Perl, Python & Ruby should all be equal to the task. There isn't really much of a hole in any of them for standard systems administration tasks. I would spend a

Perl, Python & Ruby should all be equal to the task. There isn't really much of a hole in any of them for standard systems administration tasks. I would spend a couple days with each and find whichever feels most comfortable to you. Give what is involved for most systems administration work, there isn't a whole lot to differentiate them. I have found issues with python on various linux distributions where I had to do extra work to get a later version of python to work while not breaking the existing install which is used in various admin scripts provided with the OS. That is a relatively minor pain but one you should be aware of. Don't go willy nilly upgrading your python install on a linux box w/o being aware of what might break.