Disappointed in LFS211.

paulliesenberg

I posted a message with true proven mistakes and it gets deleted by the moderator?

I repeat, there are glaring basic mistakes (I attach a screenshot of Lab 2.1). This kind of stuff makes the learning experience painful. And it's not the only one - just the latest one I have encountered. I would suggest to just pick one distro and make things actually work.

The commands are actually not explained at all - why the syntax makes sense, what &f means as one starts a service...

And the Navigation is bizarre, since regularly the "Go where you were last" takes me to the very start, despite the fact that the tests at the end of the section are answered (correctly, too).

fcioanca

Hi @paulliesenberg ,

Nobody deleted your message. It actually showed in the forum Spam folder, as flagged by you. I have moved it again in the forum. As far as navigation goes, I have checked the course just now, and it actually took me to the last page I accessed. Answering the knowledge check questions does not influence in any way the navigation/progress, etc. There may be issues with this from time to time, but we do not have control over them (if they happen). Regarding progress, it is only recorded when you land on the last page of each chapter, it does not get recorded on each page.

As far as the content goes, I will let the course instructor address those items.

Regards,
Flavia

paulliesenberg

Thanks for the reply. I'll just post to this topic then. As I progress through the modules, there are more glaring examples of stuff that doesn't work because it is obsolete. Again, I wish one distro was picked and kept up to date.

With some previous Labs, I basically just gave up given the fact the workflow simply didn't work given some highlighted commands didn't exectute, and it wasn't clear to me what I was supposed to achieve. Show me just one sure way to start and stop a service, and perhaps explain the difference between enabling, starting and disabling, stopping a service with commands that actually work.

Here's another example from Lab 3.4. The old eth0 is there so the student has to cruise the Internet to learn that was deprecated by ens33...

coop

Let me comment on a couple of things.

First of all, this course assumes a pre-requisite of LFS201 or equivalent. Some of the issues you raise are fully discussed at that level and you cannot blame LFS211 for not starting at zero. Two particular issues:

1) killall command not found. "killall" is an extremely standard command on any unix-based system. if you are not finding it I don't understand. It may not be in your path on your distribution. On mine (RHEL 7) it is in /usr/bin so even normal users should find it, but on your distro maybe it is in /sbin or /usr/sbin and is not in the user path by default. A simple "locate killall" or "man killall" would have found it for you. This command is discussed fully in LFS201 (likewise "ifconfig" won't work on many distributions unless you type /sbin/ifconfig)

2) Network device names have changed with PNIDN (Predictable Network Interface Device Names) also thoroughly discussed in LFS201. Whether your device is called eth0, eno1 or several other more complicated strings depends on how your system is set up and how it is configured. What it is called is completely irrelevant to your point.

3) These courses are deliberately chosen to be "distribution-flexible" because the audience demands it; some students use Ubuntu, some openSUSE, some Debian, some CentOS, some Archlinux .....So the course has to keep things as universal as possible while explaining distribution differences. This is very important; students have to know what is Linux, and what is Ubuntu vs what is CentOS etc. Selecting a particular distribution would have a very negative impact.

4) We emphasize in this and all courses you need to do more than read what is on the page, just as you would as a practicing user or administrator or developer. You need to use "man", google, etc. You are deceiving yourself if you think something like this subject can easily fit all details on a few pages. If you don't understand something, research it -- and that includes asking on the forum.

5) Calling your post "Disappointed in LFS211" is not a good way to engender good will, but those of us who monitor this course are not petty. No one eliminated your post. The only posts that have ever been eliminated are spam and blatant obscenity -- and it is an extremely rare occurrence and the enrollees in all our courses are nice people as far as I know.

I am not the maintainer of the course, so anything technical may require some comment from people specifically assigned to moderate this forum. But the issues you raised are rather simple ones easily addressed, not show stoppers and in fact you haven't pointed out anything wrong.

paulliesenberg

Please tell me where in https://training.linuxfoundation.org/certification/linux-foundation-certified-engineer-lfce/ it is stated that LFS201 is a prerequisite? I actually did have an email exchange with Linux Foundation Training about what my ideal training journey would be.

I have every right to be disappointed in a course offered by the Linux Foundation if I can find and document obsolete and flawed training sold at $499. Guess I don't get any goodwill for wasting $. Thanks. I basically should go on my very personal training journey and ignore the course. Awesome.

The lesson is that the Linux Foundation is misguiding LFCE candidates presenting a $500 LFS211 course as a useful prep when it is riddled with inaccuracies (I found like 5 more in the last 2 hours).

I will ask for a refund.

fcioanca

The LFS211 web page clearly specifies under Prerequisites that you should be familiar with the concepts taught in LFS201: https://training.linuxfoundation.org/training/linux-networking-and-administration/?sf_action=get_data&sf_data=all&_sft_course_mode=e-learning&_sft_technology=linux. This is not a beginner course, therefore it's understood that you already have Linux sysadmin skills.

paulliesenberg

Actually that looks like a recent update. Potentially conveniently so. It wasn't there when I was advised. I have other high level certifications, none of which take pride in asking their students to ignore the course and research the needed skills elsewhere.

If it was a $20 Coursera course I'd be ok. With a 500 buck Limux Foundation course I expect more, and your argument about ignoring the class and just look for the real facts elsewhere kinda makes my entire point.

fcioanca

The LFS201 or equivalent knowledge and skills have always been a prerequisite for LFS211, and not a recent update. If you are not satisfied with your purchase, please contact training@linuxfoundation.org.

coop

You haven't actually shown any one thing to be "obsolete and flawed", you've only shown things where your particular system may not be identical to whichever one was used for illustration in the course, or where you were not properly prepared. If you have looked at the table of contents of this course (always has been online) and thought you could just plow in without preparation you needed to do more homework. These course has been active for years now and has not engendered the kind of criticism you are making. Most people need to have reached their LFCS or equivalent before attempting LFCE which is quite more difficult.

No productive system administrator would think everything they need to do could be captured and put in a book they kept next to their computer with perfect answers for any problem that might arise, that was perfectly tuned to their hardware and software, and magically was updated every time there was an advance, or a bug or any change. This is particularly true with Linux because it is not a monoculture at all and updates are frequent on many components.

$500 is not very much when it includes a professional certification. A $20 Coursera course does not.
As fcioanca said, please talk to training@linuxfoundation.org to complain about the advice you claim you were given being inaccurate etc, we have no control over your interactions with that end, we only work on the actual course content in this forum, not that or the exams themselves due to firewalls between divisions.

tdsgit

Looks like there is slight misunderstanding here between training and certification.
This link is training:
https://training.linuxfoundation.org/training/linux-networking-and-administration/
This link is certification:
https://training.linuxfoundation.org/certification/linux-foundation-certified-engineer-lfce/

The training link emphasizes on course outline.
Since the certification can also be taken by experienced ones who may not need training,
the certification link emphasizes on domains and competencies.
Course outline ≠ Domains and Competencies. (also refer to portal's candidate handbook for exam description).
And if I am not wrong both training and certification departments are different.

I would suggest to add this piece of information somewhere in both links.