Hello Everyone,

Just thought I would start a thread and see how many of you are working in a Linux Environment and are enjoying your work. I am unfortunately am in a good job (Good Benefits) with a meager salary ($35,000) but it is a Windows Only environment. While they have allowed me to install some Linux servers (1 actual server, 1 VM, 3 Desktops) for some things that I take care of, I don't enjoy windows because it is so boring and mundane. I prefer using and working in Linux environments.

Currently trying to get my own business off the ground but money is tight and it is taking longer then expected. I want to start working for myself. Also working on LPIC 1.

If there are any self-employed out there... Let me know how you got started.

I miss my old job as Linux Admin at $41,500 but company went under...

Anyway let me know your story, I would love to hear about it.

I work in a mixed environment, we run Solaris and Linux. I take care of network monitoring systems such as HP Openview, Netcool, MRTG, etc as well as mail servers and DNS servers (roughly 25 servers). I make ~64K. I got started learning UNIX in my computer room while going to college for a degree in Information Systems.

Lucky... Linux Admins always make more then windows admins... And all the times I was in a Linux Environment I got paid more. But my luck will change here soon. Congrats on you being able to use Linux Everyday....

Been a *nix administrator since 2003. Only a small portion of that was dealing with Windows, maybe less than 4% of the time over the past 5 years. I'm not gonna say how much I make though, that's none of anyones business but mine.

Unfortunately we only run windows 2000, XP and DOS. I've talked about linux with some people though. There's not too much interest in it. But I agree that Linux environments are much more fun than windows. I'm currently interning at a safety research institute. I'm an undergrad with an intended major of electrical engineering. So hopefully when I get into my field I'll be using Linux, but it's no guarantee.

Yeah, I heard that starting salary of someone who has an in depth background of linux for about 5 years can get a starting salary of $100,000/year. I suppose I could do that as a part time thing while I'm at school.

All really depends on location, company, candidate, etc. One person might be able to get 100k while another candidate settles for 80k a year at same company, location, etc. It's all about experience, how you present yourself and so on. So don't count on making 100k a year off the bat just cause you have 5 years experience. I know System Administrators with 10+ years experience making less than I do.

Yeah i work with a full blown Linux environment and the last few windows boxes are getting migrated to linux any time now and its so much fun! Taking care of 12 in house servers and 7 oubound machines running various apps mainly sms gateways and also monitoring tools like nagios, cacti, MRTG and for 2 weeks now Zenoss! Been at linux for 5 years now and i would say i all depends with the org you are working for to get the coolest perks!!

Lucky me

I make the decisions about my project, so although both the company and our client are 100% Windows (on workstations; servers are Linux), I enjoy Linux every day on my own work desktop. And our project server is Linux too, of course (Mandriva).

Yves.

I had the great pleasure of dealing with Zenoss at a previous employer, hated every minute of it. I'd take OpenNMS or Nagios over it any day of the week. Good luck though dealing with Zenoss.

Unfortunately i have to agree with you. whats with all the snmp agents anyway. Thats the problem with hand-me-downs from management. They always want you to implement something that doesnt work properly.

Frankly i have always loved nagios cuz it comes with customizable plugins but try tell that to the management they always come up with great rhetoric to counter your opinion with lines like " you know we should go for the option that really cuts costs and boosts productivity" which over the years i have come to decode as "We should go for the most bogus solutions and more importantly ones that will make life a bleeding hell for you."

I love SNMP myself for monitoring but Zenoss just doesn't handle it very well. The front end is okay and has a pretty interface but it's the backend in how it handles discovery of processes, adding new ones, etc is just horrible overall design. That's why I'd take OpenNMS if I'm going to go with SNMP based monitoring over Zenoss any day. From my knowledge, Zenoss is sort of like OpenNMS and Nagios rolled into one but they fudged it in the process. It's not very mature and they got a lot of work to do in my opinion to even compete with OpenNMS and Nagios.

Personally, the dollar amount isn't a priority. As long as I'm making enough to live comfortably. I work for a fairly small R&D company, with a few hundred servers of various flavors of Linux and even a few really old systems running VMS. We have a mix of Windows and Linux desktops. For me, it's not about the money but the flexibility we get here. We have insanely good benefits and work on flex time. We basically work whatever hours we want, so long as we put in our 80+ hours(2 weeks). I don't make a lot of money but I love the work I do and it's the little perks that really make it good.

It's not a priority for me either, I always ask for the amount to live comfortably as well.

[HTML]The front end is okay and has a pretty interface but it's the backend in how it handles discovery of processes, adding new ones, etc is just horrible overall design.[/HTML]

You know i had issues with zenoss over this particular fact. The front end is pretty and almost fools anyone who installs it, but once you get your network on it you will be baffled!


[HTML]It's not very mature and they got a lot of work to do in my opinion to even compete with OpenNMS and Nagios.[/HTML]

Am downloading OpenNMS ATM and try it out but i have to agree with you on nagios. the only problem i have experienced with nagios is when it comes to monitoring NTDIRCOUNTService...somehow even after configuring the values right, it always responds with a sockettimeout.

The thing I like about OpenNMS over Nagios is the built-in graphing it has. If you're running it, there's really no need to install Cacti or MRTG really as OpenNMS can do almost what both of those do along with the monitoring and notifications when things aren't working..

Also OpenNMS can handle or be customized to handle NRPE that Nagios handles, which is another huge plus.