LPI certification is one way to certify your qualities, either as a (junior) sysadmin (LPIC-1) or advanced administrator (LPIC-2). The LPI initiative bases on efforts from the Open Source (Linux) community. LPI is a non-profit organisation.
During September 2001, a number of LPIC-1 alumni, working at Snow b.v. have been working together to prepare for the beta-LPIC-2 exam. During their studies they created parts of a document intended to assist them with their preparations for the LPIC-2 beta-exam.
That document was written using the popular DocBook documentation standard, and a preliminary version of the document was converted to HTML and was published on the Internet.
Initially the book almost entirely consisted of a rearrangement of other authors writings. The authors took care not to use any copyrighted materials. Sometimes they had to alter the texts a bit to make them fit their new context. Occasionally they had to add some textual glue. But most of their book consisted of quotations of freely available work created by others. So they published a (very) preliminary version of their book under the FDL. After obtaining their LPIC2 levels (December 2001) they ceased to work on it.
However, their efforts were noticed by a publisher who contacted Snow B.V. and offered them to publish the book upon completion. Consequently, the Snow management asked the authors to finish the book. To prevent juridicial dismay caused by possible copyright infringements and the like the authors were requested to redo their work and to use their own words this time. Additionally linguistical and peer reviews were initiated to enhance the book's quality.
The preliminary version found on line has therefore not been updated since December 2001, but the authors continued to work on the new (copyrighted) version.
The final drafts were finished in March 2002. The book has been reviewed by both a teacher and a native speaker. In April 2002 all peers reviews were completed. The results were processed by the authors during April and May 2002. During summer and autumn 2002 only some minor updates and corrections were made. We distributed our book over a limited number of people to test its usability and received positive reactions.
Late october 2002 Snow management decided that the original English version of the book would be subject to publication, both on paper and on the web. A version was made available for internal use by Snow consultants, clients and relations. Snow B.V. also produced a card-sized CDROM that contains the (HTML version of the) book, which has been distributed to Snow relations.
On February 17th 2004 I contacted Joost Helberg (of Snow B.V.) and gained his permission to distribute the PDF version of our book to a limited number of people. A fairly large amount of people requested a personal copy. We were happy to receive reports from people who made LPIC-2 using our book as their study guide.
| And now - finally - our book is out in the open. As of June, 14th, 2004, Snow B.V. has published the HTML version of the book on their website. Please visit http://snow.nl and click the proper link. Take note of the fact that this book is under full legal copyright by Snow B.V. and hence may not be redistributed, copied or otherwise duplicated without permission of Snow B.V. |