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Teaching Linux/Unix Basics to Microsoft Junkies?
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.
Just show them the beauty of ssh and X-forwarding. It never fails to impress my Win/Mac-using friends when I run the latest version of our Java project application directly from the unix server at school.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Here are a few random suggestions, in no particular order.
* Open a relatively complicated page in MSIE, the same page in Mozilla-win32, and the same page agin in Mozilla-linux. Go to a bunch of annoying web sites, with Mozilla's pop-up/pop-down filters enabled.
* Use ssh to log in to a box halfway across the world. Demonstrate some simple system administration tasks, and the fact that anything you can do at the console you can also do remotely, via ssh.
* Run either Gnome or KDE. Change the themes, a couple of times, demonstrate the customizable UI. Switching between one of the mac Aqua-like themes, some star trek theme, and one of the Winxx-lookalike themes should be very effective.
* Install a distribution in server mode (no X11). Demonstrate the extreme modularization of Linux, such as you can complete get rid of all GUI support, and use only the disk/network services to turn a box into a network appliance.
* Install Windows and Linux on the same box. Boot into Linux; then mount and browse Windows partitions. Make a casual remark that Windows cannot browse Linux partitions in the same way.
* When the Linux box boots up, and is busy going through the initscripts, starting all the services, explain that if one service fails to start for some reason the boot process will continue and the machine should still be mostly usable. Ask if anyone experienced a situation where a Windows driver kept croaking during the boot process, and what happened alter.
I recall an incident about three years ago when UMAX shipped a buggy driver for their scanners. The driver was faulting on machines with USB ports, and CPU speeds over 400 Mhz (something about some timing loop), forcing a complete crash during the Windows boot cycle, with the subsequent reboot falling back into safe mode.
The Linux equivalent for this would be something like SANE, which runs completely in user mode, and therefore cannot crash the entire OS.
* Use samba to browse the local windows network neighborhood.
* If you have a fat pipe, forward X11 over ssh, and run remote X applications on the local terminal.
* Install a base distribution package right out of the box. I'll use Red Hat 7.2 as an example. Apply all the errata to bring the box up to date, except for the kernel, without rebooting. Even install a new version of glibc (the equivalent of msvcxxrt.dll) without rebooting the box. Install a new kernel on the remote machine, make sure that LILO or GRUB is all set up, then remotely reboot the box into the new kernel.
It helped me over the hump when I became serious about learning Linux, and I use it as a resource still today. Even if you don't use it as a guide for your class, I'd highly recommend that you mention it to your students.
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
BTW:
* In XP, tab completion is on by default.
* There's also a built-in utility called findstr, which offers many options that find does not.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I've been giving linux courses to windows nerds.
The first time I used Redhat 7.2. It turned out to be a mistake. The next time I used mandrake 8.2 and that worked well.
The graphics seems to impress more than the cli.(Unfortunately) Things that you as a unix person are impressed by dont work well for windows people. This was a real problem for me as I use the cli for most of my work. You have to learn to use the kde tools like konqueror and kwrite.
In 2 days you wont be able to do much more that show them the power of Linux. You need at least a week.
Here are some of my tips based on the experiences that I have had.
Make them install mandrake with a full graphics install with dual boot.
Show the wizards and control center
Show them X -query and rdesktop.
Windows people seem to prefer kde to gnome but dont forget to show them choice. Install both so you can show them evolution.
Also the web admins really impress them. (Swat, webmin and cups)
Mandrake has a beta of Staroffice (silverclub members only). Get it. (email me if you want it)
Dont even bother showing vi. Somehow it doesnt work for windows people.Use kwrite instead.
Make sure you install all the games. During my course the games really got them going.For some strange reason "frozen bubble" was a big hit.
Teaching the students the cli with commands like grep, cut etc. didnt impress much until they wrote their first script. I had them write a simple menu to start different commands. Then they understood the power of unix.
Get them to run ssh to each other. For windows admins this is very impressive. Installing kiofish in kde is also impressive.
If you want my course material, I'll be happy to send it to you. Its in swedish and not that good but you could send it through babelfish and get som ideas. Its for the cli so it wont be useful unless you can increase the course to at least 5 days.
These are some of my experiences. Hope they help you.
Regards kenneth karlsson
I have been teaching myself how to use Linux over the last week.
I have been running Ipcop as a firewall for a few months and getting into the shell and poking around finally got the better of me and I decided to give Linux a good go.
My goals were :
SO far I am doing well. I had some Red Hat 7.1 CDs and have that running. Gnome and Enlightenment work for me, although I am mainly using enlightenment as it is a pretty crappy machine. I got Samba to work so I have a share set up in my Windows workgroup. I have Apache running. I have VNC Server and SSH running so I can do it all from my Windows Laptop using PuTTy and VNC (the only spare monitor I had was really crappy).
The only thing I have left to do is configure PHP and a database and I am happy.
But I do have a point....
The most important thing I have learned. Is Google Groups search is your best friend. There are so many little quirks and pitfalls for someone setting this sort of stuff up by themselves for the first time. No tutorial can cover them all. Teaching people how to find answers is the best lesson of all. Especially when it is 1am and they have just managed to completely stop something from running (Samba, X etc), it is important to know how to get an answer when you have no one holding your hand.
End of the story....I am loving it! If most of my computer use didn't involve SQL Server I could see myself switching.
Learn to Improvise
OK... I am a guy that has seen DOS, 4DOS, numerous Redmond products. I currently am stuck to W2K and I probably will be for quite some time as it is damn reliable. Linux was never a issue to me, mainly because I have to eat (and therefore earn bucks admin'ing Win OSes).
/bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, ...) . The systems generated by (say) FLI4L are full linux systems, but without most of the fuss.
/var and /proc concept, shell scripting and automating/streamlining processes, blah blah. To me the FLI4L is the essence of linux - a small thing to get the job done, with no waste of resources. On the other hand, there is basically nothing you CANNOT do with FLI4L - install a SMB server and print servies, control LEDs hanging off the serial port, httpd, ftpd, telnetd, mount NTFS, you name it.
But what really fused my interest and admiration for linux was configuring a dedicated router on outdated hardware. There are quite some "linux router on a disk" projects out there, look for Coyote, FreeSCO or FLI4L (which is maintained by bunch of german guys).
Get your people to setup a working design for a linux router. The beauty of the project is that they can just make a boot disk, reboot the box they are working on and test it for real. The simplicity of the projects has quite some advantages - it takes out the "cluttering" some distros have (as in having
These systems are probably all you need to teach the basics of piping and redirection, the
Excuse me for praising FLI4L here, other router distros are probably just as good, but FLI4L has the flexibility to astonish even people like me.
+++ath0