When Unix Stops Being Fun

[Bill Moran]

Robert Dormer <rdormer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Having looked at the list, honesty - it's not nearly as much as it
> looks like.  Seriously.  It's well within your ken to learn ALL of
> that.  Easily.  Just do this - get a few machines.  Throw FreeBSD on
> them.  Hell, throw Open or Net on one or two, RedHat or Gentoo or
> Debian on another.
> 
> Now plug them all into a hub.  Get them to play nicely together. 
> Shouldn't take more than a few weeks of messing around.  By the end of
> that you should know just about everything on that list.  Not have it
> commited to memory, but hey - who does?
> 
> I mean - why do you think they invented man pages?
> 
> 
> Believe in yourself.  If I can do it, anyone can.

I want to second this wholeheartedly.

However, take Robert's advice to heart.  I think if you try to learn
this stuff without a experimental network to try things out on, you'll
either drive yourself mad, or simply fail.

If you're serious about doing this, it's worth the $$$ to invest in
4 or 5 used computers to learn on.  You really need more than one
if you're going to understand how things interact across a network,
and you want to have at least 1 computer that you _don't_ experiment
with, so it's always reliable to use for email or searching for
docs on the 'net.

And I agree with Robert, that if you're serious about wanting to do
this, you CAN accomplish it.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com