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Linux Professional Institute (LPI) exam prep

Self-study articles and tutorials to help you learn Linux fundamentals and prepare for system administrator certification

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Introduce yourself to Linux, and advance your proficiency, through a spectrum of self-paced tutorials. With these tutorials, you can build fundamental skills in Linux systems administration at your level of expertise.

Exam 101 tutorials

Exam 101 is the first of two junior-level system administrator certification exams offered by the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). Both exam 101 and exam 102 are required for junior-level certification, or LPIC-1.

New developerWorks articles corresponding to the April 2009 objectives for exam 101 and exam 102 are in progress.

The developerWorks articles and tutorials below help you prepare for the topics in LPI exam 101:

LPI exam 101 prep: Hardware and architecture
Topic 101. Learn to configure your system hardware with Linux. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how Linux configures the hardware found on a modern PC and where to look if you have problems.
LPI exam 101 prep: Linux installation and package management
Topic 102. In the five new articles for this topic, covering the latest (April 2009) LPI exam 101 objectives, learn how to design a hard disk layout, install a boot manager, manage shared libraries, use Debian package management, and use RPM and YUM package management.
LPI exam 101 prep: GNU and UNIX commands
Topic 103. In the eight new articles for this topic, covering the latest (April 2009) LPI exam 101 objectives, learn how to work on the command line; process text streams using filters; perform basic file and directory management; use streams, pipes, and redirects; create, monitor, and kill processes; modify process execution priorities; search text files using regular expressions; and perform basic file editing operations using vi.
LPI exam 101 prep: Devices, Linux filesystems, and FHS
Topic 104. Get acquainted with Linux devices, filesystems, and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how to create and format partitions with different Linux filesystems and how to manage and maintain those systems.
LPI exam 101 prep: The X Window System
Topic 110. Learn about the X Window System on Linux. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how to install and maintain the X Window System. This tutorial covers both major packages for X on Linux: XFree86 and X.Org.

See all LPI exam-prep tutorials on developerWorks.

Exam 102 tutorials

Exam 102 is the second of two LPI junior-level system administrator certification exams offered by the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). The nine tutorials below help you prepare for the nine topics in LPI exam 102. Both exam 101 and exam 102 are required for junior-level certification, or LPIC-1. (The remaining tutorials in the 102 series will be added to this page as they are completed.)

LPI exam 102 prep: Kernel
Topic 105. Learn how to install and maintain Linux kernels and kernel modules. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how to build, install, and query a Linux kernel and its kernel modules.
LPI exam 102 prep: Boot, initialization, shutdown, and runlevels
Topic 106. Learn how to boot, change runlevels, reboot, and shut down your system. By the end of this tutorial, you will know guide a system through booting, set kernel parameters, and shut down or reboot a system.
LPI exam 102 prep: Printing
Topic 107. Learn how to administer your Linux printing environment. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how to configure and monitor print servers, work with print queues and files, and install and configure printers.
LPI exam 102 prep: Documentation
Topic 108. Learn how to use and manage Linux documentation. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how to find local and Internet documentation, and use automated logon messages to notify users of system events.
LPI exam 102 prep: Shells, scripting, programming, and compiling
Topic 109. Learn how to use the Bash shell and scripts to customize your shell environment. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how to use shell programming structures to create functions and scripts, set and unset environment variables, and use the various login scripts.
LPI exam 102 prep: Administrative tasks
Topic 111. Learn how to manage accounts, use log files, schedule jobs, and back up your data. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how to manage user and group accounts and tune user and system environments, configure and use system log files, automate system administration tasks by scheduling jobs to run at another time, back up your system, and maintain system time.