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Teaching Linux/Unix Basics to Microsoft Junkies?

Posted by timothy on from the what's-the-best-candy dept.

flupps asks: "I've been asked to hold a two-day crash course in a class of students that currently are studying to become MCSD certified. I'm looking for ideas how to set this up. I was thinking about starting with some general file system descriptions, where to find what files, the man pages, the tab-button, etc. After that move on to some of the daemons and just explain what they do." He's got at least one idea to start with (below), but what must-have skills or demonstrations would you add?

I also plan to set a database program in VB (one of the certificates in the MCSD suite) against a MySQL or Postresql db and show that there are free alternatives that works as well as SQL server.

What would you think could be a good addition to teach them?

This is in no way meant to be a very advanced course, but I want to show some of the excellence of *nix and why you sometimes can save time and stability and maybe make them interested and read up more by themselves afterwards.

Any suggestions very welcome.

6 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Keep it simple (and don't oversell mysql) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    linux is like your first car... a cheap disposable vehicle that you can use to learn driving.

    then, when you know how to drive, you choose a real OS.
    BSD Baby

    awwww yeah

  2. Teaching Linux/Unix Basics to Microsoft Junkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Teaching Linux/Unix Basics to Microsoft Junkies?

    Don't bother, Microsoft junkies already use superior software.

    Perhaps the question should be "Teaching Microsoft Basics to Linux/Unix Zealots?", judging from the huge misinformation Linux/Unix Zealots have: Open Source is better than Closed Source.

  3. Isn't this alot like the last Ask Slashdot... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Where the behavioral psychologist was asking for tips on how to teach spider monkeys algebra and calculus?

    Don't get me wrong, spider monkeys are smart little critters. Besides, I think they were MCSD certified too.

  4. folder right-click, menu "find" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Yawn. *NIX has the same barbaric command line "features" that it did 20 years ago when I first used it. At least Windows has progressed the state-of-the-art to where a common task like searching is readily available to even novice users without resorting to a cryptic "man cat | more".

  5. Re:the best combo IMHO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    ls car*.jpg -lhS|grep ferrari|tr -s " "|cut "-d " -f5,9|head -n10

    Wow! Cool! Now what's the shell incantation that'll get you a life?

  6. Re:cat is not useless by blixel · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I don't understand why people *care* unless they're writing something that's absolutely performance-critical

    You must be an MCSE.