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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.
is teaching cat | grep . I don't think I use any command combo more than this other than ls -al. Piping and redirection is really important stuff for Microphiles to learn right away. It's a great way to show off the power of a CLI.
Ive used all three databases you mention. Without a doubt, SQL Server is by far the "best" database. I think you do have to temper what you say, because if you run around making statements like that, then it puts doubt on the other things you say.
I dont mean to cast dispersions on MySQL or PostreSQL, they are very good databases, but not in the same league as SQLServer, IMHO.
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Make sure you teach them how to compile and install software. When I first learned *nix I learned how to navigate the file system, run things, edit files, move things around, etc. But it took me like a week to figure out how to install and set up new software. I remember having the hardest time with it because every single piece of software was different. There was no standard setup.exe or *.rpm all the time. I had to make, make install. And that didn't always work either. That, imho is one of the major differences and difficulties there is in moving from windows to *nix. In windows once you've installed one piece of software you've installed them all.
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instead of doing like MCSE and giving them fish, teach them how to fish.
/etc - it's where most of the config files are. /usr/bin - it's where most user programs live /usr/sbin - it's where most superuser programs live
/all - in unix we have ifconfig' some basic translations of basic stuff.
"This is
This is
This is
If you're interested in using a command and don't know how, use 'man command' and get them familiar with how to use commands. "
You've got two days - so some basic 'how to get info' and then examples of getting that info, would be good.
Possibly a run down of 'in Microsoft, you have IIS, in Unix there's apache, ftp, etc'. 'In MSFT, you have ipconfig
How about running through the 'Administrative tools/Common' menu in 2000 and showing them where all those toys live in *nix - or where they might be able to find them.
But make sure you teach them how to fish for themselves - I suppose MSFT has the help pages, but man pages are our best equivalent. Or homepages for the package in question where applicable.
Good luck!
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
If they can't manage that on their own, there's no hope at all.
In a more serious note, I'd try to focus on the similaraties between cmd.exe syntax and bash/sh syntax and possibly get a bit into basic shell programming.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Set up tomcat /w SOAP, and show a simple VB app or ASP page interacting with a "hello world" SOAP call. Real world, simple setup, shows the potential to mix environments...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
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.
I would qualify that - you'll probably have at least one person in the group who's up on MySQL and/or PostgreSQL deficiencies (yes, they have them). Don't try to convince them that MySQL can be a drop-in replacement for SQL Server 2000. Both MySQL and PostgreSQL *can* be used in many situations, and should be considered along with other options re: price/performance, but don't go overboard and talk down to MS people saying MySQL is as good as (or better) than SQL Server. It does a disservice to everyone involved.
Covering RPMs and/or apt-get technology might be useful at the end of 2 day overview.
What would help more than anything else is showing people where/how to get help - online resources (RPMfind, for example) and whatnot. There's only so much you can cram in to two days - don't overdo it. Cover the basics in detail, and give resources to visit afterwards for people who want to learn more and/or experiment.
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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 --
One of the first things I found cool on UNIX was being able to start Netscape on one machine and have the screen displayed on another. And explain that this IS NOT Netop, PCAnywhere or VNC or another 3rd-party tool, but a natural part of X. X was DESIGNED to do this whereas Widows (Windows) needs a thirdparty-tool to do a much a technically less advanced screencapture.
I'd simply show them the Unix stuff that is cross platform. Start off with things such as Apache or even PHP.
More than likely, if they are going for their MCSE cert, they will be running Wind'rs no matter what you tell them, but showing them these cross platform apps might be the seed to slowly merge them to other platforms. For instance, I run both Apache and PHP on most of my servers...I run them on Wind'rs, MacOS X, Unix. They are VERY stable across platforms. I still run IIS5.0 on one machine, but thats because I have clients that NEED ASP. I use to develop against ASP, but now use PHP on everything because I never know what platform I'm going to be running on.
After that -- because everyone needs to know how to set up a web server -- grab the Posix Tools from Cygwin (??? I think thats where I get them...I just google everytime) and install them on Windows. You get all the nice commands that ya do on unix, but on Windows. Its VERY nice because Windows doesn't come with a very good Kill command (there is one on the Resource Disc...but I prefer these ones better)...sometimes you REALLY need a service to quit and their is no other way.
Start showing folks these xplatform tools and show them how they only need to memorize one set of instructions instead of a dozen that do the same things across a dozen platforms (the CLI stuff on Windows isn't the same even across their different platforms...they change the names of apps too readily). How do you get to a Command Line on Windows? Is is CMD? Is it Dosprmpt? Depends on the version. Things like this.
I install the cross platform tools so people can be familiar with the Unix stuff...hell I've got my boys so brainwashed that when I ask them to hit one of my unix boxes, they now tell me its 'just like windows'. Once you can safely work around a machine without having to stumble, you then feel a little braver and may actually explore a bit. Maybe then they figure out why a Unix box is so much nicer and more stable than the same PC...
clif
sonikmatter.com
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.
many windows people when approached with linux view features they don't see as features that don't exist.
The best thing you can do for a newbie is teach them how to find what they need to find to install or compile all the software they want. Start off with something simple like an Apache/PHP w/MySQL setup.
Give them the three tarballs (and they should know how to open them after the basics) and tell them to try to compile the three pieces of software together. With some tutoring they'll end up having something, more or less, working (hopefully) by reading README files and the INSTALL files after you've told them they use the configure script to start the ball rolling.
If they run into a rut, then you help them. Once they do get everything compiled together, get them on the path of figuring out how to install MySQL into /opt/mysql and apache in /services/www. This will have them reconfiguring and learning how all the flags work.
Finally, get them to install something that will rock their brains a bit. Once they realize that they're having a hard time, tell them where they can go to get libs, dependancies, etc. (freshmeat, rpmfind, etc.). Navigating the box is one thing, but knowing how to install software makes all the online docs suddenly make sense. Anyone have any comments about this approach?
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
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
There is the third UI that is hardly standard and user frendly or accessible. The side door port to controlling an application external from it's UI.
With the three you can begin to create automations regardless of what level of computer use you are at.
It's like having the three primary color of the rainbow and with them being allowed to create any color of the rainbow, but take away one and you are greatly constrained.
User Interfaces are like that, we generally only have two available, if even that, on the windows box but even Linux has a hard time providing a standard 3rd UI to applications, devices and libraries.
Watch out, wait to long and MS will figure this out and get the jump on it. That would be a shame.
Want to convert MS user to Linux? Then give them highly productive tools they cannot find on their windows boxes. And that would include general automation tools friendly enough for anyone to use.
Show them the ease of modprobe, the powerfulness of iptables,[...] mounting of ISO-images(!). [...]Inprint in their heads that the machine does not need to be rebooted after updates and installations, ip-adress-changes and change of configuration.
/etc, /etc/sysconfig, /etc/$SOFTWARE_NAME, /opt / SOFTWARE_NAME, /usr/etc, /usr/local/etc, ~/.$SOFTWARE_NAME, /usr/share/$SOFTWARE_NAME ... but no registry. Woot!
They are developers, for crying out loud. They'll start running after 5 minutes of iptables; why not show them gcc?
Show them the [...] the geniality of config-files, and NO REGISTRY.
Look, config files in
Don't get me wrong, I'm a 100% unix guy; but it seems to me that exactly this kind of arguments makes people stay away from linux. You don't have to crush Windows, you have to give them reasons to make them beleive in linux, and to want to hop in the wagon.
-- No sig today
These people may only know about Windows and Microsoft solutions. If so, you'd better give real world examples of what is done with Unix now.
Unix is used because it scales well and is rock solid. With Linux you also get the price advantage, though that isn't so important in big projects. Quality and stability are and you should be able to show that Unix is high quality.
For a MS-only person it's important to be able to use Unix only in some places. Samba is a great example. Same goes with Apache. They might also like the possibility of producing cross platform solutions. Kylix/Delphi is a great example here.
Don't get into any religious fights. Just tell/show places where Unix is a great solution but do it without bashing Microsoft.
Speaking as someone who routinely uses, and actively advocates the use of, both Windows and Linux together, I have several suggestions:
First, don't make excuses for Linux's weaknesses. You may have students who criticize, quite rightly, the current Linux desktop. Rather than defend it, accept the criticism and move on. You don't want your students to make their conclusions about Linux based on how it looks on the surface.
Second, as you're planning with database services, show them the benefits of Samba and Apache. If any of your students are responsible for admining servers they should be able to relate to these services as well. One point of caution though: They'll be used to using GUI's to administer services and may be turned off by the idea of editing text configurations. I have explained, with great success, that good text configs don't obfuscate your options. Sometimes the most powerful options are buried in GUI's. In a text file, the option you want is just '/option' away.
Lastly, and most importantly, your students will need to know where to get help in the future. Some like to read books, so introduce them to O'Rielly's animal farm (as I like to call it). There's also web and IRC locations support options. Remember that the Linux community has won awards for support, so you want to play that up. Linux support is one of those free things where you actually get more than you paid for. Be sure, however, to advise on where to ask what level of question. Newbie questions often get ridiculed on IRC, for example.
Good luck with your class. I would suggest that once you've put together your materials, you may want to submit a follow-up story. Perhaps you'll plant the seed for a class LUG's can offer all over.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Second, teach them about symbolic links and how this makes it possible to separate logical from physical file locations.
Third, show them how to do tasks with shell pipelines (don't forget to explain that file globbing is done by the shell rather that by each command).
Finally, show them that there is complete documentation for everything.
Being an MCSD student, I think you need to focus on what can be done with Linux systems and services, not how to do it. To me personally something isn't interesting to learn unless I have a use for it. While ls, grep and cat sure are useful, they don't tell me anything of what I can do with them or why I'd even want to learn a bunch of new commands on a new OS just to run some obscure a-patchy-webserver. Show them how MySQL works, show them how Apache with PHP works. Show them what they can do with a Linux box and when they might find it useful to install one instead of an expensive windows server.
So show not just how to grep, cat and ls, but give them enough info about what they can do with a Linux box so they might feel tempted to try it on their own. Go through the common services they might come across and what they can do and briefly explain the normal Linux commands as you use them.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
I've turned a Pro-microsoft Unix Basher around to the point at which they came to me and asked me to setup a *nix lab for them.
It was my Partner at my volunteer job thingy at school. I am the co-director of the CNE High school Tech Dept. There is me, and my partner, Rob. Rob lies, rob lies alot. At the beginning of the year, he had me convinced he has his A+, his MCSE, and an Associates Degree in Comp Sci, aswell as 2k$ in Microsoft stocks. Since then, I have found none of this to be true, yet he does know a damn lot about adminning NT and somewhat of 98. I take more care of the teachers computers, the lab computers, and stuff like that. I make sure defrag is ran in all the labs and on all the teachers computers monthly, etc, etc. I also upgrade, fix, and repair. I can strip a computer to the mobo and have it back together in 2 minutes, Rob can re-install NT from corrupted back-up tapes.
Anywho, I setup a linux lab (redhat 7.1 with XFS and icewm for those who want to know) as an internet surfing lab at the middleschool. So far since November all I've had happen is one X server crap itself, and I just re-ghosted it.
Rob manages the 98 lab (I keep it running, it just installs software and such.) Imagine 5 groups of 30 highschoolers a day in there. It is not fun. Stuff gets deleted, uninstalled, one machine had 10 copies of AIM installed, etc.
Then there is the 486 Lab, which is primarily for typing and some internet research. After seeing the sucess of my Linux lab (some students are supposedly confused by it, but I don't see how, Netscape is pre-started and that is all there is), he finally came to me and said, "I want to put linux in the 486 lab". know that any current distro would be slower than my overweight grandma, and that no older ones would easily allow a journaled FS to be setup, we are now planning on installing QNX R4, but its similar enough to be counted, eh?
Yes, you'll be out a few bucks for the cd's, but why not bring in a copy of red hat, mandrake, debian, whatever you want. Maybe two different distros to show the variety. Whatever distro you are comfortable with. Bring enough for everyone, that way everyone can walk out with the ability to do whatever you showed them.
Let them know about the local lug if there is one.
Jon Lasser has an excellent book which assumes you're a computer user, but new to Unix. He starts out with "Unix Documentation" or "how to understand poorly written man pages" as I like to call it. Then he talks about "Files and Processes", "Redirection and Pipes", and "Networking". Later he gets into vi, regex, and shell programming. Finally he talks about the X Window System.
It's a good book. I learned Unix from reading it. The book would be a good starting point to creating an interesting class.
My father is a blogger.
Check out Linux for Windows NT/2000 Administrators by Mark Minasi with Dan York and Craig Hunt. It's from Sybex. Can't recommend it enough, got me started - explains everything from a Windows point of view, and doesn't bore you with things you already know from Windows experience.
What's your damage, Heather?
WHOA! Hold on there.
What is the course you are teaching? An intro course on *NIX? Ok, great - but why are you now trying to throw in Free Software? That is not what the course is about!
Forget trying to convert any of these M$ students. That is definately not what they are there for. What you should be doing is teaching them the basics of *NIX. Don't try to mix in political rhetoric. Whether or not MySQL/PostGreSQL can beat SQL Server is completely irrelevant to the course.
Stick to teaching *NIX intro stuff, don't get into Proprietary vs. Free. In 2 days you will not convert any MSCD students. Really.
After you show them where the man pages are and how to use the tab key be sure to show them something useful or they're just going to ask "why do I want to do this?". For example, run through a simple shell script. Like this one that allows you to quickly update your web page:
#!/bin/sh
rm -f ${1}.html && \
wget http://www.myisp.com/~me/${1}.html && \
vi ${1}.html && \
exec ftp www.myisp.com
Think of examples that do things Windows just doesn't let you do like running X applications remotely. Here's a must read regarding that topic:
Remote X Apps mini-HOWTO
The Xnest script from the above would be good.
Have two computers to demonstrate on. One is a Windows box and one is a Linux box.
Show them how to do something in Windows, which they should be familiar with, then show them the Linux way of doing things. This will help them remember it better and become more comfortable with Linux.
For example, something as simple as changing Screen Resolutions. It's a basic thing and it shows how the two are different.
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I'm also assuming they don't need to know how to set up and install a system, just be a user. They should know how to configure their own environments, set environment variables, etc. System stuff should be limited to the software they might be using and managing -- where are the logs and conf files, how to install, and so forth.
Free alternatives to costly software is a great idea. What about a brief discussion of Apache, JavaServer/JSP, Xerces, Xalan, etc? No need to get into the nitty gritty, but let them know there are free, multiplatorm alternatives to everything. My alternative to Visual Studio is Visual SlickEdit.
The only downside to this is that those unfamiliar with modern Unix-like systems might see Cygwin as all that Unix is. I've had some Cygwin users insist to me that Linux really should have a GUI, for example.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I love yack0's suggestion. I would add this: if these people are MS junkies, you might have to teach them very basic UNIX skills: ls, rm, cd, more, less, pico, etc. Believe me when I tell you that you'll have at least one student who doesn't have even this level of skill.
Since this is a crash course, you can probably get away with giving them a short cheat sheet and recommending that they get their hands on a copy of Linux in a Nutshell. But don't forget to incorporate at least something about UNIX basics into the course.
Finding God in a Dog
I'm sure that many of the posters here suggesting teach-this or teach-that mean well, but most seem to me to be missing the point. You don't start teaching a class or course without an objective, unless you are naive or dumb. The first two things you have to know with any class are a) what do they know when they come in and b) what should they know when they leave. Ok, for this group we have a fair idea of what they know coming in (but all the same, it helps to know if they are CS grads, MIT professors or high school dropouts :) ).
:)
:(
So the next thing is the outcome you want. Why are they being taught? Whose idea was it? Is it just for information, or are they supposed to be able to DO something with this new knowledge they are supposed to be acquiring? Is it just a general awareness class or what? If you don't know that, you haven't a chance in hell of getting it right.
Once that's known you can figure out what you want to introduce them to. There are some materials you might care to use free for download from http://www.linuxtraining.co.uk if that helps you with some training notes.
As someone who makes part of his living from Unix and Linux training (the former for 25 years, the latter for 5 years) I'll happily share my experiences of introducing Microsofties to things like the command line and the intricacies of Linux.
They will be impressed by networked X - I save that for the last couple of hours, since people typically remember most about the last thing they saw and you want to leave a good impression.
The filesystem won't be hard for them, neither will NFS. They will keep asking about domain authentication, but I'd steer clear of NIS
The most important thing I can say is that they will HATE HATE HATE anything command-line oriented. The fastest way to lose them is to start harping on about it. The really bright ones will pick that up for themselves later, but for the introduction, use something like SWAT for Samba admin - webmin will do that and most other things too. I can't emphasise that enough, it's based on real-life experience.
The rest of the class plan you will have to pick when you know what you are trying to get them to do when they leave.
Finally, don't try to teach too much. Two days is VERY limited, the best you are likely to do is get them interested and reduce the fear level. To get people through even basic stuff like LPI 101 and 102 is around ten days of classroom and exercise sessions. In two days they can only get a taster. If you haven't taught in this kind of situation before, you will be astonished how little can be covered in two days from a standing start
Best of luck!
Mike
Definitely start with:
Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition
Best learning (and reference) resource I've ever seen for Linux.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
Most of the suggestions people are making (show them how you can change or theme window managers, install a distro, perform maintenance over ssh, ridicule them) seem to be aimed at MCSEs or admins, not at developers. I still haven't quite figured out whet .NET and its free implementations are or do, so I can't make very useful suggestions (someone come up with better ideas) but I'd imagine teaching them about things like paths, libraries, gcc, scripting languages and available toolkits would be helpful. I don't know how usable Mono and the Qt or Gtk bindings are but you may want to look into them and show them if there's anything yet to show.
Or Glade, Qt Designer, KDevelop...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I use Apache, XnView, Gvim, PHP, the Gimp, mySQL, and many other applications under windows. Show them that GPL does not have to be an all or nothing step, you can mix and match win32 and GPL, and have a system that you are mostly familiar with, and high-performing apps, for less then the cost of a pure Microsoft solution.
Then, show them the ease of linux remote administration, the windows compatability, and how linux is usually faster/more reliable on slower hardware. Show them the stability of linux vs windows.
I'm my experience, the disadvantage you have is warez. There are plenty of 'free', easy to use software for windows if you know where to look. Bring up BSA horror stories, and talk about the GPL.
Just my $.02
They are going to do VB with SQL Server or local Jet databases, and there's nothing in the *nix world that can compete with that combo in time-to-first-pay-cheque. That's a combination of a lot of different factors (including market size) that do not exist in the *nix world.
Dunno about that... Python, Qt 3.0, and MySQL have a pretty good shot and overthrowing the RAD power of VB. Qt 3 now supports data aware widgets which allow you to tie a DB in a similar way that VB allows. And Python just kicks VB's butt as a language. Qt Designer has some pretty cool stuff like signal/slots, superior layout control, etc that give the form builder in VB a run for its money...
I think Sun Microsystems had a pretty good idea in writing a Sun Blueprint that basically takes a look at how to do a task under Windows NT and then shows the corresponding task under Solaris. It is published by Sun and is called "Solaris Guide for Windows NT Administrators". You can find further information on it at the Sun Blueprints Publications website:
http://www.sun.com/solutions/blueprints/pubs.html
bbh
Given that you are only going to have two days for this crash course, the amount you'll be able to accomplish is probably minimal. I taught a Linux class a little over a year ago that was a week long so I had the benefit of a bit more time. But I do have a couple suggestions.
./configure, make, make install, can take that edge of fear off that might be associated with having to compile their own tools. Just be sure you know it works on the machines you have to work with.
:).
The biggest one is, teach them how to find out more. These are people who may be used to getting their tech support from paid vendors, and when working with Linux you can get frequently superior support from on-line resources. Teach them how to effectively use google and google groups to get "tech support". One of the most valuable tricks I learned early on with linux was simply looking for an error message in quotes. 90% of the time, somebody already asked the same question and somebody else has already answered it.
Another thing I would suggest is get them familiar with the basics of getting around on the command prompt. Give them a reference sheet with the most useful commands and the most useful switches for those commands. Then if you don't have time to cover them in detail, at least a cursory explanation and that reference sheet should give them the foundation they need.
Next, I would show them how easy it is to download and compile tools. Find some small piece of software that you use routinely, and then show them how to build it. Knowing that most packages can be constructed using the standard
Overall thought I think the focus, given your short time, should be making them feel comfortable with working on Linux. If you get them comfortable, then they can figure it out from there
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One of the things that helped me out was a page I found that showed me the unix equivalent of dos commands. It looked sorta like this.
DOS Unix
cd cd
md mkdir
rd rmdir or rm- f -f
type cat
more more
attrib chmod
edit vi, pico, emacs
Do this for the filesystem too. initab and rc.d are like autoexec.bat and config.sys. It will be tons easier for them to learn if they already have a foundation to build on.
You can give them the best answer: Many linux people use the windows key every day--unlike Windows where its just a useless advertising key for most. Once you map the windows key onto meta, it becomes an important key, akin to Macs open-apple command key. I use it in emacs, for moving between desktops, for moving windows between desktops, for maximizing and minimizing, etc. It is especially useful if you have a laptop, because you can eliminate most of your mousing by having multiple desktops and using meta-key combinations to move around from application to application!
Emacs would be better because at least you can type stuff straight in after running it, and it has some menus, and saving files is simple ctrl key stuff. In vi, doing 'i' to start editing, and then wondering why the cursor doesn't wrap around at the end of lines, and then "esc", ":" "w" to save the file is just too much for these people. Vi isn't normal! vilearn is a good tutorial program, but these people are not here to learn Vi. Mention Vi as an editor available on every Unix system, mention that it is complicated, but they can use gvim as an OLE editor within Visual Studio...
Pico is suitable - it is easy to use and has a help system. In a GUI environment, just use gedit or kate or whatnot.
Overall I agree with the people that advocate showing what you can do with a Unix system, not how to do it. Show the development tools available, show the services available, etc. Show differences between Windows and Unix equivalents. Don't be evangelical about Unix, be realistic. Explain that the systems are different, and both have advantages and disadvantages...
In my opinion, the idea of getting Microsoft junkies to sit down and understand Unix is beyond your typical Microsoft junkie's ability. I'm not trying to sound condescending in that, either. I just think that theres a point where someone gets so entrenched in one way of doing, and one way of thinking, that they lose the ability to "switch gears" and pick up something fundementally different. I'll give you two examples:
There was a guy I worked with named Brad. Brad was an ardent Windows guy. He knew nothing about any other OS'es other than Win32, other than their names. In his mind, Win32 was the pinnacle of operating systems because it simplified complex tasks down to a predictable series of point-and-click operations, and like most Win32 gurus, he had absolutely no idea how anything worked under the hood. He had no idea what a kernel was. Infact, anything below the driver level was completely black box to him. In summary, Brad, even though he knows his stuff, is completely oblivious to the merits and drawbacks of his own platform, because to pursue Win32 know-how as a career path assumes that you enjoy remaining ignorant about certain aspects of the machines youre running. It resembles something more of a religious belief than it does a philosophical belief.
Unix, in its form and in its structure, is the polar opposite of Win32 in regard to how you approach it. You're not only encouraged to grab a shovel and dig deep into the platform, you're required to do so if you expect to gain mastery over it. That being said, Win32 users are unaware of this process. They think in surface-layer terms, whereas Unix people know their systems from the ground up.
What makes matters worse, is Linux, and the idea that the whole damn platform can be looked at, dissected and understood down to the source. While this is an advantage to a Unix guy (since we are used to doing such things) , it presents an insurmountable task to a Win32 user, who's concept of computing often does not extend below the GUI.
Here's another anecdote that illustrates the point i'm trying to make: Where I worked, a bunch of Win32 users were given the task of conducting performance evaluation and testing of RAID arrays under AIX. I appeared to be the only guy in there who had anything more than a extremely cursory knowledge of Unix. After a day or two, I began to wonder why all of the AIX hosts were being rebooted so often. I had a look at all the machines and their uptimes, and discovered that these boxes were being rebooted about once a day. I asked why. They looked like deer caught in the headlights....It turns out that whenever they were trying to remedy a config-related issue, their first instinct was to reboot the damn machine to fix it. To explain the concept of "uptime" would have been futile. To explain the notion that "rebooting is not how you fix a problem in Unix.".
In short, they just plain don't get it, and its doubtful they ever will.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
- very
certain data from an often used program on your server to, say, a log file or even another program. Try to make it look as easy as possible, emphasise that it can be done with any program, any file. Stuff like that cannot be done with any microsoft OS unless the programs are written or re-written specifically for the purpose.On top of that, when you have them doing something on their own, be doing something on your own computer (X running, blah blah blah) that would amaze a windows user. Use enlightenment with a really good theme while doing something that has to do with class or even just burn time. On the off chance they see what you're doing, they might start looking at Linux as being more and more attractive;)
Of course, this might not work, the students having less care for anything else other than Microsoft, their souls having been sold to them and all :-P
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
You've only got two days and from what it sounds like, students are being forced to attend so they're not going to want to be there. They're not going to learn much unless you peak their interest.
I'd suggest teaching them the basics of the Unix philosophy - small is beautiful, make each program do one thing well, avoid captive user interfaces, etc. If you don't already have a copy, pick up Gancarz's The Unix Philosophy which describes the various tenets clearly and concisely. (Hell, if you're allowed to or have a budget, make the text a required purchase. It's cheap.)
Something like this would be far more useful than 'ls|grep' or "/etc is where system-wide configuration files are stored" because it would provide them with a new way of approaching computers.
p.s. For extra points, contrast the Unix philosophy which assumes that you know what you're doing with the DOS/Windows philosophy which assumes that you don't know what you're doing. You might even want to begin your class by reading/assigning Scoville's Unix as Literature which nicely depicts how different Unix is from other operating systems.
These shell commands are good by themselves but great when used together.
will find every config file underDo this from a GUI with three or four shell windows open, so you can grep in one window and keep a file or two open (runing vi, or whatever) in the others. Then do the same thing with NO GUI (yes, Linux runs great like this, esp. on old crapy machines, e.g. my firewall again). Show them how to use ALT-Fn to get multiple screens with out the GUI.
Show them also
to look in the current directory, andwill locate only regular files (ignoring links), which is nice for reducing spam.Also show them
for when xargs can't append the commands, or needs to run them singlly.Also, point out http://www.tldp.org/. The Linux Documentation Project isn't the be-all or end-all, but some of their how-to's are invaluable if you have nowhere else to turn.
Good luck!
check this out.
... it's amusing, not entirely serious, but might prove helpful.
ESR did this piece about setting his wife (a windows-junkie-lawyer) up under Linux/KDE
bemis
-The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do. - Harold Coffin
I don't understand why people *care* unless they're writing something that's absolutely performance-critical (and then I suspect it'd be in perl, not in shell).
Yes, cat causes a bit of overhead. However (and I have a PII/266), it serves one excellent purpose -- if you habitually use cat, you don't have to worry about the syntax of the next command in the pipeline. Maybe it accepts a file, maybe it doesn't, maybe it's some wrapper script that doesn't accept a file...for one liners, using cat is a *good* habit to be in. You don't have to constantly check man pages, documentation, or "try it and see if it works".
I think most of the "useless use of" complaints in UNIX that USENET people like to mention to show off their UNIX leetness are just stupid. Skimming down this page, I see:
Useless Use of kill -9: Okay, you should always use TERM first. However, spending more of your valuable time trying three or four other signals before kill -9 is just stupid, however (unless it's netscape, which oddly enough can sometimes be axed with QUIT).
Useless use of echo may be more legitimate *but* you may be planning to do something more extensive:
command -options `echo $variable|seds/foo/bar/`, for example. You can't do that with just
command -options $variable
The useless use of ls * really is useless, IMHO, because it frequently has unwanted side effects...you'd need ls -d * to get equivalent behavior to ls.
They get cranky about using grep foo |wc -l instead of grep -c foo. Who *cares*? Frequently grep is not the last element in the pipeline. If you're in the habit of using wc -l, you don't have to worry about the preceding item, even if you decide to insert a new item into the pipeline before grep and wc.
The complaint about using grep + awk is just stupid. grep is significantly faster than awk, anyway.
May we never see th
If you go in with a bunch of preconcieved notions about what these people know and don't know about Unix, you won't reach them. The certification they are going for looks like its for developers. There are certifications for Office, and there are probably idiots in there. The people going for this certification are programmers / developers / engineers, and you should treat them with professional respect. That means not going in like a Linux Hare Krishna looking for conversions. See if they have used Unix / Linux before. See what they know how to do, etc. Show them how to use Emacs or maybe vi. Your job is to teach them as much as you can in two days about a system with a steep learning curve.
Every comment here says that you should be pushing linux, how simple it is, etc. The beauty of CLI, the elegance of | . If you want to go that route just write on the board "I am LETE I OWNZ YOU". But I think you should give these people credit. They are learning VB or C#, and most people might think that makes you a loser, but give them credit for trying and withhold your judgement.
Troll Like a Champion Today
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Forget about MySQL. It's a nice DB but can't really compare to Oracle or SQL Server.
My final tip: Don't try to convert them or bash MS solutions, that would only alienate them. Just show how to get the work done in unix, and maybe they'll realize it's easier and develop further interest.
1. Start/stop kernel module services. Show how you can change the network setup by editing /etc/sysconfig (or wherever), stop it, and restart it, all in a few moments.
/., freshmeat.net, linux.com, sourceforge. Show that there is active community involvement in all aspects of development, and that when problems arise, they are not occluded, but rather discussed and FIXED.
2. Push remote access, like ssh, which gives a user full control of the box from remote, something that is difficult to do in NT w/o consuming many resources (TB2,etc)
3. SAMBA. Install Samba from the cd and show how they can manage and use their (precious) Network Neighborhood stuff, connect to remote computers, etc.
4. Routing. Show how any linux box can setup firewalls and complex routing with a few commands.
5. Security. Run nmap against your now-configured linux box and compare it to, say, a windows 98 box. Show that linux can be locked down for the miscellaneous user.
6. Support.
Maybe not everything can be covered in two days, but hopefully this helps. I was once a M$ kinda idjit, but the above points, as well as many other good suggestions already discussed in this thread, helped me to kick the GUI.
Not your typical post from,
AntiChristX
Daring to remain below 5 karma indefinitely
Obviously the magic tab button does something, oh gosh.. but what? Such a calaiber, to teach Microsoft junkies the way of the TAB key... oh mysterious TAB key... what do you do? And why bother, since giving a crash cource on Unix to Microsoft junkies they would likely not be using a shell where the all might tab key does anything other than tab. Uh.. am I missing something, or is this yet another BASH hooked persons who really don't know unix... considering your more likely going to teach a newbie a more standard shell like the korn shell of the simple sh shell. So they can actualyl do some work on real unix. Never teach a newbi on bash, it a bad idea... cuz they flounder on real unix where they have real shells, or rather they have old shells. Word to the wise. ;)
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
You're teaching a part of a MCSD course and you're teaching them ... *nix?!
Stop oohing and ahhing over fucking bash. If you want to teach people the Unix program meme teach them how to fucking think with pipes in mind. Most people when looking for a file would just type find filename or locate filename and then search through the (oftentimes) enormous list of files that comes up. To experienced Unix users this is retarded, they'd pipe find into grep and look for a specific pattern to find a file somewhere. Teaching this method of thinking to non-Unix users is essencial to having them get anything meaningful done.
The "wonders", as zealots put it, of Linux are just a very large collection of small tweaks and hacks that combine the features of dozens to programs to do something useful. The syntactic stuff like the actual commands for listing the contents of a directory are something you can shove onto a reference guide and only need a quick glancing over. Teaching people to REALLY use the tools they've got available is the important part. The file system hierarchy is pretty simple and just given an overview reference for it ought to be enough for people in a MSCD course. Focus on how to configure, start, stop, and importantly RESTART daemons. The damnest thing when running Linux is to not have someone simply poit out that restarting a daemon will make it reload the configuration file. Novice users don't know this and end up doing shutdown -r (or for the more technically adept init 0) instead of just restarting the daemon process itself.
The little tricks experienced users take for granted are the reasons people come to them with a million and one questions on how to do stuff. If novices knew to ps aux | grep process rather than running top and trying to decipher what all the hoobajoob means (and figuring out its backwards fucking commands) they'd be in a much better situation. As it stands too many people introducing Linux to novices go into how great and powerful ls is like it is going to solve world hunger or something. Brush over the simple commands and hunker down over combining those simple commands to do really spectacular things. Impressing people doesn't mean shit, don't try wowing people with virtual desktops or consoles. No one gives a fuck about "true" multitasking or telneting into some server somewhere. Show people how to get stuff done rather than harping on how great your OS is.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The first thing I got taught is "UNIX is hell to visit, but heaven to live in". That phrase is very true I think. At first UNIX might seem strange and odd in several ways, but when you get the hang of it you appreciate it's design and fundamental thoughts.
In the past year, I've installed HP/UX, SOlaris and AIX. The vi is different ont he commercial platforms than it is on Linux. When I switch from a Linux ssh connection to an AIX session, I forget that backspace doesnt work on AIX (unless I set up the env). It annoys me. I wil forget that x and d deletes, after using vim for so long
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
If you are going to do nothing else, show them how to integrate a linux box into their windows network. At the end of this, you want them to be confident enough to install linux dual-boot at the place of work.
...)
;-)
So you are going to need to show them that it is possible to mix'n'match windows and linux.
1)Winbind
(Mandrake 8.2 comes with winbind mostly setup - see http://mandrakeuser.org/connect/csamba5.html) or at least samba and joining a samba box to a windows domain. Something like LinNeighborhood for accessing shares.
2)Rdesktop or vnc or X on cygwin
The chances are they are going to have windows servers around, so make sure they know they can get into them from linux. From the other side, make sure they know they can get into their linux boxes from windows and run graphical apps, either with vnc or by running X on cygwin. (Need I mention rdesktop and vnc are standard on Mandrake
Show them why unix is better in some regards:
3)Please choose a decent distro. Please don't show them how to resolve dependencies on packages with rpm, but show them the right tool for installing software (apt or urpmi).
4)Show them how to effortlessly setup a firewall. Mail server, web server, proxy server.
Give them something they can apply on windows:
5)Show them that they can run PHP on IIS, and apache on windows (for better security). Show them cygwin.
6)Give them something to tie it all together. Maybe write a small php webpage that can send email to a windows domain account, or something that queries a db (or both).
7)Remind them that they should not be running X on their servers (aka you have a choice not to run a GUI).
8)Remind them not to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL when they want to log in locally
9)Show them the really good gui tools around, things like Kdevelop, OpenOffice, Evo, Konqueror,Gimp etc
10)Show them your favourite command-line features. Bash-completion, vi (they don't need to use it, but show them that a console editor can do syntax-highlighting), mc, lynx, ssh (with password-less key-based logins), X ssh-tunnelled.
11)Show them how easy it is to change hardware (like an ethernet card change with kudzu or similar) with a single reboot and virtually no downtime.
12)Give them CDs for the distro you used, and another CD with similar stuff for windows (cygwin, apache, mysql, mysqlfront etc).
I think your problem is going to be fitting it all into 2 days!
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
Well, first off, I myself work in the exact same environment as the people you are trying to teach. I've been working in with a VB+MSSQL combination for about two years now.
:)
Unless you can show them a good graphical replacement for Windows as the UI, I would focus on using the alternatives on the back-end only. Despite the reputation VB has around here, it does have it's proper place. Many people who work with VB (like myself), aren't necessarily "Microsoft Junkies", as you say, but ordinary programmers who need to make a living, and don't particularly care what they're working with, so long as they're programming. In this case, it comes down to what the customers want. Until Linux is on the desktop, the customers will keep demanding Windows, so it wouldn't do much good to try to convince these programmers to use Linux for the interface.
Focusing on the back-end, I would show them how they can connect their VB applications to the database, and focus on that connection. Once the connection is made, they know what to do with it. If you can show them how easy it is to use, they can bring this knowledge back to their bosses. This will impress their bosses, because they can essentially give their customers what they want at a lower price, due to MSSQL being out of the picture.
But guaranteed, if they take ideas of using Linux for an interface instead of Windows back to their bosses, it'll get tossed out the window. Believe me, I know - I've tried it before. At least doing this, you can win one battle at a time - first the database backend, and then the front-end at a later date.
Most of the comments I've been reading have been going off about administration and configuration. These are people going for a developer certification. That means they probably already know a lot about programming, and they probably already know a fair bit about programming under Windows.
Going in there and giving them a Linux sales-pitch would be a waste of their time.
Database connectivity sounds like a cool thing to demonstrate, you might want to demonstrate the basic development tools and documentation available at their disposal. Show them an easy editor to use.. something consistent with the editors used in the Windows world, show them gcc and some neat stuff like xxgdb. The ones who are clueful enough to care will pick it up when they leave.
IMHO the most important thing to explain to them is software licensing. It is quick, but when they realize that if they like to develop software, they'll clue in that developing their apps for Linux is easier.
A few tiny things like that would probably take up all the time you have. Cygwin might help them know how to develop apps from Windows to target Linux boxes.
My experience with MCSDs and other Windows developers is that they don't really care about the OS, they just care about writing apps and using OSes to make money by solving problems.
I've been working with our new systems guy and he only knows Windows administration. His biggest hangup is that he tries to reboot my server 4-5 times a day when he changes anything. I try explaining that before he got here it had an uptime of over 2 years and he can't comprehend it.
Show them how to do it properly - using their package manager. Not only will this allow the software to be installed, uninstalled queried by other apps, and otherwise interacted with in a standard fashion. You'll also be able to easily repeat installs between systems, allow users to easily recompile from source (RPM, the standard packaging system on Linux, is based around source packages which can be easily recompiled with whatever extra configure flags you want). When someone else inherits a machine you administer, you won't give them a headache as your installs have been largely self documenting.
.SPEC file which should be useable with just about any standard tarball / GNU autoconf app:
. cgi?attack_linux+attack/%{ng z
/sbin/ldconfig
/sbin/ldconfig
Here's a sample
Summary: An addictive and frantically paced puzzle game with cute 3D graphics
Name: crack-attack
Version: 1.1.7
Release: 1mm
Source0: http://aluminumangel.org/cgi-bin/download_counter
ame}-%{version}.tar.
License: GPL
Group: Amusements/Games
BuildRoot: %{_builddir}/%{name}-%{version}
BuildRequires: glut-devel
Requires: glut
%description
Crack-attack is addictive and frantically paced puzzle game with cute 3D graphics, pla
yable either against the computer in single player or across a network multiplayer, w
here one players success clearing blocks dumps large immuntable tiles upon the others
block pit. Muahahahaha!
%prep
%setup -q
%build
%configure
make
%install
%makeinstall
%post -p
%postun -p
%clean
rm -rf %{buildroot}
%files
%defattr(-,root,root)
/usr
%doc AUTHORS COPYING INSTALL NEWS README
%changelog
* Thu Apr 11 2002 Mike MacCana 1mm
- Created packages
Not to try and make it a Linux tradeshow. If I go to a Linux class and all they do is try to show off the nifty things Linux does without teaching me anything I want to know, I'm going to wlka out and get a refund. The point of teaching a class is just that, to teach. It's not for advocacy or verbal masturbation. What's more you are likely to alienate the very people you hope to educate. When you act like a condecending jerk and crow on about how superior your OS is, it just makes people shut down. More, if you get someone who's knowledgable about both systems, they are going to call you to carpet on the fact that Windows can and does do most of what you are selling as Linux only features like SSH for remote administraton. For example: not only can you install an SSH server in Windows if you like but Windows XP comes with a built in remote administration feature.
IF you are ever in a situation where you are teaching a class on Linux don't be cocky, condescending or anything like that and don't try to turn it into some kind of wizbang tradeshow. Teach people the basic things they need to know, how to navigate the CLI, how to work RPMs, how to manage users, how to look at what's running and so on. Give them real knowledge they can use. IF you do that, you make Linux less sacry and forieng and maybe they start to use it. IF you act as you've suggested all you are going to do is reenforce the stereo type of *nix people as stuck up assholes that hate Windows for no good reason.
Teach, don't preach. It's a class, not a chruch.
OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me how to do this d00d!!! I've been wasting *weeks* to get all my e-mail (550Megs) back into the original unix mailbox format (or *anything*) that comes close, and up to now only libPST (*very* Alpha!) is getting close to this functionality.
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
Exactly.
Don't
;o)
Even think about compiling anything.
Hello? These people are studying to be MCSD? They are developers! This is what I would concentrate on. Show them the power of Unix development tools! They will be utterly amazed at how much flexibility the Unix development tools give them if they are used to using Visual Studio.
My suggestion:
Basic Commands and their syntax
File permissions
Text editor(probably emacs, vim scares a good many newbies, even though it is superior.
And for god sakes, show them the difference between compiling code in windows vs unix and how much more control they have over the process. Show them how writing code yourself actually is a good idea! I cannot stress enough that this is the type of stuff an MCSD should be getting queued in to. It is likely to be what would really interest them about unix.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Good luck finding a "notepad" lookalike that's available on any Unix system. I think you are thinking too Linux centric when you're suggesting emacs or pico. While these tools are probably closer to what they are used to, they are just not going to be available on a standard install of say Solaris, AIX or another commercial Unix. Even on a lot of Linux systems they will not be available. OTOH It's a pretty safe bet that vi *will* be available. Anyway, I thought the purpose was to teach them things they don't know yet (like vi) as opposed to things they already do know (like notepad).
Kedit. Gedit. Kwrite. They're all close enough to Notepad for me.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
I think the term "crash course" should be
restricted to MS OS classes.
You need to back up and do something more fundamental before you start showing them filesystems and daemons. You need to compare the two competing philosophies that drive Windows and Unix cultures.
After this balancing act, then you can begin to lead them down your path of showing them practical items. At each point you can refer back to these fundamentals. For example, when it /etc, you can explain why Unix admins think text file configuration is inherently more stable and powerful than registry keys, because without such an explanation the Windows admins will typically see it as quaint and backward. Again, when you get to /dev, you can show the inherent debugging power of being able to do things like "tail /dev/midi00" to debug a connector on the computer, even if that data is not useful immediately. You can show how grep, awk, and perl can be chained together to do advanced data processing (on text) that would not be possible on Windows without a specific feature to make it happen. The key is to refer back to a specific philosophy for each exercise, so they can see the big picture.
None of them will watch a hands-on lecture and run out screaming "I've got to convert to this immediately! He broke out this thing called grep and it was.... it was.... AMAZING!" :-) Rather, you want to give them a clear understading of our culture, and just like how a high school senior goes to a college campus and says, "Yeah, I can see myself here" you might kindle an interest in some of them to find out more about how we *nix people think.... and that would be the first step to bringing them over.
Use the right tool for the right platform.
Sure, DOS has had scripting and pipes from day one (well, unless you tried MSDOS 1.0). Were they as useful as their Linux counterparts? No freakin' way.
Why does TYPE not take stdin? Why is "copy con" equivalent to "copy con:"? (And, why is "copy con.txt" ambiguous?)
How can a batch file determine if a directory exists? Hint:
if exists c:\foo\con
yields different results in different DOS versions
DOS for the longest time failed the basic tests. And for the longest time, I was working with the MKS toolkit, replacing the ones that didn't quite do what I wanted them to do with copies ported from comp.sources. But it never became UNIX.
NT is still rife with inconsistencies in the CMD shell, and I don't know (nor care to know) if or when they get partially fixed.
The point is: if you want to use Windows, use Windows tools. Learn how to use VB Script to its effect. Learn MSVC if you must. Prentending that it's another UNIX if you squint right will hurt you. Windows is not designed to be UNIX.
Every time I use Windows on the premise that an OS is an OS and a command shell is a command shell I get hurt. I should have learned that lesson from VMS years before.
Does anyone knows if the Posix subsystem still exists in Windows XP? That was the worst checkmark compatibility I ever saw. You could run Posix code on NT, to allow NT to be purchased by the federal government. And unless you wanted to do actual work with it, the compatibility was fine.
It is completely beyond me why people are porting Apache to Windows. NT comes with a perfectly functional web server, why bother replacing it? Don't get me wrong, I hate IIS with a vengeance, but the loopholes in the underlying operating system (like the $::DATA bug) will have to be special cased in Apache too. And the $DEITY like privilege issues that plague the IIS indexing server will plague Apache just as well.
Possibly even worse, because code ported from UNIX will have to be modified to suit NT's security model, a redesign from scratch really is the only appropriate way to deal with such huge gaps in design philosophy.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
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teach them aliases, because it helps get rid of the fear of memorizing odd or complex commands. But since computer users don't even know simple commands like "dir" anymore, that's probably moot.
"And for god sakes, show them the difference between compiling code in windows vs unix and how much more control they have over the process."
:)
In other words, show them how it will take them 5 times longer to build an app.
"Show them how writing code yourself actually is a good idea!"
Only if you are a consultant because it drags the project out 5 times longer.
If you just focus on standards and deamons you only show them several single aspects of a unix system without showing them the unix system itself. When they are on the way to an MSCD they already have a vision of an OS and how it should work. you can't fight against that with some standards here and some deamons there. They must learn why unix samples all functionality in a virtual tree and why it bases on tools. This helps them to understand why Samba is not just a clone of a Windows Strategy and why the Filesystem Hierarchy is not just complex but functional etc.
Don't forget the glue, and that is the unix philosophy. It gives the audience the information they need to stay away from prejudices and to find correct answers and assumptions on their own thinking.
Depending on your target class (there are many kinds of MCSD/E students), teaching them that their VB solutions are not completely tied to the Microsoft products is probably the best idea.
/? forever!), are all good, but if you get serious many of them will get lost and be wondering why would they want to do "that command-line thing" in the first place.
Someone mentioned that mySQL is not a replacement for SQL Server, which is true. But SQL Server is overkill for a lot of projects, and because of the expense they might end up using (argh!) Access. Any of those two open-source products are Access (argh!) killers.
A lot of Microsoft junkies make VB projects tied to Access/Excel (argh!) for a living, particulary those interested in the VB road of the certification. Although sometimes convenient for a number of reasons (data is already there, users use Excel, etc), it is often a very impractical solution.
Once more, which product to show off depends on the target. Some DB junkies would have problems with mySQL's missing subselects, young foreign key implementation, etc. but like PostreSQL a lot. Others would like mySQL for the same reason some open-source hackers do and wonder what all that relational integrity stuff is about.
Another thing: use a nice Windows-like GUI (KDE/Gnome) to show them around the system. Don't even mention WindowManagers or things like that until the end. Let them explore the new tools on a familiar GUI they already know how to handle. Heck, use one of those Windows themes to see who's the first to notice it's Unix, if you can get away with it.
Show them some nifty tricks on the command-line, but not too many. Piping, redirection, grep, tail, man (don't forget man! they'll be typing
Show them the kind of things they can do on the shell without having to consult man. Then do them through ssh somewhere else in the world, preferably in a box with another Unix (Solaris, SunOS,etc). Then show them a bash script doing something they would only expect an "EXE" to do as an example that people do really complicated things with it.
Then, tell them they can get these tools for Windows. Most of them will not try Linux just because it looked nifty when you showed it to them, but if the useful tools available for their platform make them take open-source seriously, that might do the trick.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
You want these people to take something home with them. Two days is very little time. Stay focussed and don't go for breadth. It's fine to do a whizzy tour of lots of stuff for the sake of impressing them and whetting their appetite, but keep the rest simple and focussed.
I've screwed up many one-on-one linux|computers|math|whatever teaching sessions by trying to cover too much stuff to quickly. I'm always forgetting to make it clear to the other person *exactly* what my objective is at all times. As a result, they aren't sure what to "take home" with them, and they end up taking almost nothing home besides the fact that I know what I'm doing and they don't.
So stay focussed. Make the curriculum simple. Whizzy tours are good, but don't expect them to take home more than "gee-whiz" from them. Make it clear at all times what your objective is.
Of course, these rules have very little to do with teaching use of unix systems. But it's while teaching these things that I most often forget these rules.
-Paul Komarek
The course on Unix that will fit into that time, taught to people that just received a dose of Microsoft propaganda will be like teaching geography to someone who believes that maps are meant to be drawn with America in the middle. Those people were learning Windows for decades. They believe that "double-click launches things" is the law of nature. They think of Windows ways of doing everything as "intuitive" because this is what was burned into their brains over the years of using it.
The course that they have just received only reinforced that, plus given then a lot of "knowledge" about how to reproduce someone's performance of trivial tasks -- in Windows, using Microsoft tools, speaking Microsoft terminology, and with Microsoft step-by-step explanations. If it prepared them to anything, it's certainly not thinking about anything outside Microsoft world, or independent thinking of any kind, anywhere.
Whatever you can tell them will only enable them to say "yeah, I know Unix" -- and then cause a spectacular mess when actually trying to use it. I believe that the only way to make those people less dangerous for Unix users is by humiliating them thoroughly and mercilessly, so every time they will see or hear anything about Unix (or anything advanced at all) they would get the painful feeling of their intellectual inferiority, and will shut up, so others can complete their work without them interfering or trying to convert yet another thing to Windows.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Historically speaking, the difference between "bin" and "sbin" has had nothing to do with the intended users of the software (superuser versus "mortal.") The "s" stands for "static", and has always typically been the home for statically linked binaries that are available for cases where the C runtime library is (for whatever reason) unavailable (maybe the filesystem it resides on is unmounted, maybe some idiot admin deleted it, etc.) Now, it just so happens that most of these programs are really only useful to root, but it was never the original intention of UNIX vendors to store "root-only" programs in "sbin".
(This is not to say that it's a bad idea or that things haven't been migrating that way in recent years and in recent distributions.)
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
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
When people have to possibility to use Visual Studio.NET or Visual Studio 6, why would they be impressed by a stack of commandline tools, emacs and CVS?
What these people NEED to learn is HOW to connect to other machines from their windows boxes, like connect to an Oracle installation or a postgresql installation on Linux/sun/other unix. But frankly, most of them will simply look for an ODBC driver, if it's not there, they will leave it or look for Host Integration Server to do the job.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
(NOTE: The uni I graduated was a 100% unix shop, I developed on Unix for years, now I'm a 100% windows/.net developer, I know both sides)
A general rule: MS-targeting developers are used to have powerful tools that do stuff with a click of a button. Don't bore them with commandline tools. Sure, on windows commandline tools are also used, but since a lot of tools have powerful gui's, they're not that necessary, especially not when you're a developer and living in visual studio all day.
It's of no use to teach these developers what AWK is or bash-scripting. What they need to know is how to connect from a windows box to a linux box to do stuff they otherwise would have programmed into SQLserver f.e. _THAT_'s knowledge they will not learn otherwise plus it's knowledge that comes in handy.
Teaching windows developers how great linux is from the point of view of a linux user, is useless, since windows developers know what they have, know what their system can do and will compare their system with what you'll teach them. And no offence, but nothing compares to visual studio at the moment.
Again: the problem with windows developers is that sometimes they lack knowledge about how to use a database or service (call it daemon, whatever you want) located on a different platform in a way that is efficient. However, this knowledge has to be taught with a windowsdeveloper's POV in mind, since THEY are going to use that knowledge. So commandline tools how to query a MySQL database is not useful. How to set up a VB program to connect to a MySQL database IS useful, plus show how to program transactions using innoDB, if that's possible (but I doubt the latter, since afaik MySQL doesn't have a DTC driver)
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
One thing you should mention that is not technical (and this is probably something you want to put into the introduction), is the fact that Linux/Unix is used in most colleges. College graduates like Linux. This is in fact one of the ways we are moving towards world domination - we are making that would-be college graduates are introduced to Linux at a rather early stage.
.NET people. Maybe show them some SOAP stuff on Linux? Show them some databases? Admit flaws, emphasize strengths.
You should also emphasize the vast number of libraries with already implemented algorithms, ready for them to use. CPAN is a good example. Also, a bit of freshmeat is quite impressive and motivating.
Once you have them motivated and convinced that Linux is the way of the future, you can start being more technical - showing how the CLI can be effective, how apt-get is the automatic, up-to-date, nighly version of windows update, how tunneling X through ssh enables them to run apps remotely.
These developers are future
Oh - and show them the way of groups.google.com!
But - again, never let them forget that the Linux mindshare is ever expanding, and that IBM is investing heavily into Linux.
Finally, maybe show them a java app the runs on both Windows and Linux, thus proving that they can work together?
Stop the brainwash
Good call. I use Cygwin extensively on my windows machines. I used to use 4/NT as a command line replacement, now I'm moving more towards bash. The cygwin distribution is remarkably rich one of my favorites right now is sshd.
"gvim -y" works ok.
runas.exe is their friend.
Teach them it is fun to have access to the innards of software, to be able to install, test, modify, deploy and share without any @#$*&! license headaches.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
... or maybe a pure Java-based IDE. This would at least look similar to the IDEs they're used to.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Teach them man(1) (including what that funny parens thing means, I guess). Don't berate them to do it, don't imply that they're easy to read, but they are in a pretty consistent style that they'll get used to. Also, teach them on FreeBSD or some linux distro that actually has manpages. Just tried looking up some docs for xargs, and that god damned "read the info documentation for the REAL docs" came up yet again.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Doesn't seem very effective to me...
;-) or LBreakout)
1) Install a distro (preferably one that will have the easiest time with the hardware)
They'll say: Windows is easier
2) Configure a windowing environment (prefereably one that looks the most like Windows)
They'll say: Windows is prettier, and you don't need to configure it by hand
3) Show them an Office suite (preferably one that's comperable to MS-Office)
They'll say: Office does it better
4) Fire up some awesome games (preferably XPilot
They'll say: These games are lame, even solitaire beats that
5) Start up a variety of browsers (preferable w/ Quicktime, Flash, RealPlayer, XMMS)
They'll say: why so many? isn't there one that works all around? anyway, IE is better
6) Configure and use an e-mail client, Jabber/Yahoo/AIM client (Gaim's good)
They'll say: The GUI isn't consistent with the browser... This Linux software thing isn't integrated at all...
7) Spend some time on XMMS with various skinns -- and point to http://www.jazzradio.net/ and say, "This is coming from Germany"
They'll say: Windows does it better, I think
8) Show them Palm Pilot support (Jpilot's the best)
They'll say: The windows app for the pilot is better, and comes bundled with the original CD
9) Show them Quanta's HTML, PHP, SQL, Java and C/C++ syntax coloring
They'll say: yeah, cool. so what?
10) Show them a GUI file manager (e.g. Konqueror, et al)
They'll say: Windows explorer is more intuitive
So... It's really not a good way to go about it...
Show them scripting, show them administrative task automation, show them remote consoles and X, out of the box, no additional software, show them the C API, clean, documented, show them the daemons. If they dig it, good. If they don't understand... well, they won't understand.
free the mallocs!
Show them scripting, show them administrative task automation, show them remote consoles and X, out of the box, no additional software, show them the C API, clean, documented, show them the daemons. If they dig it, good.
KDE kicks butt, but Microsoft still has the best desktop overall. Unfortunately.
You have to look at this from their perspective. They've been suckered in by the party line enough to go for a .NET certification. They know Windows desktops and filesystems, the myriad software available, the little glitches that plague in Windows and the pitfalls to avoid.
They believe that Windows can do everything that Linux/UNIX can. And for the most part, they're right. Sorry, but Windows even does some of it better - GUI, installation.
Before you show them any of the Linux/UNIX tools and freak them out because kmail doesn't have a convenient pop-up autocomplete address bar, or Mozilla doesn't render Yahoo quite right at 1024x768, or that there's no concept of default file extensions ("what do you mean I have to choose a player for an fscking .wav file?"), show them the one thing they're gonna be most interested in, if they're serious about using the .NET training they're taking.
$ uptime
3:31pm up 101 days, 9:03, 5 users, load average: 1.37, 1.11, 1.04
Uptime is so much more than a number. It's a sales tool. And we're trying to sell the world on alternatives to Windows.
Remember, to a Windows user, long uptime is...
It's worth pointing out to these people that all the longest-running servers on Netcraft's web server survey are *not* running Windows. Not one of them. Microsoft fans will argue that IIS wasn't out when some of the machines in Netcraft's top uptime list were last rebooted. Not true: IIS came out with NT 4.0 if not before, and that was 1996, far more than ~1250 days of uptime the longest-running Netcraft record-holders have been up.
Even so, thinking back on it, reminding these people that Windows 2000 was still on the horizon and pets.com was still attracting investors when these machines were last rebooted, ought to be a selling feature.
My server is a selling feature, too. www.glowingplate.com is currently running on a Pentium 90. It's been up and running for 101 days, generates a lot of pages dynamically for about 5,000 Google visitors a day, usually keeps a CPU load of 1-3, and was last down because of a power failure.
Not a world record uptime or performance load. Hell, it's still even running the distro's stock kernel. But I've never seen anything like it with IIS.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The windows key is great in Linux!!
It's mapped to "hyper" in most distros. Go into gnomeconfig and you can make it do whatever you want without fear of colliding with other shortcuts.
On my box, Windows-x opens and xterm, windows-s executes "xmms -p playlist", windows-d minimizes all windows, and so on....