Linux+ vs LPIC-1

I recently finished LPIC-1 and Linux+ and thought I should share my views on these two certifications.

I first finished LPIC-1 and wrote an entry about it few days ago here . My initial impression was (before doing) LPIC-1 is that it is harder and covers a much broader area than Linux+. And thought studying for LPIC-1 would automatically prepare me for Linux+. Although not entirely true, it is to somewhat. It is difficult to say one is a subset of the other. The two clearly has content that is mutually exclusive. But overall, my impression between the two is that, LPIC-1 is a little difficult than Linux+, but at the same time it also covers some contents in detail than Linux+. I have to disclose here that although I used a study guide to prepare for LPIC, I did not use one for Linux+. So I do not have an in-depth idea about what is covered and in what detail. But I did buy a practice question package from Transcend and a lot of questions found on the internet and found lots of similar questions in the exam. So I guess I covered the contents fairly adequately.

LPIC-1 has two exams, which is one of the things I like most. It reduces the amount of things you need to memorize. Lets face it, how many of us really memorize the commands and their options. But LPIC requires you to. In fact, in a FAQ at LPIC  site, a question is asked as to why LPIC requires to remember commands and their options in detail, which is not so required in other exams like Linux+ or RHCE, and it states that LPIC believes that a true Linux user would use the command line more often and is aware of these commands and (most used) options. The validity of this claim is rather subjective, nevertheless, LPIC requires you to memorize commands and some options. In fact this is why I feel LPIC-1 part-1 is difficult than part-2. In part-1 lots of basic concepts and commands are covered, while in part-2 a lot more concepts are covered. Therefore you might need to memorize quite a few things for part-1, but as for part-2, if you are a regular Linux user, you might already be familiar with many contents covered in that part.

The following topics are covered in more detail in LPIC-1 than in Linux+ (Note that the list is not exhaustive. Only ones I remember) :

• Installations – RPM, apt-get, dpkg, Yum.
• File/text manipulation commands – cut, expand, od, split, uniq, wc, etc.
• Regular expressions
• X Window system
• Disk quotas
• Introductory SQL
• User add/mod – useradd, chage.
• Shell scripting
• Security – Inetd, xinetd, TCP Wrappers.

The following topic are covered more/in-addition in Linux+:

• Installation preparation – Hardware compatibility list, troubleshooting.
• RAM types – SRAM, DRAM, etc.
• Samba
• NIS
• Physical computer ports – RJ-45, Serial, etc.
• Some additional commands

As you might see, LPIC covers a bit more ground than Linux+. But LPIC preparation did not cover enough for me to pass Linux+ automatically. Soon as I finished LPIC-1 I purchased the practice exam kit from Transcend and did a practice test. I failed. So there are material in Linux+ that is definitely not covered in LPIC-1. It took me about 3 weeks (part-time) preparation to pass Linux+.

Overall impression

As for me, I like LPIC-1 more. The coverage of topics is well balanced and are essential for any Linux user. LPIC-1 cleared a lot of basic concepts about Linux for me. It is one of those exams that I honestly felt that I am learning and getting something other than a sentence in the resume. Linux+ too covers important Linux concepts although I cannot say I learned more from it than what I learned from LPIC. If I had to chose which one is better, there obviously isn’t a clear winner because both has a large content overlap. But I would go with LPIC because it is concerned exclusively on Linux. Whether doing LPIC before Linux+ has any influence on my decision, I am not sure.

I hope you got some helpful info.

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