LPI Linux Certifications

I've recently decided to formalize my general knowledge of Linux. In researching certification options, I found out about LPI (Linux Professional Institute). Prior to my research I only knew about Redhat cert's, specifically RHCE. I posted on some forums and asked a few old friends from previous workplaces. The general census was this:
Certification name and order of difficulty for the almost newbie:
Linux+, LPI 1, LPI 2, RHCT, RHCE

I've skipped linux+ and took the first LPI 1 (each LPI cert requires 2 test). I may go back for the Linux+ due to HR people recognizing the "+" more then "LPI". I'm also thinking about skipping the LPI2 test and just start studying up on the RHCT. My job has become unstable though, so in all reality I'll probably be looking for a new job more then testing.

MSA 1000 what they don't want you to know

After spending hours with HP to get these commands, I had to tell other about them. Hopefully it'll save someone else some time. But first, I like to use the active/active firmware (version 7 something). For troubleshooting you may want to use the older 5.2 active/passive.
Ok, so you've gotten a msa 1000 handed to you, but you don't know what config is on it. If you're like me, you'd like to reset it to factory defaults. Well after on hold off and on with HP for an hour you might be told "no, there's no way to do that". Also you may call back again and play dumb, and work with someone else at HP for 2 more hours and find this out.
Once you've consoled into the controller(s) on the front of the msa (they provide a special DB9 to RJ45z... set hyperterminal for com1 and 19200 8n1), run these commands.

showhiddencmds
resetdefaults all

That'll wipe the controller and should reboot it too. If you have dual controllers, the other controller should copy the config on reboot (YMMV). Now, that's just the controllers.. you may also have dual brocade fiber switches embedded in the back with their own config. You'll want to telnet into one of their network ports. Then with root or admin access (default password is just password), run these commands
switch disable
config default
(I'm going from memory here, so I'll update if my notes say otherwise on those commands.)

WMI Filters for GPO

If you're like me, you've used plenty of GPO's for various config settings. Maybe you've even pushed out software with a GPO (using a MSI file and software installation features). I've always had the "luxury" of SMS or Altris to push software. That is, until now.
So in trying to push out the Office 2007 Compatibility pack, I've found I need a WMI filter. The reason being that about 50-60 machine already have it and I don't want to install it over again if I don't have to. I've gotten to the point of creating a WMI filter in the GPMC, but my query does the opposite of what I want. This query returns a true and proceeds with the install.. where I need a false so it doesn't reinstall if already present:
Select * from Win32_Product where name = "Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system"

The real problem being any "logic" I've tried in the query doesn't work (I guess WQL is very limited and not capable of normal SQL commands?)
anyone have a thought?
Thanks!

"at least I have a job" economy

When enough people say the same thing about the economy.. and those people don't know each other (not feeding off each other's pessimism/optimism). I've recently been hearing the phrase "I better hang onto the job I have to ride out this recession". This being my first recession (or the first one I've been old enough to pay nay attention to I guess), I'm not sure what to expect. I've heard people say this is the time to pick up a great deal on whatever. So do you play it safe and sock your money away in Liberty Dollars (or under the mattress) or just behave like always (saving some money and spending some money on vacation etc)?
What this stems from is me wanting to buy a boat again and trying to justify it to myself...lol.

American Liberty Dollar

Getting off the techie topic for a min. My brother showed me a silver coin a few years ago.. i remember thinking how heavy it was. Come to find out it was printed by the US mint, but rather a separate body all together. The dollar amount imprinted on the coin was $10. The worth was based on the amount of raw silver that was used to make the coin. A few years later we were talking about the coin and come to find out they were now printing $20 coins out of the same of silver. The price of silver had doubled in the time that had past. I pulled out the $10 coin and my brother offered me a $20 in exchange for it.. I declined (if my brother wanted it.. I should keep it.. I grew up with this guy.. I should know ;)), instead I bought another coin (I think I bought dinner actually.. something like that). So now I have a $10 and a $20 coin, both "worth" $20 in silver. The story goes on in that the body that printed these coins www.libertydollar.org had a raid performed on them by the FBI. Apparently the FBI feels they were doing something underhanded. The law suit has been going through it's motions for some time now, but the company has been permitted to keep doing it's line of work. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the company, but in the end for me... silver is worth it's weight in... well.. silver. After looking at the real estate and stock markets... just buying silver and gold.. holding onto it for a while .. then selling on ebay.. sounds like a pretty good proposition... but I'm just an IT guy.. anyone out there care to comment with thier thoughts?

LPI certifications

After playing with linux for many years, I've been lucky enough to get a new project using it at work. I thought this would be a good time to study up more and possibly even get a certification in it. Up till now I've only done microsoft certifications. I've started (and stopped) studying for the Cisco CCNA at least twice (never seem to keep the motivation going when I start thinking "why do I need to memorize this stuff when google is just a click away".. now I know the real answer to that, but just try telling me that when I'm frustrated with the memorization's).
I've asked around and while the RedHat cerification seems to be the most widely desired (by careerbuilder that is), I don't think I have enough experience to realistically go for that just yet. Instead I've decided to shoot for the LPI I certification. It's targeted for just beyond a power user (which is all I've ever claimed to be on Linux). The LPI folks are vendor neutral and offer 3 (or 4?..I'm a little unclear on the Ubuntu cert they seem to offer) certifications.
That brings up a question I've been asking myself.. with all the rage Ubuntu seems to be making (do a google for what Linux distro is the most popular.. you'll see what I mean).. how come so many people don't know anything about it? How come it hasn't really made it into corporate america? We had to go with Redhat or Suse due to Oracle certifying it (and the DBA's would freak on anything without the Oracle certification). I've always felt redhat was the corporate server to beat.. and now feel ubuntu is the other desktop software to use.

Ubuntu Dell precision 380 w/ dual monitors

I've tried various different linux distro's and some failed on install, some installed, but only partially worked "out of the box". I am under the mind set that for servers you go Redahat (or centos.. more on that later), and for desktops you go Ubuntu. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was easier to get setup then I orginally though. I dual boot at the bios level to one hard drive or another. I have a scsi card and scsi drive with Windows XP on it. I now have a SATA drive (and onboard controller that came with me Dell) with Ubuntu on it. At boot I push F12 and select which drive I want to boot into. By default it goes to Windows for the sake of other household members, but I try to keep it in Ubuntu (maybe someday soon I can change the default).

Now for the install of ubuntu here's the tricks I had to use:
1) Shutdown pc ->remove scsi card and to be safe remove power to scsi drive
2) boot pc with F12 option to boot from cd rom with the ubuntu install cd in the cd drive
3) Go through the install wizad following the directions (when it get's to formatting the partion it may "hang" at 5% for a long time.. don't woory, it's still working and not hung)
4) Now, provided the install went well as it did for me, you've rebooted and logged in with the username and password you set during install. Now you shoudl see a popup for software updates... apply them (this will take some time as it downloads and installs them. I've got a pretty quick system and it seemed to almost have hung during the update of the update manager (funny to thik it uses itself to update itself.. pretty cool)
5) reboot again and login again. At this point I had two issues. Dual monitors don't work (only 1), and I liek to autologin for ease of use for my house. Autologin was easy enough. System->Administration->Login Window. This took an unusually long time to come up after the password prompt, but it did eventually open and opens much quicker after the first time (don't know why there is such a delay the first time it's loaded)
6) Dual monitors... this can be tough for many linux installs (for non-linux gurus like myself). Now you may have scene another popup near the software updates popup talking about hardware drivers. If not go System->Administration->Hardware Drivers. I had to enable and install "Nvidia accelerated graphics driver (latest cards). This is installing the Nvidia drivers rather then the ones that come with Ubuntu.. there is mix feelings on this.. but it's how I got my system to work.. so I'm happy. After install reboot if it asks too.
7) The last thing I had to do was edit the config file for Xserver. I read that I should have been able to call a GUI util installed by nvidia, but for whatever reason I don't have it.. o it doesn't work. So I ran this in a terminal session.
su (then enter password)
gedit etc/X11/xorg.conf
(this brings up a text editor and I needed to edit the "devices" section:
it looked like this when I opened it:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection

and like this when I saved and closed it:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
Option "TwinView" "True"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "LeftOf"
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768"
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"
EndSection

I have dual flat panel displays (lucky me ;)).. you config may vary, but hopefully you too can get dual monitors and dual boot setup ... I for one don't want to go to vista.. so it's either run XP forever or start looking into alternatives