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Dear Linux Magazine Reader,

In the old days, system administrators

learned their craft from older and wiser admins. Of course, in those days, duty rosters were drawn around the ratio of several administrators for a single computer, so there were many chances for mentoring moments. As we all know, a changed occurred somewhere overnight, and suddenly the scenario was more like several computers for a single admin. System admins were suddenly less like stokers tending a furnace and more like shepherds tending a flock. The big companies still had teams of admins, but more and more small companies wanted to invest in hardware, and they wanted to pay some outsider to come set it up. The software companies, meanwhile, were rapidly inventing tools for PC networking, and, to extend the shepherd analogy, every year or two, the systems these admins tended would morph into totally new and unexpected varieties of sheep.

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