How to make money from/in Ubuntu/Linux?
I'm a student right now, and later in life I'd like to get really involved in the Linux ecosystem. However I recognize the need to put bread on the table, so my question is:
How can I make money from Ubuntu/Linux?
The situation right now is that my College can offer me Windows Certification, or Apple Engineer certification; both of these do not enthrall me as I'd like to stick mostly to Linux.
What job types normally deal with it, what training/certification should I be looking for?
Certification is available for most areas of Linux but I think you're putting too much focus on it.
People predominately hire people who are competent at what they do, not the hoops they've jumped through to get there. A year of specific industry experience is worth a dozen vague certificates.
Even if you do want to continue down a road of certification-over-experience (which I can understand for somebody without much real-world experience), in order for the certificate to hold any value, it needs to be locked onto a real-world skill. Few companies will hire somebody solely on the basis that they have a "generic Linux certificate". If you want to be a DBA, get certified for MySQL or Oracle. If you want to be a network monkey, look through the various networking certification programmes available.
I'll add that the good certification programs are both quite hard and expensive (especially at the higher levels) and most of them rely on you having real-world experience for your reasoning.
And if you're applying for newly-grad/junior posts, people won't expect you to have put yourself through a certification programme anyway. They're looking to train up people.
Linux Professional Institute offers Linux certifications. More information can be found at their website: http://www.lpi.org/linux-certifications
I suggest you try to find jobs offers that suit what you want to do, you will see what the companies that work with Linux actually need. You can check jobs offers at Bull, IBM, Novell, Red Hat ...
While I think Oli's answer above is right on, we'd be amiss to not mention that Canonical, Ubuntu's corporate sponsor, offers a number of training courses and a certification (PDF).
Ubuntu Professional
The Ubuntu Professional is a training certification for systems administrators who need to deploy Ubuntu in an office environment After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Install and configure Ubuntu desktop systems
- Perform routine administration tasks: boot and shut down the system, manage user accounts and file systems, and maintain system security
- Configure network connectivity and key network services
- Work productively at the Linux command line
I honestly have no idea how useful it is though.