The Linux Professional Institute

The Linux Professional Institute, or LPI (http://www.lpi.org/), is a nonprofit organization formed around the notion of certifying Linux administrators through a sort of open source process. The LPI seeks input from the public for its exam Objectives and questions, and anyone is welcome to participate. It has both paid and volunteer staff and receives funding from some major names in the computer industry. The result is a vendor-neutral, publicly developed program that is offered at a reasonable price.

The LPI organizes its Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC) series into three levels: LPIC Levels 1, 2, and 3. Each level consists of two exams that are priced at $100 each. This book covers the LPIC Level 1 exams, numbers 101 and 102.

LPI Level 1 Exams

The LPI offers its exams through Virtual University Enterprises (http://www.vue.com/). You may establish an online account with VUE and resister for the exams using the company's web site. VUE has more than two thousand testing centers worldwide, making the exams accessible in most areas. The exams are presented in English using a PC-based automated examination program. Exam questions are presented in multiple-choice single-answer, multiple-choice multiple-answer, and fill-in-the-blank styles. However, a majority of the questions on the exams are multiple-choice single-answer.

Level 1 is aimed at junior to midlevel Linux administrators, who should be comfortable with Linux at the command line as well as capable of performing simple tasks, including system installation and troubleshooting. While Exams 101 and 102 are not constructed to be difficult or misleading, together they encompass a wide body of material, making preparation important for success even for experienced administrators.

Each of the exams covers a series of Topics, which are numbered using a level.topic notation (i.e., 1.2, 2.5, etc.). In the LPI's early stages of development, Topics were assigned to exams based on a different scheme than we see today. When the scheme changed, the Topics were redistributed to Exams 101 and 102, but the pairing of Topic numbers to exams was dropped. As a result, we have 1.x and 2.x Topics in both Level 1 Exams.

Each Topic contains a series of Objectives covering specific areas of expertise. The Level 1 Topics are distributed between the two exams to create tests of similar length and difficulty without subject matter overlap. As a result, there's no requirement for or advantage to taking them in sequence. Exam 101 tests five Topics in approximately 60 questions, and Exam 102 tests nine Topics in approximately 72 questions. Each exam is limited to 90 minutes.