A few updates…
No, I didn't fall off a cliff. Been busy with lots of stuff:
- Passed the CCDP ARCH test and became a CCDP on April 25th!
- Lots of house remodeling projects
- Working on my final Cisco test (for now : ), the MPLS exam
- Various other sundries
On the FreeBSD front, I found an old 250GB SATA drive and installed it in my current rig as the only drive (just to be sure I don't screw something up). Not surprisingly, rebuilding the kernel and world with the latest 7.2 Release is quite snappy as compared to the Thinkpad T40. I was pleased that the Nvidia driver in ports worked without a hitch though it has no 3D acceleration whatsoever. For that you need Nouveau. I went my usual install route: install the minimal FreeBSD distribution, build world and build kernel, build Xorg from ports (including mouse, keyboard, Nvidia driver, and vesa driver for backup) with HAL support, build some sort of window manager (Fluxbox is my current favorite), install a shell (I'm torn between bash and zsh), and install Firefox 3. The entire process took about an hour and a half.
All of my hardware either worked out of the box or worked after a few tweaks but I used the i386 version of FreeBSD, not the AMD64 version. Before I built HAL, I had to use a PS/2 keyboard in order to actually install. Either I missed something or USB hotplug support isn't there out of the box and needs to be added to rc.conf. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my Blackberry was recognized when I plugged it in. It didn't automount or anything but it was neat to see it get recognized. I've yet to get it to work, but there is a ports version of barry available. Barry is a little rough around the edges but I was able to back up my Blackberry Curve 8320 to my Linux box with it.
It seems like FreeBSD is maturing and quite rapidly. Now that VirtualBox is coming for FreeBSD, the only barrier left is either getting a native 64-bit Flash plugin/player or for Gnash to mature rapidly. I tried Gnash on i386 FreeBSD and it works, but only part of the time.
I still watch with a bit of wonder and amazement at the effort that goes into an Open Source operating system and applications. That the developers can get their projects working with little or no support from hardware vendors is nothing short of amazing.
Passed the Cisco BGP test!
Okay, so I'm two weeks late on posting this but it's still exciting! I'm actively working towards the CCIP so I wanted to take this test before June so I can stick to my "study and pass a test within a reasonable timeframe" schedule. It's pretty difficult and I actually failed it on the first try (with a 750 out of a 755 passing score. Argh!). This time around I passed with a more respectable 912.
Without divulging too much, you should definitely know all of the testing objectives cold. They can be found here. Pay particular attention to the differences between IBGP and EBGP and all of the features each offers. I used the "Internet Routing Architectures" book by Sam Halabi and it was excellent. Even if you're not taking the BGP test, it would be a good idea to have that book on hand as a reference. Read it twice and the test should be a piece of cake.
Passed the CCDA!
Feels good to knock out another certification and within only two months. This one wasn't terribly difficult as long as you read the study guide carefully. Have a look at the test blueprint. I plan on continuing down the design path to help diversify my networking knowledge from lower level network engineering to higher level network design stuff.
While I'm waiting on the new CCDP material though, I plan on knocking out the BGP test for the CCIP track.