank you.
if your intention is to play windows games in your vm, imo you are wasting your time. Although the idea is pretty cool and fascinating the reality is that as a gaming solution it's just a fancier band-aid on the wound that is linux gaming. Doing a PCI passthrough for the reason i just stated above is a bigger pain in the butt, more expensive and way more complicated than just running windows bare-metal and enjoying your games.
There is a saving grace though and i hope you might find this interesting.
In the link i provided for you, Pudget systems built a single high level gaming rig that actually served as four gaming rigs. Now thats how PCI pass-through is done properly. It saves space, money and a great way to get your gamer buddies together.
hmmm come to think of it my wife's pc is due for an upgrade maybe i could just share my rig with her and turn her pc into that awesome linux server you all suggested above... PEACE!!
One thing I'd definitely recommend as I am beginning to learn Linux as well would be to get more comfortable with the command line/using the shell. It's perhaps the most powerful and useful thing Linux has to offer, and learning to manage systems with it is a HUGE plus.
Sounds like you got some ideas. Another thought is one I am thinking about. A reliable very long term storage solution. I recently realised I have a lot of data I'm not checking for corruption and should have been as it's about 10 years old and lived across at least four hard drives. I'm not sure what the best route is though.
Well the unfortunate thing is that if the data is already corrupted and you have moved to another HDD then there isn't anything you can do about that. In terms of preventing that corruption there is alot you can do all of which varies in terms of complexity and money ofcourse, you are probably already familiar with alot of them..
imo a simple and cost effective way to ensure data survives is just proper care of a good quality HDD. Like maybe a Western digital Red or Black drive, you know something with NAS or long-term storage in mind. Copy your stuff to that and done.
It's worth the investment imo, for example i have a now 7-year old 1 TB western digital black drive that still runs great, as far as i can tell all my data seems intact. With the ridiculous size of HDD these days like 2-4TB on the cheap i don't see the need for more than one unless you are collecting torrented movies idk, lol..
raid 1 if you want to take it to the next level, btrfs as per @wendell video for level 3.
just my 2-cents for something easy and cheap, aka good for home use.
It's hard to check if they are or not corrupted. It's thousands of small files from very old and long gone projects. It is not feasible for me to go check each file now. Why do I want to keep them then, I don't know, I want to is all. Up until now I have done what you suggested, keep it on a good drive. With all the recent talk of zfs, btrfs and ecc ram it has me thinking that I probably didn't do enough to archive my old files and with hindsight it seems quite foolish and simple. I could have at least zipped and made a hash or something. Live and learn, I would certainly have done things differently to the me from 10+ years ago.
Not to worry, my important stuff is separated and that has many backups in many different places.
something did occur to me, all depending on the size of your data and how comfortable you feel about "the cloud" you could always bundle it up as you said and put it on cloud storage place; and let them worry about the data integrity.
Google drive is giving away 15GB for feel these days. If you don't mind the hassel setting up multiple accounts is easy enough and with google drive on the desktop you can integrate all your "drives" in your folder system on your computer.
oh, i forgot about data caps.. hmmm well maybe you got unlimited ;-)
If you haven't already then you can always try to install Gentoo. There is a saying that goes, that if you install any other distro, you learn that distro, and some Linux, but if you install Gentoo, you will truly learn Linux.
It's "special" because most everything you install is compiled locally (source based I think they call it), instead of having pre-compiled packages. It makes updating time consuming, but most everything can be tweaked without much trouble. It is a learning experience on many levels, and I do recommend anyone to try it out at least once. Just be certain your comfortable and confident with the command line first, otherwise yes it will be very intimidating.