So, has anyone here self-studied for the RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer)? Need longer than the 30 day trial of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) to hit the books? Take a look at CentOS!
CentOS is quickly becoming the preferred Linux server OS of choice for many people as it is exactly the same as RHEL, just without all the Red Hat branding. The developers that provide CentOS can do this as Red Hat is built on Open Source software, and the only copyrighted material is their branding and some of their documentation and knowledge bases. Thus they remove these items, re-brand the packages from the RHEL source tree under CentOS and viola, CentOS is born in all it’s glory.
Now, getting back to the talk of the RHCE.
Those that have researched it know that the RHCE is one of the most respected and thus, difficult, certifications in the industry. So, to really know your stuff you’ve either got to take the Red Hat led training classes (Expensive) or, self-study your butt off.
The latter obviously takes more time than 30 days unless you have nothing else to do with your time, so this is where CentOS is a huge advantage. As opposed to the 30 day trial you get with RHEL you can run CentOS as long as you want.
Pair this with the RHCE Exam Objectives, and a decent training book from Amazon such as this one, and you have the foundation to begin teaching yourself RHEL.
You can also setup several virtual machines using a hyper visor, like Virtualbox, to simulate an entire environment.
Virtualbox can easily be installed on most distros with the built in package manager.
Happy trails!