How did you go about studying for your LPI certification?

Question

http://www.lpi.org/eng

Additionally, how much does each test cost?

Answer 1

I used these books:

• LPIC Exam Cram
  
• LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell

and the following website:

• IBM's dev works website

Remember to try all the examples. You can't rote memorize this stuff, you have to understand it.

From (www.lpi.org/eng/certification/faq/procedure_for_taking_exams)
"Depending on where you take LPI exams, the cost will usually be the equivalent of $160 US dollars."

Remember the re-take policy:

• Anyone who takes an LPI exam once must wait one week before re-taking.
• Anyone who takes an LPI exam a second (and subsequent) time must wait 90 days before re-taking.
• Anyone who passes an LPI exam may not retake that exam for at least two years.

Answer 2

Nothing beats experience. LPIC1 is designed for people with a couple of years experience with Linux. If you have that, then you should be fine.

Answer 3

Be prepared to learn a lot of little factoids by heart. Get yourself a book (I used that one when I did LPIC1 back in 2007), and be sure to check out the sample questions in there. They give a pretty good image of what awaits you.

Answer 4

I think the cost for taking LPIC exams varies by territory.

Experiences of LPIC seem to vary wildly, personally I found that the first couple of LPIC examinations weren't challenging; you need to be able to remember a lot of mostly useless factoids which you'll rarely deploy from your administration arsenal in a professional capacity.

Moving onto LPIC-2 and LPIC-3 presents more challenges.

Would I say you need two years experience to pass the first one? Probably not. Any talented amateur who has actually used Linux on a daily basis for a few months can probably hack it, with a small amount of study :) The LPIC-2 and LPIC-3 require some real CLI experience and "advanced" knowledge.

Picking up LDAP early will also serve you well, most folks find it a bit of a 'head fsck' and not entirely intuitive yet it forms the foundation for LPIC-3 and, indeed, administration of any large scale environment with more than 40-50 servers, clients and users.