Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I have always believed in getting certifications to impress on your resume. I have NOT always believed certifications are really worth anything more than that (and for the record, I have a few recognized certs from hardware, software and development fields).

The main reason for my position was experience. I have taken many certification tests from Microsoft, Novell, IBM and Sun. ALL of these tests, without exception, were designed not to test knowledge of the subject matter very well but rather to get the test taker to PASS and therefore have more "X certified" people in the field proclaiming mastery in and recommending the respective products.

I think that is of course a brilliant yet very disingenuous marketing move, but it doesnt do much for knowledge of the product. This all means that the buck should stop at IT managers who should recognize that certifications are not a very good means of assessing someone. Keyword, should, this of course normally is not the case and IT managers are wooed by certifications (at least for the first few MCSEs they hire ;).

All of that background and cynicism of vendor certifications is why I was intrigued by the original LPI certification and in general am in big favor of VENDOR NEUTRAL certifications. By definition these certifications get prestige and value from being good certifications, not from how prolific or prevalent they are. By virtue of that definition they SHOULD be better certifications. Keyword again, should. I have not personally taken the LPI tests (though I plan to soon) so I do not know if they are actually better tests or not, I do know from experience with vendor tests that they should be.

So when it comes to which Linux certification is more valuable, its clearly LPI. Dont get me wrong, I think RedHat having its own cert program is a good idea from a marketing standpoint, but again, that by definition makes it not the best knowledge of Linux certification.

The true nature of the certification being the most important reason LPI is better than RHCE, but there are others. The linked ZDNet article points out the same "nature" thing and also elaborates that vendor neutral certs are gaining in popularity (hooray), LPI is "don\'t it right, LPI is more accessible and LPI is cheaper.

IF you are looking for a Linux cert for your resume, job requirement or you are an IT manager looking for skills, think about the differences between the two.

For more see the linked ZDNet article.   Five reasons why LPIC outpaces Red Hats RHCE: ZDNet