What are the best unix administrator qualifications and training to get ahead?

What is the best training for becoming an unix administrator? What types of ongoing training or certifications are necessary to be an effective unix administrator?

What do non-traditional career paths look like?

Need your advice on "What is the best training for becoming an unix administrator? What types of ongoing training or certifications are necessary to be an effective unix administrator?"

I don't think unix admin courses are much good - you have to learn and experience unix on your own and no training course can replicate that. Training is good for learning specific skills quickly once you're more established.

The best way to learn Unix is to get your hands dirty.

Get yourself a Linux distro, and play around with it. Use it on your home computer. Do things on the command line that you would have previously done by pointing and clicking.

Learn to program. Perl is useful. Bash ( or ksh ) scripting ( for a unix admin ) is vital.

Look through log files, find problems find out what they mean. Fix them. ( hint: google is your friend )

Google for "esr smart questions" without quotes, and read it.