Completing the LFCS

As of 10/2/2024 I have officially passed the Linux Foundation Certified Systems Administrator exam. I took the test the previous day and had to wait the full 24 hours before the scoring was released. I knew that I completed almost all of the tasks correctly, but there were a few that I wasn't totally sure of. I was hoping for a perfect score and was unable to get it, but I came pretty close. I guess you can't prepare for everything.

Thoughts on the actual test

I was a very big fan of it being a task based test. It absolutely makes sense for this type of subject for the test to not just be a set of questions. I'm sure that a lot of the tasks were extremely simplified or not representative of actual work that a Systems Administrator performs, but it definitely shows that you're capable of performing these kinds of tasks, not just memorizing a list of commands or their descriptions.

On the test day before taking the test I had to do a very thorough scan of my room, writs, and ears with my webcam, which I was prepared for. I had heard that they can be very strict, and they were, but fortunately there was nothing in my room that drew too much interest. I did have to explain what the external hard disk on top of my computer and subwoofer under my desk were. I also preemptively removed the TV next to my desk, which may or may not have been necessary, but just like with the studying for the test, I'd rather be over-prepared.

They give you a full 120 minute to complete the test, but I had completed all the tasks in about 60. Going in I was worried that I wouldn't have enough time because I heard it can be a lot, but I was relieved that I had time to go back and check my answers. And I'm glad that I did check them, because there was a subtask for one of the questions that I had missed on my first round.

Aside from that I don't have many other opinions or comments about the test without going into detail about individual questions, which I don't want to do here.

Advice for passing

My biggest advice, which is something I also mentioned in my previous LFCS post, is do the labs on KodeKloud and killer.sh. When you take the killer.sh practice test they mention that the difficulty is higher than the actual test which I did find to be true.

My other advice, just as important to me as the practice tests, is use an anki deck if this is new information that you don't already have memorized. Once I started using the anki deck, and went back to the KodeKloud labs I felt like I was not only learning the information necessary for the exam, but also remembering how to do it without needing to look things up.

That's a big part of the test... not being able to look things up. You can check man pages which is very helpful, but there are some things that you just need to know how to do for this test.

Final thoughts and what's next

I really enjoyed preparing for and taking this test, and I'm glad that I did it. As someone without any experience working in the tech field, it will be nice to actually have something that I can point to and say, "Hey, I do kinda know what I'm doing, or at least I can learn."

I have a whole list of other things that I want to move on to, but I think the next thing that I focus on is getting AWS certifications. There's a lot of different paths to take and I'm not certain which one is what I'm looking for yet, but they all start in the same place, and that's Cloud Practitioner. So that's where were going next...