I think we might have some crossed concepts here. When I said my “sysadmin” experience came out of necessity, I was referring to what I would consider the normal sysadmin tasks of keeping a system up and running, etc.
The network stuff came separately, and I wouldn’t refer to anything I learned in the area as “tasks” so much as concepts. I would also say understanding them was more want than need. “How does this work?” or “Why did that happen?” are typical starting points.
You’re welcome? It doesn’t seem to fit at all what you stated at the beginning as far as “sysadmin for poets”.
I’m learning more generally and don’t anticipate ever looking for a conventional sysadmin job. I integrate what I learn into practical, often social justice-y projects.
Lnux and open source code first interested me a little over 15 years ago. I managed a small nonprofit law firm and a larger nonprofit agency. We have more time than money for some tasks. Over time, I converted most aspects of the law practice and office management almost entirely to open source code and services.
During that time, I also shifted from expecting solutions marketed to professionals to work “out of the box” to something closer to @tropo’s project-based approach. I maybe put more emphasis on the “social” side of learning and collaborating (e.g. mentoring and group learning).
So finding help has been important. I reciprocate and share what I’ve learned as much as I can, esp. through educational social justice projects or solutions within those projects.
And that’s not too far off from the experience of some people that do it for money. Me? I was going to be a musician, managed to con my way to a part time job doing support with an ISP, a few years later me and a few friends set up a business doing computer repair, graphic design and web development, since a few of those friends turned out to be unreliable I had to learn a little bit of everything and 18 years later here I am.
I’ve rarely set out to learn a technology or concept just for fun, I’m usually trying to solve a problem, implement a solution or attempting to deploy a service when I go into learning mode. Or maybe, since I like learning, I tend to tackle big problems and volunteer for new projects just so I can spend a couple of days reading technical manuals. (Yes, I know I’m weird)
I also spent a few years doing training for helpdesk level techs and spent a lot of time both thinking about how to teach the big concepts and attempting to teach those concepts, my audience was usually made up of a few lay people and computer science students, their background didn’t really impact their ability to understand and retain these concepts, about the only thing that made a difference is if they had any actual real world experience working with technology, didn’t matter which technology, some people were good with fixing cars, they tended to develop conceptual frameworks for what they were learning faster than some other participants, as long as they could relate what they were learning with any practical work they’d been involved with. The other major predictor of success? Stubbornness and ability to BS their way through any situation.
See, the best way I ever got people to learn (I usually had two to three weeks to get people into their seats), was to practice some of the most common real world scenarios over and over again, drill them on the use of their tools and once I understood that they just weren’t in a position to translate the conceptual understanding of a thing to the real world implications of the use of that technology by lay people, I found stories were actually better at getting the point across than getting down to the nuts and bolts of the tech.
I do think there’s a need for a book like the one you’re looking for, I just don’t think anybody’s written it yet.
But if you’re looking to discuss something message me, I’m not the world’s best expert on anything but I’ll be glad to discuss concepts and theory.
Thank you! There is so much awesomeness in your post. I’ll try to respond to the different parts.
We have this in common. I’m more likely to nerd out on technical academic or policy writing. But otherwise, that sentence could be about me.
I also teach, and, to your point, I train lay advocates to do tasks lawyers do but with a social justice focus. I agree 100% that familiarity with the practical context is super important. People who have the right experiences learn legal ideas that lawyers struggle to learn.
I agree this is also huge though I’d call it confidence based on knowing your goal … and understanding that you’re the one who controls which goal to pursue. Clarity of purpose … that’s why I ask the questions I ask in this thread and elsewhere.
This is gold esp. if it can be adapted to hypotheticals that deviate from conventional real world scenarios. Stories, yes.
Or a wiki with CC licensed content. Maybe we should write it!
What’s the recipe for configuring the most basic, proof of concept possible Apache server. Assume that we would give two shits whether it’s hacked. It’s educational bash-accessed, command line exercise … a sandbox. The bigger goal is to set up basic monitoring tools to observe and learn over time, esp. as a database and some scripting are added later in bite-sized pieces over time.
I like XAMPP on a local machine or local server just for screwing around with. It includes a database (I use MySQL) along with PHP and Perl. It’s easily extensible. And it starts up and shuts down with a couple of clicks so you don’t have to leave it running when you’re not actively using it.
I’ve never invited him to my house, but I have benefited greatly from his work, and that of RMS as well. So has everyone here who is criticizing them.
It’s not necessary to like a person, or respect their religion or politics, in order to gain value from their generosity and co-operation. I recommend you do read both ESR and RMS if you want to gain a deep level of understanding of POSIX-related operating system administration.
Bookmarked, and I will commence edumacating myself further about xampp!