4/27/2009 -- While there aren't as many notable Linux certifications around today as there once were, there are still a plethora of them. The offerings can be broken into two broad categories: vendor-neutral and vendor-specific. This month, we'll run down what changes have happened in the past year for the most popular offerings in each category.

Vendor-Neutral Certifications

CompTIA's Linux+
Last August, CompTIA slightly raised the price of all its exams. The Linux+ certification exam, for one, increased to $191 for CompTIA members and $239 for non-members. The 2009 revision of this one-test entry-level certification is targeted at administrators with six to twelve months of experience and a level of comfort at the command line. The domains are:

• Security.
• Applications and services.
• System maintenance and operations.
• Installation and configuration.
• Networking.

More information on Linux+ and current news can be found here.

LPI Certifications
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) revised the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 certification exams and programs. To become certified at the LPIC-1 level, a candidate must pass two exams: 101 and 102. The LPIC-2 level also requires candidates to pass two exams: 201 and 202.

The following table lists the top-level topics for the 201 exam along with the subtopics and weighting of each (each number is worth roughly 1.66 percent of the total exam):

The topics and weighting for exam 202 are as follows:

A complete list of the key terms and utilities to know for each subtopic is available here.

On the 300-level front, LPI introduced another elective exam: LPIC-303: Security. The exam consists of the following four topics and objective categories:

More information on key knowledge areas and files/terms/utilities to know for each subtopic can be found here.

Vendor-Specific Certifications

Red Hat Certified Datacenter Specialist
The Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification has long been considered one of the best Linux certifications in the industry due to the rigor of its hands-on exam. In addition to some certificates of "expertise" that are available, Red Hat has now added the RHCDS -- or Red Hat Certified Datacenter Specialist -- as an option. To obtain this, you must pass three of the expertise exams, which cost $749 each if taken by themselves, or you can save $200 by taking them in conjunction with a class. The three expertise exams required are:

• EX401: Deployment, Virtualization and Systems Management
  
• EX423: Directory Services and Authentication
  
• EX436: Clustering and Storage Management
  

Each expertise exam is similar to the RHCE exam in that it's hands-on and lasts between four and eight hours.

More information on the RHCDS certification can be found here.  

Oracle Linux Exams
The Oracle Enterprise Linux Certified Administrator (OCA) certification was designed to be a stepping stone to future upper-level Linux certifications. It requires passing two exams:

• 1Z0-402: Enterprise Linux Fundamentals
  
• 1Z0-403: Enterprise Linux System Administration
  

The Fundamentals exam -- which you can skip if you're already LPI-, Linux+-, Ubuntu-, Red Hat- or Novell-certified -- has topics that include everything from "archiving and compression" to "multi-user concepts" to "shell basics."

Meanwhile, the System Administration exam topics range from troubleshooting, to security, to "Linux kernel compilation."

Both exams are administered through Prometric testing centers. You can get more info about Oracle's Linux certification here.

Novell Linux Certifications
Novell recently rolled out one new Linux certification, the Certified Linux Desktop Administrator (CLDA), and is expected to soon go live with the Certified Linux Administrator (CLA), as well (the exam numbers are 050-708 and 050-710, respectively). Both consist of a single exam on SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 that's administered through either Prometric or VUE testing centers.

The CLDA focuses on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10; a list of the test objectives are available here. Meanwhile, the CLA focuses on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10. Though the test objectives aren't posted yet, the exam will focus on topics taught in Novell's 3071 and 3072 courses.