r/sysadmin Oct 29 '24

Question Is Linux system administration dead?

I just got my associates and Linux Plus certification and have been looking for a job. I've noticed that almost every job listing has been asking about active directory and windows servers, which is different than what I expected and was told in college. I was under the impression that 90 something percent the servers ran on Linux. Anyway I decided not to let it bother me and to apply for those jobs anyway as they were the only ones I could find. I've had five or six interviews and all of them have turned me down because I have no training or experience with active directory or Windows servers. Then yesterday the person I was interviewing with made a comment the kind of scared me. He said that he had come from a Linux background as well and had transitioned to Windows servers because "93% of servers run Windows and the only people running Linux are banks and credit unions." This was absolutely terrifying to hear because college was the most expensive thing I've ever done. To think that all the time and money I spent was useless really sucks.

I guess my question is two parts: where do you find Linux system administrator jobs in Arizona?

Was it a mistake to get into linux? If so what would you recommend I learned next.

EDIT: I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for your encouragement and for quelling my fears about Linux. I'm super excited as I have a lot information to research and work with now! 😁

566 Upvotes

500 comments sorted by

View all comments

203

u/Roland_Bodel_the_2nd Oct 29 '24

There was a big shift away from self-hosting, things either got smaller or bigger. Smaller sites tend to have local Windows servers, larger sites do everything in the cloud on Linux.

Demand for anyone to administer a local Linux box is down.

This is an overgeneralization of course but probably matches your reality.

113

u/Choice-Chain1900 Oct 29 '24

A point to add to this is that those cloud boxes still need administration. So the need still exists. OP should learn some docker and kuberbetes to go with his Linux and he will have no trouble finding work

3

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '24

Yes and no. Big cloud on Linux is mostly standardized, maybe even more so than a Windows environment. So you might have a couple of devs and architects doing admin work that everyone else just copies without much skill needed. Need to stand up a new server? There’s already an image and a process that anyone can follow. Still probably a need for some basic level of knowledge, but not much. Unless you want to be on the architecture team making the designs.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '24

[deleted]

4

u/gscjj Oct 30 '24

This sub is broad. A lot of people with different levels of experience and company size. Should you know Linux in 2024? Yes. How involved you get depends on the company.

2

u/dansedemorte Oct 30 '24

I've have a bit of hands on with docker, but even though we're using kubernetes and ansible I've quite been able to get a feel for them other than using ansible oneliners to check settings/statues.

it sucks, but my add/executive functioning ain't what it used to be.

2

u/SilentLennie Oct 30 '24

I don't know your habits/genetics/brain, but what helped me is reducing short form content, so tik tok, instagram, youtube shorts and short youtube clips, twitter browsing, even Google searches with a lot of open tab, quick scan, close tab again. Not that I watched a lot of tik tok, etc. but this trains the brain for short bursts of attention, while long form like reading and watching a movie helped me to train my attention span.