Linux+ XK1-006 beta experience

2024-11-08 14:39:00

Almost a year ago I had my first frustrating experience with the OnVue checkin process on my mobile phone. Today I learned a new aspect to this: the OnVue checkin process does not work on Apple iOS devices that have Lockdown Mode enabled.

Aside from that OnVue was great to work with, as always. The proctor was polite and efficient, I got my remote testing setup approved really quickly. The software worked fine, the checkin went well, we went over the rules quickly and I was allowed to start testing within 15 minutes. 

I don't know what's up with people on Reddit, who complain about OnVue and proctoring. I have a head cold and I coughed and sneezed and snorted a lot during my exam. I had zero complaints from anyone!

As to the XK1-006 Linux+ beta exam: I'm not as enthused as I was about XK1-005.

• Most of the questions about Linux-proper are very similar to what they always were. Decent quality, decent difficulty.
• Some of the questions are getting really old, they're classics that have been in every Linux exam (from LPIC, through Linux+ to RHCSA) for over twenty years now. 
• Some of the questions seemed to go off-scope wildly, covering things that are on LPIC1/2 but not on Linux+. That was very weird. 
• The new objectives' coverage feels almost farcical.
  • The inclusion of AI smacks of "we had to put AI in every new exam" and the questions really have no relation to Linux systems administration. 
  • The large majority of questions on the new objectives never go beyond dry regurgitation of simple facts and definitions. Where the Linux-proper questions often require insight and experience, these don't. What's more, despite seemingly being new objectives they really don't go much deeper than what was asked in version 005. 
• I really dislike the PBQs about commands and commandline options. I did not get the old-school simulated shells that I had for 003 and 004. All of them were multi-tabbed questions (some with multiple sub-tabs per tab!) where you either clicked buttons or used pulldown menus to construct whatever command you thought you'd need. 

I had 115 questions, 4 of which were PBQ. I needed a bit more than two of the three hours I'd been given. A lot of my time went into filling out comments, giving feedback to CompTIA. I just really hope they actually get and read all those comments, so that wasn't wasted time.

One thought struck me earlier today: I get the feeling that CompTIA are trying to shoehorn Linux+ into DevOps+ or something. They're adding on all kinds of stuff that doesn't belong on a junior Linux sysadmin exam and instead should be on an exam for more experienced people with a more diverse job role.

I think that, if CompTIA don't change the objectives to go more on-focus back to Linux, I'll suggest we switch to LFCS (or even LPIC) with my students.

kilala.nl tags: work, studies,

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CompTIA XK1-006 Linux+ objectives comparison

2024-11-07 13:12:00

Next year the Linux+ certification exams from CompTIA are due for their new version. 003 was the first one I ever did and we're now moving to 006!

As is tradition, I've made a comparison of the exam objectives:

• Linux+ XK0-005 vs XK1-006 as PDF
• Linux+ XK0-005 vs XK1-006 as Excel sheet

Nov 8th'24 disclaimer: these comparisons were made using information available at the time. This information is subject to change, as CompTIA can and will tweak exam objectives. Always grab the latest objectives doc.

Disclaimer 2: My comparison does not go into details! It takes the high-level objectives and matches them. There will be a lot of small changes, most notably in commands that are, or are not, covered. Always study using the full objectives document!

The comparison also includes comparisons to LPI Linux Essentials, to LPIC1 and to RHCSA for good measure. All of this is very rough and not detail oriented; it just gives a broad overview of the differences.

The changes I've noticed, going from 005 to 006:

• They've re-introduced both the graphical working environments as well as Syslog, which were both last seen in 004.
• They sprinkled in a little bit about hardware, similar to LPI LE.
• 006 removes software compilation, AppArmor and a few other small things.
• Most of the stuff that makes a Linux certification "Linux" has gone unchanged; they just moved topics back and forth between objectives.
• 006 newly introduces a lot of emphasis on:
  • Virtual machine operations with Linux as host OS, similar to what RHCSA once had.
  • Centralized authentication concepts like Kerberos, SSD, LDAP and more.
  • Concepts surrounding malware detection and response, vulnerability scanning, file integrity, data destruction and hardening standards.
  • In-depth concepts for Kubernetes, Ansible, Puppet, OpenTofu, Docker Swarm and Docker Compose. 
  • Python for Linux system administration.
  • The use of AI and LLM (large language models) for system administrative tasks, code generation, infra-as-code. Also AI data governance and prompt engineering. 
  • Monitoring of systems using SNMP, webhooks and other methods.

If anything I feel that this exam is trying to do too much. 

When 005 introduced basic conceptual understanding of Kubernetes, Ansible and so on, next to in-depth container operations, I was happy. Just a glossing-over of the concepts, so students would understand what we use Linux for. 

But now, the fact that those things have been given objectives of their own with extensive lists of terminology? I feel it's too much. 

The addition of AI also just feels like CompTIA have a 2023-2025 mission to update every single exam to include AI/LLM. 

So, either the curriculum for 006 trieds to do too much, or CompTIA say these are exam objectives while in reality just glossing over these topics anyway. 

EDIT:

For those looking for learning resources, as always you're going to have to work with the current version's materials and then fill in the blanks. As per my comparison, the blanks are pretty considerable, so prepare to learn a lot. 

In my class we use the Sybex book, which is decent and comes with practice questions and exams. But use whicever you like! McGraw-Hill and Pearson also have good books.

There are commercial video courses (though I've heard bad reviews of Dion's) and Shawn Powers has a free series on YouTube. 

I share all my labs and practice exams here -> https://github.com/Unixerius/XK0-005/

kilala.nl tags: work, studies,

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