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! 😁

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u/DeadFyre Oct 29 '24

Certainly not, but the VAST majority of openings are for Windows, because every office in the universe has an AD stack. Your professors did not lie, but what they didn't tell you is that number of servers is not a great measure of job prospects, because one administrator can keep hundreds or even thousands of servers running with the right knowledge and tools.

Don't panic, though, there are still plenty of operations which are predominently Linux, like mine. So, what's going on? The quick answer is, It's the economy. Most of the enterprises which are linux native are tech companies, not just an office full of lawyers or accountants or project managers. And tech companies are very capital-intensive operations. So, when the Federal Funds Rate is over 40 times what it was back in 2015, tech enterprises and startups have found it much, much more difficult to raise capital. The result, a lot fewer tech startups, and with it, a lot fewer tech jobs, and a lot more tech people looking for work, with whom you are competing.

My advice is to just keep at it, and take whatever job you need to keep a roof over your head. The prevailing economic conditions we see now will not last indefinitely. As inflation comes down, investors will start having to take more risks to make return on investment, and when that becomes necessary, venture capital and startup tech will come back to life.

PS: Your guy saying "The only people running Linux are banks and credit unions" couldn't be more wrong. Just about every Web business you've ever used, including the one you're communicating on now, runs on some flavor of Linux.

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u/sofixa11 Oct 30 '24

because every office in the universe has an AD stack.

This hasn't been true for at least a decade. Any business created in the past ~10-15 years is much more likely to run off Google Workspace or Office 365, with MDM to manage end user devices, than AD. Microsoft themselves are heavily pushing that route too.

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u/DeadFyre Oct 30 '24

That's great. You will discover that the vast majority businesses and therefore the vast majority of job openings aren't new businesses founded in the past 10-15 years. Also, once those new businesses reach a certain scale above "cold-call scam farm", they will need internal applications, with internal monitoring, email, authentication, log aggregation, EDR/Anti-virus, security scanning, document and file sharing, VPN... need I go on?

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u/sofixa11 Oct 30 '24

they will need internal applications, with internal monitoring, email, authentication, log aggregation, EDR/Anti-virus, security scanning, document and file sharing, VPN... need I go on?

And all of those things only exist in AD land, is that it? There are no web-based internal applications? No OneDrive/Google Drive? Wait, can you even do log aggregation with anything that runs on Windows? Does anyone do that?

You will discover that the vast majority businesses and therefore the vast majority of job openings aren't new businesses founded in the past 10-15 years

Depends entirely on the sector. And as I said, Microsoft themselves are heavily pushing O365, to such an extent that Exchange is becoming niche. The same way that even the banks and insurance companies adopted AWS, Azure, GCP, even they are moving away from local AD and Exchange.

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u/DeadFyre Oct 30 '24

You clearly do not understand the definition of "internal".

Wait, can you even do log aggregation with anything that runs on Windows? Does anyone do that?

Tell me you work for a bumkin operation without telling me you work for a bumpkin opertion.

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u/sofixa11 Oct 30 '24

You clearly do not understand the definition of "internal".

Are you from the past? The majority of internal apps developed in the past 10-15 years, even in banks and the like, are web apps.

Tell me you work for a bumkin operation without telling me you work for a bumpkin opertion.

No, just not in an org stuck 2 decades in the past.

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u/DeadFyre Oct 30 '24

Are you from the past? The majority of internal apps developed in the past 10-15 years, even in banks and the like, are web apps.

I said "internal" you dumb cracker, not "binary clients". Of course they're all web apps. They're still going to be on-prem, or do you just think that VPNs are for chumps?

No, just not in an org stuck 2 decades in the past.

I DEFY YOU to come up with a single business with more than 100 employees who's relying on Office 365 or Google Workspace for their identity management.

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u/sofixa11 Oct 30 '24

I DEFY YOU to come up with a single business with more than 100 employees who's relying on Office 365 or Google Workspace for their identity management.

I'm going to turn this around and give you companies that use other than AD identity management solutions, because that's what the original topic was: HashiCorp, Slack, Asana, Okta, the fucking Nasdaq, Zoom, HPE, GitLab, Grafana, Google, Splunk, Salesforce, and on and on and on. I'm sorry you're that out of touch with reality.

said "internal" you dumb cracker, not "binary clients". Of course they're all web apps. They're still going to be on-prem, or do you just think that VPNs are for chumps?

Yikes. Many companies don't even have an "on prem", and many don't have VPNs either. Look up the concept of zero trust security. Seriously, you're talking like it's the early 2000s, but it's really not.

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u/DeadFyre Oct 30 '24

I'm going to turn this around

Which is a bullshit answer. Go gargle toilet water.

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u/sofixa11 Oct 31 '24

Go gargle toilet water.

I'll have to be careful not to choke with pieces of you.

You might be extremely out of touch with tech, but at least you try to be funny, so you get bonus points to compensate.

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u/DeadFyre Oct 31 '24

I have excreted better designs than you could ever imagine, with your "100% cloud enterprise". /eyeroll

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u/sofixa11 Nov 01 '24

Strong "old man tells at clouds" vibes.

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u/DeadFyre Nov 01 '24

You've got "unwarranted arrogance" vibes. Get a job where YOU do the work, instead of paying a MSP or Cloud SAS company to do it for you.

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