It's a sad truth that advancements in technology often make jobs obsolete, usually sooner than most people are ready. The more savvy workers learn to keep up with the times, and adapt their skills to make the best use of their experience, without becoming redundant themselves.

Things go wrong. Hard disks fail and whole servers crash. Luckily, many Linux-based distributions are available to help systems administrators handle minor catastrophes. We looked at four of the most portable, all of which fit on a 210MB mini CD -- SliTaz, Parted Magic, GParted, and RIPLinuX.

Good systems administrators know that implementing a robust backup procedure is one of their most important duties. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most complex and least fun. When the phone rings and there's a panic-stricken user on the other end who has just lost a crucial document, you need to be confident that you can promptly recover his missing files.

Some people are happy with their operating systems as installed. Others like to tinker. Still others need to dive under the hood and make those systems run exactly the way they want. Its all about control, and Linux gives you as much control as you can handle. The configuration tools in Ubuntu Linux provide a full range of customization choices. Some are cosmetic, of course, but others dig deep into system settings.

Adopt Python to manage UNIX® systems while incorporating concepts of good program design. Python is an easy-to-learn, open source scripting language that lets system administrators do their job more quickly. It can also make tasks more fun.

If those ‘Funny Linux Man Pages’ didn’t make you laugh, perhaps these manual pages developed on alt.sysadmin.recovery (asr) will do. ASR manpages document a set of really useful tools that for some strange reason are not included in any implementation of Unix.Once again, a little warning: View these man pages at your own risk, as you may find some of them rather offensive...

A lazy sysadmin is a good sysadmin. Time spent in finding more-efficient shortcuts is time saved later on for that ongoing project of "reading the whole of the internet", so try Juliet Kemp's 10 handy tips to make your admin life easier...

Koen Vervloesem doesn’t like shell scripts that are difficult to maintain, therefore he uses Ruby for his sysadmin tasks. Do the same with his four-page guide…

SOME LAZY Linux administrators are living in a dreamworld where they believe their systems are secure just because they use Linux, according to an insecurity expert.