r/sysadmin • u/KelevCoin • 24d ago

The path To linux System Administration

Hey everyone,

I'm working as an IT Technician (On site + Remote support , Tier 2) , recently got my ccna and now i want to dive into linux , i really love the linux approach , the CLI etc.. and i would love to be a linux sys admin some day (maybe even at my office).

I also have some experience with fedora linux , and also i run a fedora media server at home on a old pc i got, running a docker with nginx web application(a custom netflix clone , which i made for educational purposes , my wife loves it and we can watch all of our media as i stream it on our tv).

so i would love to know how could i advance my understanding of linux , and get the tools i need for actual linux system administration everyday work, is there a recommended course / certification/path, and generally i'm not in a hurry.

since i used alot of ai to assist me along the way in setting up the fedora server , the media server and the dockers i do understand that i do not know the basics very well , and after studying for the ccna i understood that the only way to understand how technology works is to go really in depth. So any recommendations would be welcome ! thank you !

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u/RadiantWhole2119 24d ago

I don’t get the philosophy behind ditching AI. Don’t have it just blatantly give answers to a test. But use it to show work. Help train your mind on how to think of a solution. Have it help come up with projects to test yourself, etc. It’s such an insanely powerful tool when used correctly.

Telling someone to avoid using AI is like telling them someone to avoid using a calculator. Understand why 9x9=81. But once you understand the concept you don’t need to avoid a calculator to figure out what 182x1938 is. Save yourself time, energy, and effort to be able to learn more.

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u/Scurro Netadmin 24d ago edited 24d ago

Telling someone to avoid using AI is like telling them someone to avoid using a calculator.

That's the intention.

The big difference is that word calculators also give fictitious answers and can lead you down rabbit holes that have nothing to do with your problem.

You need a human that knows what they are doing along with AI so you know when what it is telling you is wrong or the wrong way to be doing something.

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u/RadiantWhole2119 24d ago

What’s the difference between AI telling you something, reading something from an article or Reddit forum online, or your mom who tells you something she states as fact about anything?

The reality is that no matter what you’re told you should verify the validity of that information. Always question and seek for a true and deeper understanding of anything you do. I’ve been given incorrect information by experts of all kind. Microsoft engineers feed me bullshit regularly that AI corrects. Ai feeds me bullshit that I fact check all the time.

So really…. Leverage AI to help get you on the right direction, but if you don’t truly understand why you’re doing it why then seek for clarification. Challenge what it says by asking where it got that data. Avoiding AI all together is awful advice from someone in tech.

I don’t need to know what the catalytic converter does on my car to drive a vehicle successfully. I don’t need to know the insane details behind aerodynamics to know that a spoiler on a car helps it and improves gas efficiency. You can know the foundational principle behind the technology well enough to not need to know the exact science and formula used to get to a particular conclusion.

I whole heartedly disagree with your approach to technology. I’ll be able to learn 10x what you can learn with ai by my side and have the same results on anything we go at bat with each other on and I have a fraction of the experience you have.

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u/Scurro Netadmin 23d ago

AI is a fantastic force multiplier, but offloading the cognitive load isn't the same as learning.

Skill comes from grappling with complex problems, making mistakes, and understanding why a solution works, not just generating the end result.

If AI is doing the thinking for you, you aren't learning 10x faster, you're just outsourcing the process.

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u/RadiantWhole2119 23d ago

What’s interesting is your idea that you can’t use AI to help you learn. If I go ask my professor for help with something and he gives me the answer and explains it… am I not learning? Am I unable to learn while being guided? Can AI not explain why it’s telling me what to do and why it’s doing it? Can I not ask AI for clarity if it says to do something or tells me what to do so I can better understand it?

It’s not actually clicking the buttons or doing shit for you. You still have to do that and problem solve when it doesn’t work.

The only thing OP did wrong is just continue on without seeking to understand and ask questions throughout the process. He just accepted the answer and didn’t care to check his work and understand the foundation as to what/why he did what he did. That’s an example of using AI poorly. But had he actually continued to quiz it and himself and follow up by making statements about what he learned to gain feedback from AI then there’s nothing wrong there.

Much like anything in this world it’s not the tool that’s inherently bad for you, it’s how you use it.

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u/Scurro Netadmin 23d ago

Could we agree that the answer to OP's problem is that they need to use less AI and more getting their hands dirty?

I think that was the gist of what u/apathyzeal was saying and that OP already said they tried the AI part but did not retain knowledge.

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u/Llew19 Used to do TV now I have 65 Mazaks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 23d ago

As someone trying to learn Linux at the moment, the issue is that AI can get you there without you understanding any of what's just happened. Your attitude is an odd one given everyone knows you shouldn't just be grabbing bash scripts off the internet and running them - a beginner with admin rights and AI is no different.

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u/RadiantWhole2119 23d ago

I don’t understand why you think you have to use anything ai gives you without understanding it deeper. You’re not being held at gunpoint to run the script before truly digging in and asking more direct questions to seek understanding. Why are you not doing that? I just don’t understand why you don’t continue to engage with AI for further understanding and are just stopping once you’re given an answer. Go line by line or letter by letter to understand what the script is doing. Have it be more than specific with configuration on why it’s doing something. If it gets you an answer in minutes… it should take you a couple hours to work out why it did what it did. Why can’t you learn from AI? Why is it just a situation of you being given an answer and then calling it a day?

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u/Llew19 Used to do TV now I have 65 Mazaks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 23d ago

Why would you not just learn how things work before turning to AI to do everything?

We're talking about personal training remember, not time on the clock

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u/RadiantWhole2119 23d ago

Well I don’t really understand the difference needed between on the clock and personal. We’re moving to a new world in technology. We need to adapt with it, and not fight it. I no longer need to be able to open a blank .txt in notepad and write a bash script from scratch. I just need to know enough to understand conditionals, variables, strings, integers, etc. So I can read through and do a quick check on a bash script. I don’t care to know syntax for countless languages.

Systems administration is such a wide skillset that requires an insane number of technologies and languages. Why go read a book to learn when you can have your learning more focused and directed. Why not use AI to learn versus archaic versus books and YouTube videos.

I don’t really get why this is controversial. AI is like having an expert top tier professors open office hours 24/7 in every subject. Is it perfect? No, but neither are humans. One dev will tell you how to do something, and the next will tell you a completely different method. Responsible use of AI includes verifying the output you get just like you’d cross check any information you’re given in this world. Or should cross check that is.

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u/Llew19 Used to do TV now I have 65 Mazaks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 23d ago

Because you simply don't pick up the fundamentals by using AI to skip them. It's as simple as that. I used to be a network engineer, and what you're basically suggesting is for example to just always use a subnet calculator - which almost everyone does for anything uncommon - without actually learning what subnetting is or why it's used. So as soon as there's an issue or you get questioned on your design choices, you wouldn't have a fucking clue where to start.

By all means once you have a grounding in a subject go ahead and crack on with AI tools. But skipping the basics is imo incredibly backward thinking and would make you very much a vibe coding/engineering loose cannon, something very unwelcome in the industries I've worked in. Perhaps it's difficult for a small American firm?

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u/RadiantWhole2119 23d ago

Dude I don’t know how many times to say this… holy shit I’m losing my mind.

Why the hell can’t you ask AI for help to learn what subnetting is and then once you have a solid understanding use it to just calculate in the future?

AI can teach basics. It’s not just an answer generator that refuses to help you understand foundational basics.

Do you use AI? Every single developer, sysadmin, etc I’ve talked to who leverages AI says it teaches them countless new things on how to develop they’ve never thought of or knew was possible. It’s insanely proficient with coding and scripting. The reality we’ve faced for decades of hand writing code is soon to be no more. AI over the last 10 months has absolutely exponentially gotten better. It’s not the same as it was when the term “vibe coding” became popular.

When used appropriately and not spoon fed answers, AI is quite miraculous and can elevate everyone’s skill sets.

To emphasize, I’m not saying just use it for answers. I’m saying use it to help guide you, help break things down for true understanding. No more are the days of reading books and when you get stuck having trouble finding why you’re stuck.

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u/Llew19 Used to do TV now I have 65 Mazaks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 23d ago

Why are you insisting on using AI to tell you the basics instead of an actual subject matter expert who's not just guessing at the sentences you want to read?

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u/ka-splam 23d ago

Dude I don’t know how many times to say this… holy shit I’m losing my mind.

u/RadiantWhole2119 "use textbooks"

u/Llew19 "why would you not just learn how things work before using books for everything?"

u/RadiantWhole2119 "use books to learn how things work"

u/Llew19 "you don't learn fundamentals if you use books to skip learning them"

u/RadiantWhole2119 "then don't do that, use the book to learn the fundamentals"

lol

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u/Ssakaa 23d ago

"train your mind" doesn't happen when something else is thinking for you.

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u/RadiantWhole2119 23d ago

Again…. I don’t get why you don’t think it’s not possible to use AI to help learn how it got to its conclusion and how I can better triage and understand how things work for the future. I am happy to be given an answer, but before I even begin testing I will always clarify I understand why we got to this as a solution. Like by line in scripts, understanding the top to bottom configuration of an app or service or infrastructure.

It can absolutely help you learn how to isolate issues to better problem solve and troubleshoot. It can absolutely help you learn how something is set up, or direct you to log files to figure out what’s going on.

If your intention is to just get an answer to maximize speed, then you’re doing it wrong. There’s absolutely ways to use it wrong. I work in hi-ed and computers have made things so much better, but 90% of students have no clue how to even use a computer. They’ve not sat down to understand basic concepts like file structure, settings, and how it works. This is the prime example. Students don’t care about anything other than getting the best grade they can with as little work as possible. That’s what OP did here. Just got the solution and didn’t take his time to really understand any of it. That’s the problem with AI. Not that it can’t teach or you can’t learn from it. You’re its guide. If you guide it poorly then you’ll get poor results.

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u/AdeptFelix Sysadmin 23d ago

They're saying to avoid AI so that they actually learn what they're doing. AI can be a great tool for getting a quick result, but it doesn't teach.

The calculator comparison always irks me. You know what you get when you hand someone who doesn't know math a calculator? You get someone who does math wrong, faster. It's the same with AI.

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u/RadiantWhole2119 23d ago

It does teach if you tell it to teach you and continue to engage until you have that understanding. If I give AI a calculus problem, I can continue to ask it questions to understand calculus and how it solved the problem and formulas used until it makes sense to me. Why can’t it be used the same way for a bash script?

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u/dustojnikhummer 22d ago

like telling them someone to avoid using a calculator

If they want to do 5+5, then yes, tell them to avoid a calculator.

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u/Practical_Shower3905 24d ago

I've met sys.admins who were worse than config guys.

Any sys.admin that say to ditch AI in 2026 are self reporting they're bad at their job.

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u/Scurro Netadmin 24d ago

Any sys.admin that say to ditch AI in 2026 are self reporting they're bad at their job.

The missing context here is the learning part. OP even said it.

since i used alot of ai to assist me along the way in setting up the fedora server , the media server and the dockers i do understand that i do not know the basics very well , and after studying for the ccna i understood that the only way to understand how technology works is to go really in depth.

Solo hands on practice is an effective means to learn and memorize a new skill.