Hello everyone,
My name is Sanket, and I recently joined this Linux community! I just started learning for the RHCSA certification through a Udemy course. I have a basic understanding of what Linux is, how the kernel works, some core shell commands, and a bit of its history..
I would love it if you could share some tips to help me with my studies. Any advice or suggestions are welcome!
Thank you
Hi, @Sanket_Survase 
Welcome to the community!
Welcome @Sanket_Survase! RHCSA is a solid cert to chase. Best advice I can give: get hands-on as fast as possible. Spin up a couple of RHEL 9 VMs (or AlmaLinux if you want free) and break things on purpose, then fix them.
Focus heavily on the stuff that trips people up under time pressure: systemd units, user and group management, permissions including ACLs and special bits, firewalld, SELinux contexts, LVM and storage, and getting comfortable with vi or vim.
Knowing how to find answers in man pages and /usr/share/doc is genuinely part of the skill, you’re allowed to use them in the exam so practice with them.
Oh, do the Sander van Vugt practice exams once you feel ready. They’re harder than the real thing and great for spotting weak areas:
Good luck, post questions here as you go. Thanks for joining.
I’d like to strongly second @hydn in that.
Another free alternative for RHEL is Rocky Linux. They say:
Rocky Linux: Focuses on strict, 1-to-1 binary compatibility with RHEL. This makes it the safer choice if you need your OS to act exactly like RHEL for specialized proprietary software or strict compliance.
@ugnvs useful incremental suggestion. I agree with @hydn about using VMs. Your additional alternative, Rocky Linux is a helpful answer if strict binary compatibility with RHEL is necessary, so it would appear to be a better alternative to AlmaLinux, though there is value in “free” as in price, so you have to decide which tools are most appropriate to pass your certification.
Also: " > “Thinking back to early CentOS days… My cofounder was Rocky McGaugh. He is no longer with us, so as a H/T to him, who never got to see the success that CentOS came to be, I introduce to you…Rocky Linux.”
Gregory Kurtzer
Co-Founder @ CentOS / Founder @ Rocky Linux
(Source of information: https://rockylinux.org/
