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Re: [LUG] Exeter College - Course modules



On Friday 05 September 2003 16:47, paul wrote:
> Perhaps a choice of topics should be
>
> 1. What is GPL / GNU
> 2. Linux and Unix a brief history
>
> These give the background to the software
>
> Getting help and how to use irc, usenet to best effect, and where to look
> for help and how to ask for help.  Perhaps earlier.
>
> 3. Distributions -
> 4. The shell (bash or whatever) and when to use different shells
> 5  text editing, and creating scripts,  perfer to use a neural editor e.g
> joe to avoid any vi/emacs wars.
> 6. Shell scripting
>
> 7. The X window system
>
> More advanced should cover
>
> Networking, networking topologies, system security, samba, real world
> situations with lectures from people who actually use Linux, e.g met
> office, schools and how they use it.
>
> Ideally couses should be hands on,  fun and less emphasis on perhaps exams.
> And give enough pre requisits to tackle things like RHCE type exams, but
> the couses can still have a certificate of attendance.
>
> With the irc aspect the class could be able to meet on irc and discuss
> problems.  Perhaps it would even be possible to study at home,  and submit
> work via ftp or whatever.
>
> More importantly employers need educatiing regarding the ethos of the
> community in terms of self taught, and that self taught users can have a
> knowledge to a very advanced level.
>
> Any comments

I used to teach a sort of UNIX bootcamp for one of the hardware manufacturers 
some time back.

We did a short familiarisation, first with the history and concepts like 
"everything is a file" with a shell and with vi (because that was all that 
was available in the recovery environment), some scripting (enough to enable 
them to read scripts, really), and then we went in and looked at startup and 
shutdown, and init.  

By this time, the chaps on the course had a pretty good idea of how a *IX 
system hangs together, and, more importantly, knew where to start looking if 
it started to fall apart.

Next stop ? Why, building a kernel, of course.  How to work out what was in it 
and what wasn't, how to work out what numbers to put into mknod... That and 
how to recover a system when someon's taken a thermic lance to your system 
disk... (which one of our customers did with depressing regularity).

This seemed to a) decrease the number of support calls we got, b) increase the 
quality of the ones that reached us, and c) generate some guys who were more 
or less self-sufficient when it came to learning more about the OS.

Of course, you relly needed to teach the course in person with a machine per 
student.

And week 2 was "C".

Of course we didn't cover things like the Web, 'cause it hadn't yet been 
invented.

jd

-- 
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