LPI's exams are based on a thorough analysis of the job tasks required for a Linux Professional.
In 1999, the Linux Professional Institute completed an international survey of Linux professionals. While the primary purpose of the study was to assist in designing content for LPI's professional competency certification exams, the survey also provides interesting insight into the make-up of the Linux technical support and service community.The study found that the typical Linux professional is a 27 year old male with 2 years of college. He uses two Linux distributions, one of them being Red Hat. He runs Linux at home and at work, and has been a Linux user for about four years. He also administers Microsoft and non-Linux Unix servers and workstations.
While the United States was by far the leader in the number of users, all of the inhabited continents were represented by at least 20 respondents. Eleven countries contributed 20 or more respondents. More than 90 per cent of the people completing the survey were either native English speakers or they considered themselves fluent in the language.
The main thrust of the survey involved asking respondents to rate the importance of specific system administration tasks. A total of 467 tasks were evaluated by survey takers. The tasks receiving the highest ratings included those dealing with basic user management, file system maintenance, and process management. The ratings obtained for the tasks will serve as the basis for the content of the certification exams.
The survey was conducted through the Internet between March 30 and April 10 of 1999. A total of 1418 responses were received. The fact that the survey was written in English might have impacted the geographical dispersion of responses. In addition, because the survey was administered over the Internet, no responses were received from individuals without Internet access.
Questions regarding the survey can be directed to Matthew Rice, LPI's Director of Product Development. Some of the specific findings from the survey are shown below:
Male 98.4%
Female 1.6%
Average (median) 27
90% are under 40
Native Speakers 59%
Fluent Non-natives 33%
North America 50%
Europe 33%
Asia 6
Africa 5
Australia 3
South America 2
1 42%
2 34
3 or more 23
Average (mean): 1.9
1 42%
2 34
3 or more 23
Average (mean): 1.9
Red Hat 79%
Slackware 40
Debian 27
SuSE 19
Caldera 11
Pacific HiTech 2
Other 13
(Totals more than 100% because many people use more than one.)
Home 93%
Work 78%
Expert 14%
Senior 29%
General 47%
Junior 8%
Less than 1 14%
1-2 32
3-5 31
6 or more 9
Less than 1 8%
1-2 22
3-5 51
6 or more 20
Less than 1 9%
1-2 20
3-5 38
6-10 22
11 or more 12
Microsoft 80%
Unix Servers 63
Unix Workstations 56
Non-Linux PC Unix 38
VAX/VMS 10
Other 35
1. Check disk space usage
2. List all processes currently running
3. Compress and decompress a file
4. Properly shutdown the system
5. Check free space left on a file system
6. Remove user accounts
7. Change the owner or group of a file
8. Change a user's forgotten password
9. Change access to a directory
10. Run a process on the background
The following people contributed to the Survey (and consented to their names being listed here):
Soren Aalto, Tony Abbott, Chay Adamou, William Ahern, Viraj Alankar, Darren W. Aldredge, Matthew Alexander, Carlos Amaya, Michele America, Roy P. Ammeraal, Benny Amorsen, Roald Amundsen, Bill Anderson, Leonard g. Anderson, Florin Andrei, Thomas Andrews, Jesper Angelo, Viorel Anghel, Enrico Ansaloni, David Antognini, Michel Arboi, Paolo Arcagni, Troels Arvin, Gerd Aschemann, Richard Ayres, Marcel Barrero, Hicham Benabid, Stu Bain, Toby Bainbridge, Herman a. Bakema, D Baker, Derek Balling, David A. Bandel, John A. Barbuto, Elias Bareinboim, Les Barstow, David Barth, Aris Basic, Wayne Bastow, Aaron Baugher, Jim Baughman, Alexander Baxevanis, James Beal, Patrick Op de Beeck, Ben Belchak, John Bell, Michele Beltrame, Sebastian Mantilla Beniers, Charles C. Bennett, Jr., Bas Benschop, Dave Benson, Vic Van Den Bergh, Gregory Berkholtz, Aldis Berzins, Jonathan Billings, Q. Wade Billings, Brian Birkinbine, Chris Blair, Pierre Blanchet, Michael Blankenship, Mathias Bogaert, Allen Bolderoff, Rudolf A. Bolek, Sergei Bolotin, Bill Bond, Tan Thuan Boon, Brian Bothwell, Kris Boutilier, Darren Boyd, Scott Boyd, Richard Bradshaw, JP Brahma, Manfred Brandl, Mathijs Brands, Steve Brewer, R. Bridger, Joe Brockmeier, Mike Brodbelt, Leon Brooks, Chris Brown, Kira L. Brown, Lance Brown, T Brown, Travis E. Brown, Jared Buckley, Pedro Paulo Ferreira Bueno, Stephan Vladimir Bugaj, Erik J. Burckart, Andrew Burke, Lee Burnside, Neil Burrows, Jameson Burt, Judith Bush, John Buswell, Glenn Butcher, Daniel Butler, Joshua Buysse, Olivier Cahagne, Deborah Cahillane, Christopher Calicott, Mario Camou, Bill Campbell, Carlos Canau, Jeffery Cann, Alberto Caporro, Pablo Carboni, Filippo Carletti, Kris Carlier, Nate Carlson, James Carter, Vaughn Cato, Chris Chabot, Brown, Chad, Jorge Luis Chamorro, Patrick S. Chan, Eric Chang, Patrick Eric Cheng, Ryu, Cheol, Antony Chessor, Robert Chin, Michael Chisari, Mircea Ciocan, Michael Clark, Ralph Clark, Rick Clark, Ivo Clarysse, Thomas Heide Clausen, Gary Coady, Gerard Cochrane Jr., Bill Cockayne, Colin Coghill, Steve Coile, John B. Cole, Andrita Constantin, Nikki Cook, Alexandru Dan Corlan, Tony Corrente, Shiloh Costa, Chris Costakis, Desmond Coughlan, Ryan Coulter, Micah Cox, Bruno A. Crespo, Paul Crick, Schalk W. Cronje, Joaquin Cruz, Orlando Cruz, John Cusick, Mariusz Czulada, Ron van Daal, Philip W. Dalrymple, Mark Dalton, Fergal Daly, Dr. Peter Davids, Brendan Davies, Marc Davis, Matt Davis, Hal Davison, Ryan Finnin Day, Jeff Debrosse, Gwenael Delaine, Eric Delgado, Mark Dennehy, Bertalan Dergez, Constantin Deribin, Gert Dewit, Dana M. Diederich, Lance Dillon, Oreste Dimaggio, Filip Dimitrov, Dave Dixon, Vaughn Dixon, Alin Dobra, Markus Doehr, Walter Dorciak, Dave Drager, Paul Driver, Jim Duchek, Bart Duchesne, Darin Dugan, Alexandre Dulaunoy, Bill Dunn, Dougie Dunn, Robert F. Durdle, Ben Van Durme, Frank C. Earl, Josh Easton, Michael R. Eckhoff, Keith Edmunds, Jan Ekholm, Darren Ellis, Brian Epstein, Andre Esser, Peter Eyears, Michael Ezzell, Willem jan Faber, Aaron Faby, Wong man Fai, Rick t Faj, Tryggvi Farestveit, Jack Farmer, Dmitry Fedotoff, Rodrigo Feher, Raymond Ferrari, Eric Fisher, Robert Fitzsimons, Sascha Flohr, Ryan Fox, Steve Frampton, Chris Franklin, David Freeman, John Freeman, David Frickey, Rich Friedberg, JAyme Frye, Ciuloaica Gabriel, David A. Gadd, Jerry Gaiser, Bill Gallagher, John Galloway, Jon Gary, Babble Geek, Thomas Gehler, J. Maynard Gelinas, Kis Gergely, Henryk Gerlach, Chuck Gilkes, Brent Gilmore, Martin Glassborow, Chad Glendenin, Matjaz Godec, Hans de Goede, Michael P. Gonzales, Lorenzo Gonzalez, Michael Granger, Rod Gray, Stu Green, Don Greer, Corwin Grey, Matt Grommes, Kenton A. Groombridge, Stanislav Grozev, Trey Gruel, Mario Guarracino, Kees Guequierre, Alexei Gumenchuk, Sanjeev Gupta, Roine Gustafsson, Max Gutberlet, Jarkko Haapalainen, Klaus Haidenthaler, Andrew Haines, Bob Haines, Viljo Hakala, Dennis Hammer, Bryan Hampton, Bryan Hampton, Bryan Hampton, Anthony Hams, Philip Hands, Nathan Alan Haney, John Hardin, Richard G. Harman Jr, G. Hartmann, LC Haslett, Marcos Paulo Hauer, Jan H. Haul, Christian Heldwein, Philip S. Hempel, Rex Henderson, Richard Herbst, Seth Herstad, Todd Hight, Mark Hilgart, Mark Hinds, Kenneth Ho, Jeff Hogg, Peter Hollands, Neal Holtz, Hartmut Holzgraefe, Roy Hooper, Jack Horrocks, John Howard, Al Howat, Paul Hoy, Chip Humphreys, Antti Huovilainen, Stewart Hurrell, Paul Ionescu, Alex Irvine, Steven C. Iwig, Erik Jacobsen, Sonit Jain, Voytek Jarnot, Allan Jensen, David Jericho, David Jobes, Pawel T. Jochym, Richard B. Johnson, Lance L. Jones, C.R.J. de Jong, Stijn Jonker, Richard June, Craig Jungers, Chris Kakris, Angelos Karageorgiou, Kitya Karlson, Saber Karmous, Mihail Karpych, Thomas Keats, Martin Keegan, Andras Kemeny, Phill Kenoyer, Ajai Khattri, Kuksung simon Kim, David L Kinney, Narisorn Kitiyanant, Jerker Klang, Florian Klein, Joe Klemmer, Javier Kohen, Ben Kohn, Dirk Koopman, Ken Kousky, Gabriel Krabbe, Jan Kratochvil, Marcin Krol, Nerijus Krukauskas, Jesse Kuang, Beau Kuiper, Andrzej Kukula, Chris Kuske, Alex Kuzmich, Vasily Kuznetsov, Michael Kyed, Jimmy De Laet, Alex Lam, Andrew Lam, Claudio Lamberti, Dudley Lamming, Anthony Landreneau, Ed Lang, Frank de Lange, Stefano Lassini, Brian Lauer, Kirk Lawson, Marcos Leao, Lawrence Lee, Robert E. Lee, Ken Lees, Stephane Legrand, Carl Leonard, Reuven M. Lerner, Oliver Leue, Tim Lewis, Ken Leyba, Scott Lillibridge, ChuanWee, Lim, Peter Lindqvist, Mark Lipscombe, Pavel Litvinenko, Jordi Llonch, Aaron Longfield, R. Lonstein, Miles Lott, Kwan Lowe, Vitaly Luban, Dominic Lucas, Alex Luchkovsky, Peeter Luikmel, Edward M. Lukacs, Bruno Lustosa, Sean Lutner, Jay MacDonald, Gerard MacNeil, Victor Machado, P. Tobin Maginnis, Johannes Magnusson, Pierre Mai, Vince Maidens, Chuck Malmsten, Patrick Manderson, Mike Manley, Elisar Mardanus, Igor Markov, Jonathan Marsden, Dave Marsh, Matt Martin, Cristian Martinez, Ricardo Martins, Dale Massey, Jonathan C. Masters, Shawn Masters, Andrew Mathews, Bent Mathiesen, Sean McAvoy, Francis G. McCabe, Tristan McCann, James McCarte, Bill McCarthy, Jason McCaul, David McCauley, Mike McCune, Joshua McFadden, Jeremy McLeod, Christopher L. McNabb, Ryan McRonald, Geoff Mcnamara, Chuck Mead, Gabor Melis, John Mellor, Joerg Mertin, Tom Metzger, Evert Meulie Esq., Michael Meyer, Erlend Midttun, Turcu Mihai, Jamie Miller, John Miller, Clark Mills, Terry Milnes, Daniel Minev, Mircea Miron, Dave Mitchell, Tsoloane Moahloli, Luis Montgomery, Drew M. Mooney, Michael Morales, Tim Morgan, Adam Morris, Tom Mortensen, Benoit de Mulder, Erga Munggaran, D. Scott Murphy, Gordon Murphy, Matija Nalis, Jim Nash, Mark Nelson, Doug Newcomb, Chris Newton, Kaj J. Niemi, Cody R. Nivens, L. Ac., Paul Victor Novarese, Tom ONeil, Mike Odegard, Jesse Off, Giovanni A, Orlando, Tadas Osmolskis, Robert Outlaw, Pieter Willem Ouwehand, Greg Owen, Howard Owen, Rob Owens, Randall Padua, Petru Paler, Andrew Pam, Gavin Parker, David L. Parsley, Niklas Paulsson, Thomas Pedoussaut, Niels Peen, Sherm Pendley, Jonathan Perkin, Denis Pershin, Luca Pescatore, Kim Petersen, Christof Petig, Prem Kurian Philip, Nils Philippsen, Chuck Phillips, Deven Phillips, Neale Pickett, Milan WWW Pikula, Kit Plummer, Rob Poudrette, Alton Pouncey, Vincent Power, Rildo Pragana, Vincen Pujol, Hani Qassim, Phil Quiney, Ramadurai R, Allan Rabenau, Seth Ramsey, Ron Randall, Felix Rauch, Rune Linding Raun, Kevin Read, Larry Reckner, Ian Redfern, Michael Redinger, Randy R. Reed, Sam Reid, Abiel Reinhart, Dave Remien, Marc Rhodie, Herb Richter, Syazwan Hisyam Mohamed Ridzwan, Rik van Riel, Roman Riser, Phil Robinson, Lachlan Roche, Robb Romans, Guillermo S. Romero, Luis Rosales, Luis A. Rosales, Jeff Rosenberg, Bernhard Rosenkraenzer, Al Ross, Fabrice Rossi, Jason Rothstein, Densin Roy, Nicolas Ruiz, John Rumpelein, Rob Rutherford, Tom Salter, Martin Hoz Salvador, Thomas F. Sandholm, Shaun Savage, Pekka Savola, Steve Schalock, Stefano Schiavi, Gene Schiavone, Toby Schmeling, Sean Kendall Schneyer, Wolfgang Schorer, Greg Schroeder, Mike Schutz, John Sechrest, Igor Seletskiy, Christian Selig, Valentijn Sessink, Dinesh Shah, Lee Shakespeare, Marty Shannon, Paul Sharpe, Richard Sharpe, Johnny Shelley, Michael Shepelev, Jeff Shern, Alex Shnitman, Jose Luis Garcia Silva, Christopher Silveira, Marc Silver, Michele Dalla Silvestra, Hajo Simons, Matt Simpson, Wilbur M. Sims III, Harold Sinclair, Nilesh Singit, Dmitry Sividov, Joe Sixpack, Brian Skelly, Peter Skipworth, Kevin Smathers, James Smith, Michael Smith, Michael Smith, Richard Smith, Randy Sommerfeld, Nicolas Soriano, Kyle Sparger, Derek Spencer, Adam Spiers, Carl Spies, Russ Spooner, Darren Stalder, Florin Stan, Vasile Laurentiu Stanimir, Sander ter Steege, Herwin Jan Steehouwer, Joshua Stein, M. Steiner, Werner Steiner, Robin Stephenson, Jimmy Z. Stergiou, Matthew Stiger, Peter Stoddard, Dave Stokes, Ralph H. Stoos Jr., Philippe Strauss, Daniel Stringfield, Cesar Suga, Peter Sulecki, Daniel R Sullivan, Drew Sullivan, Walt Sullivan, Benjamin Suto, Jan Svenungson, Rob Swider, Eivind Tagseth, Istvan Takacs, Kevin R. Taute, Bruce Tenison, Daniel Thom, C. Thomas, David J. Thompson, Neil Thompson, Olaf Thormaehlen, Dave Thurston, Adam Tilghman, Okke Timm, Remek Trzaska, Sotiris Tsimbonis, Jonathan Tullett, Edward Tulupnikov, Bob Turner, Paul Turpie, Tymm Twillman, Tiberiu Ungureanu, Artur Urbanowicz, Jay Urish, David Utidjian, Jens Vagelpohl, Joseph R. Van Valen, Olivier Verloove, Bert Vermeulen, Olle Viksten, Luca Villa, John E. Vincent, Karl Vogel, Adrian Voinea, Laurent Volfovsky, Russ Vrolyk, Gabe Wachob, Koen De Waele, Gilles Wagener, Henty Waker, Mike Wakerly, Mike Wakerly, Rob Walker, Florian Wallner, Nathan Wallwork, Bob Walmsley, Chinian Wang, Erik Warmelink, Allen Warren, R. Paul Warriner, Kevin Way, Joe Waytula, Stephen Webb, Christopher Richard Wedman, Dirk Weigenand, Rainer Weikusat, John West, Richard Westlake, Henry White, Madsen Wikholm, Grayson Williams, Roger Clark Williams, Matt Willis, Ray Willis, Pat Wilson, Stephen Wilson, Rich Wohlstadter, Tom Wojciaczyk, Ted Wojcik, Ron Wolf, J.b. Wolsieffer, Dan Wood, Gregory Wood, Robert Woodcock, Jay Woods, Clinton Work, Andrew Wright, Rod Wright, David Wruck, Derek Quinn Wyatt, Dan York, Mingjian Yu, Mr. Chen Zhengde, Jack Zielke, Matt Zimmerman, Ralph Zimmermann, Steve Zinck, Matthew Zito, Mike Zizcenko, Dobber Zlobber, Humberto Ortiz Zuazaga, Ralph Zuidinga, Jean Zundel