Should I learn Linux server administration?

Question

linux

Good time of the day.
Working as a system administrator for more than 2 years, I mainly administer Windows servers (powershell and all that). I really like the profession, I want to develop further in it, so recently I faced the question: being mainly an administrator of Windows systems, is it worth learning the administration of Linux systems (even if at the moment there are no systems with Linux in my jurisdiction)? If so, how deep?
Thanks for the answers, advice, etc.

Z.Y. There is no smell of cold water here.

Answer 1

If you have the resources, it's definitely worth it. Linux is a fundamentally different concept of building a system, which really sets the brain right and helps to do many things better, including under Windows.

Answer 2

Extra knowledge and skills will not interfere) And the experience of administering a Linux system in any case will come in handy in the future.

Answer 3

Let's just leave the picture here, and you decide :)
Market Share for Top Servers Across All Domains
August 1995 — July 2012

Do you think there are many Apaches and nginx on Windows? units. Now look at how much Apache and nginx make up in total. 72% of web servers. More questions?

Answer 4

HZ, for me, so if you like Windows, you can develop in this area. Become a competent narrow specialist in MS products, cover a little bit in different areas. Such specialists are not enough and they are always valuable.

Answer 5

Do you already know Windows well? What is the biggest project? servicing fifty workstations and a couple of servers? How are things with large HELL installations? How will you deploy and support a couple of thousand workstations? Are you familiar with systems such as systems center and others? How about a backup?

Answer 6

it's hard to answer your question. If you want to expand your knowledge, try something new, then it's worth it. But in general, you can instead spend the effort on a deeper study of Windows. There are people who have studied Windows so well that they work in it even more efficiently than comrades who learned everything a little bit. And at the same time, according to my ideas, a cool Windows admin will most likely receive more than an average knowledge of Windows and Linux.
I myself quickly fell in love with FreeBSD, then with Linux. Windows is very good for many tasks, but it just doesn't fit me personally. My choice - having started to learn everything, gradually completely abandoned Windows at work (I have it at home).

Answer 7

Learned more about the author (read articles and all that). It seems to me that it makes sense to decide what you want to do in the future. Imagine what will happen in five years. If this is still the admin of servers on Windows and AD support, then you can not change anything. If this is work like “deploying and maintaining” web projects or something like that, you can go towards Linux, if this is something like Krok described in the next article about combining data centers, then you need to dig in this direction.

Answer 8

And yet - I will not get tired of advertising the chic book Theory and Practice of System Administration . A lot of questions are discussed, including such as to further study and where to develop, while surprisingly not being tied to specific platforms at all, only general principles.

Answer 9

If I were you, I would already be growing in the direction of corporate Windows - they already said above that there is room to grow there - Exchange, Sharepoint, managing huge networks through SCCM, hyper-v virtualization, remote automatic deployment of operating systems, servers, clusters - now new ones will be added courses on server 12/windows 8, ms sql, azure, office 365.
And don't be scattered, otherwise you will remain at the admin level of 50 workstations and a couple of servers.
Although I do not argue that my knowledge of FreeBSD / Debian still helps me a lot - in our realities, few people pay for solutions like cisco ironport or TMG (ISA) and the easiest way to quickly set up a proxy / NAT / VPN on Linux - few people trust the release of Windows to the Internet with a “naked interface”.
And being able to build a heterogeneous network using combined solutions is a useful skill - you need to be able to choose tools for tasks - sometimes it's powershell, and sometimes it's a bash script.
Success in development

Answer 10

Be sure to understand how Linux works. Little knowledge in Linux gives a very big expansion of horizons. There is a general understanding of how the system works. When you sit under Windows, you think that you understand everything, when you start learning Linux, it turns out that you didn’t know anything.

Answer 11

I have to administer both win and linux servers.
I like linux more just because the logs are more informative.
On Linux it is "easier" to pick up something "fallen". IMHO

Answer 12

Ask yourself a few questions:
- What type of company would I like to work for?
What industry is this company in?
What technologies does she use now?
Talk to the best specialists who work in such a company. It is they who will be able to tell you what to study, which specialists are already in demand, and which ones will be needed in the near future.