Hello! In January/23 I took the LPIC-1 certification and in this post I would like to share how I prepared and what I thought of the exam.

Who am I?

My name is Lucas Stofaleti and I am from São Paulo. At the time I write this post I work as a DevOps Engineer at ASML and I live in the Netherlands. I have several years of experience with Linux both at work and as a Desktop user, so I did not start from absolute zero to take the certification.

How is the exam?

To take the certification, you must pass two exams: 101-500 and 102-500. The specific objectives can be seen on the LPI website: LPI.

Each exam has 60 questions and costs USD 130.00 for those living in Brazil. The exams can be taken online or in-person at a partner center.

I took the first exam in-person and the other online, and I strongly recommend taking the exams in-person if possible. The price is the same in both versions, and if you take it at home, the risk of connectivity problems is great, as well as various environment, noise, and operating system requirements. One of the most unfortunate requirements is that the exam cannot be taken on Linux desktops. Which is completely senseless for an exam about Linux focused on the open-source culture.

How did I study?

In theory, you don’t have to spend anything to prepare for the exams. The LPI itself provides free content:

I did read some of the official material’s PDFs and consider it to be of good quality. However, I studied through Ricardo Prudenciato’s course on Udemy (Portuguese Only). It’s the course with the best cost-benefit ratio I found, and the teacher really has vast knowledge in the area. I’ll leave the link to the course below in case you’re interested:

Update: Apparently the course is closed for new registrations on Udemy. If you’re interested, access the teacher’s official website and enroll on their own platform. Ricardo Prudenciato Course

It took me about 3 months from the time I started studying until I took both exams. During this time, I didn’t study every day, which made me take longer than normal. However, the time can be different depending on prior experience. My tip here is not to focus so much on getting the certification as fast as possible, but rather on learning and understanding the content well.

Will I get a job?

There is a big debate in the IT area about the real value of certifications in general. I have met people who consider certifications more important than college and others who say there is no value at all.

In my opinion, the most relevant is the experience. Companies really look for professionals with more experience in the area and passage through known companies. However, certifications have good visibility and sometimes are even prerequisites for the jobs.

I personally recommend focusing on learning the content that is what counts in the end in day-to-day life and accept that there is no guarantee of anything, all we can do is work with probability and increase our chances. And it is evident that doing a certification increases your probability of being hired.

About the density of the content, I believe that it is more than enough for Development, Cloud and Devops Engineer functions. However, for functions such as SyAdmin it may be important to also have knowledge of the content of LPIC-2, as it is necessary to know how to configure services not covered in the first certification. This is because the first exam ends up putting some contents that are not so relevant in the day-to-day life of a professional such as Graphical Interfaces and some others.

LPIC-1, RHCSA ou LFCS?

If you intend to take a Linux certification, you may not have decided to take the LPIC-1 yet. In fact, there are several different companies that provide Linux-focused programs. Below, I have listed the other 2 that I consider the most relevant and a brief description:

  • RHCSA: This is official RedHat certification. One of the most used distributions in the corporate world. The certification is completely hands-on and costs BRL 1600.00. I believe this is the most valued certification in Europe about Linux. The negative point is that it is focused only on one distro.
  • LFCS: This certification is from The Linux Foundation. It is also fully hands-on at a cost of USD 395.00. You can choose to take your test using Ubuntu or CentOs.

I created this table below that you can use to choose your path. I marked with X when the certification has an advantage in some topic.

LPIC-1 RHCSA LFCS
Price X
Recognition in Brazil X
Recognition in Europe X
Hands on test X X
Relevant Content X

Conclusion

I hope I have helped you to come to some conclusion with this post and not confused you even more. If you want to follow me, check my LinkedIn :)