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Seeking Hands-on Training Programs?

Posted by Cliff on from the practical-classes dept.

thekernel32 asks: "Recently the topic of getting people trained in the Linux/UNIX environment has troubled me. Where are people going for this stuff? I recall taking an Microsoft Networking Essentials class that I dropped out of. The reason why I dropped the Microsoft class was because we were being taught about the existence of Routers, File Servers and other networking topics, but we never saw or [worked with] any of them. I really feel that it would have been more useful to get hands on experience with daemons and real hardware, rather than just being told that they exist. What decent training programs out there have a hands on approach?"

4 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. hands on approach? by orthogonal · · Score: 4, Funny
    Recently the topic of getting people trained in the Linux/UNIX environment has troubled me.... What decent training programs out there have a hands on approach?

    Well, with linux, you have three choices:
    • a turgid man page: it's guaranteed to list every command line switch, and possibly even describe a few of those switches. Unless it's a GNU/utility, in which case you should see the Info page. The Info page is hidden somewhere inside of emacs, which is the real OS.
    • the source code itself: it's GPL'd after all, and if we have to write it to produce the functionality, you ought to have to read it to use the functionality. Please disregard (but only at your peril) any comments; they're probably out of date, and certainly obscure. Unless the comment mentions "here be dragons" or "may overflow on some architectures".
    • the hairy ass: kissing the ass of a linux guru will sometimes get you an answer, along with condescension, contempt and strong body odor whilst you're told (between muttered "umask 077" calculations) how it's intuitively obvious.


    Hands on. Yeh.

    Linux is free: download it, install it, disconnect it from the modem until you know what you're doing, and play with it. That's about as hands on as you can get.

    Did I mention it's free? And that rabid OS zealots will be more than happy to help you install it if you act at all attracted to the Kool Aid they're pushing? And did I mention it's free?
    --
    Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
    1. Re:hands on approach? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      The way you bolded the words "man", "sauce" and "ass" kind of turned me on, dude. Please, do it again!

  2. Re:Programming vs. Sysadmining by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Because I get to interact with people rather than stare at a screen all day. The ability to flirt on a job is very important to me.

  3. Re:You haven't seen the worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    He is correct - you should have configured your routers to pass NetBIOS broadcasts on to adjacent segments. That's your fault, not his!