From 0 to Sysadmin

Ubuntu

I've been a Linux user since 2009. Ubuntu was my introduction to Linux. At that time I had grown tired of Mac OS and Windows was not cutting it for me.

Enough Is Enough

After loosing my business for the 3rd time (natural disaster, fire and the pandemic) since 2017.

Enough was enough, I needed a change. The strain that this brought to my family was massive.

Flashing Linux

I needed to re-find myself. I needed a rebirth. Something to reboot my brain. To start to think outside the box. To have me think again in ways I never thought to before. And so it was that one day I decided to install Pop!_OS.

I hadn’t touched Linux in years. I ran my business on a Chromebook.

At first it was terribly frustrating, but slowly something started to happen to me, something that hadn't happened since my early days as an entrepreneur.

I was hooked.

Learning Everyday

Linux was a refuge for me. I was reading Slashdot, which used to be all tech news. But now it was Linux news, so it became my main source of news. And my quest to understand Linux lead me to more and more tech stuff.

I was doing things by SSHing into some private servers that I had set up. I was using some shell scripts that I had created for some of the stuff. I was on github day and night. Just reading and learning. Most of it was beyond me.

So you can imagine my dilemma. I had the beginnings of a spark but no way of nurturing it.

I was fascinated with Linux and I'd always loved working with computers. But I'd never considered making Linux my own career...

Not My First Rodeo

As a younger man I had worked at a few start-ups. Mostly Ad Tech. But the crash of 2008 almost killed the company that I had been working for. The day that Lehman Brothers went under, was the day that they were going to file our IPO.

At that time I was jobless. Too young to retire, too old for Tech. (Funny, I'm nearly fourteen years older.)

Entrepreneur

So I had pivoted into starting my own business. My business was successful.Three natural disasters was too much for me.

For the last year, I've been teaching myself Linux. It's amazing how much there is to learn. In the next year, I'm going to take my LPI exams. My goal is to apply for a junior Linux system administrator position and eventually grow my career.

Summing Up

I'm going to be creating a journal here. I'm going to be very open with this journal. I'll write down things I'm proud of, what I've learned, my struggles, anxiety , successes, failures ... I want it to be an account of someone trying to also become a Linux Sysadmin.

I haven't decided if I'll make it anonymous or not. We'll see how it goes.