FAQ

Web-hosting

What domain registrar should I use?

My favorite domain registrar is namecheap. I’ve never had any issues with them and they have good support. I’ve been using them for years. The biggest selling point for me is my clients can add me as an “administrator” of domains they purchased on namecheap and I can manage all of the domains I’m an “admin” for in one interface. It’s really handy for me.

Porkbun wasn’t around when I purchased my first domain or I might have used them, but a lot of my friends from the web-hosting industry really like this registrar. Comes with an extra helping of hipster cred. Probably a good choice if you’re a web designer who likes to use hipster ipsum.

Where should I host my website?

squarespace.com
GitHub Pages All of my sites are GitHub pages sites built with either Hugo or Mkdocs (see below).

Should I use a CMS like WordPress?

Probably not. Unless you’re a developer and know what you’re doing. But if that’s the case, you probably don’t need my advice…

See SquareSpace above, this is the best WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) site builder I’ve tried. Clean minimalist aesthetic, with modern resposive (mobile friendly) design, and an intuitive editing UI.

What Static Site Generator should I use?

Hugo for blogging or personal sites
MkDocs for documentation

DevOps, Linux, Cloud, System Administration, etc.

How do I learn DevOps?

See DevOps Learning Resources.

I’m a beginner in Linux, where should I start?

Learn The Linux Command Line. The ebook is free! This is how I learned and is my go-to recommendation for anybody trying to learn Linux or move beyond novice Linux CLI skills.

Also, check out the Linux Upskill Challenge. I’m an editor and contributor! Please open an issue if you encounter any.

What’s the best Linux distribution?

No idea.

Lately I’ve been running Fedora as my daily driver. I ran openSUSE Leap for a while when I was doing a lot of work with SuSE servers. Ubuntu is beginner friendly, but Canonical might try to steal your data. I used to use Arch btw, but these days most of my work is with Enterprise Linux. My preference is to “dog food” whatever I’m working with the most so that I can keep up with developments and learn intricacies better.

Debian is neat for lightweight stable homelab servers.

I’m interested in becoming a Linux Sysadmin, what should I do?

Install Arch manually (don’t use the installer), if you can figure this out, you’re well on your way with the skills necessary to become a Linux sysadmin.

Also, proficiency in the Linux CLI is a pre-requisite to becoming a Linux Sysadmin, (see above).

Beyond those two things, the most straightforward path to becoming a Linux Sysadmin is to work somewhere where you get to work on Linux systems. Linux was a hobby, and I ran Linux on my laptops and had a web-server on Linode for many years. But it wasn’t until I got a job in tech support at a web-hosting company to where I really started my wizarding apprenticeship.

FAQ