VanLUG Email Archive
I think this is a *great* idea. To someone without UNIX experience Linux
is a whole different world. Being able to go to a class would certainly
help people get over the first few hurdles, or at least to the point where
the things discussed in the books start making sense. After the last
installfest I bet there's already a pent-up demand for a course.
>Should we charge a modest fee for the full day courses and offer an
>honorarium to the organizers/instructors?
Personally, I think we should charge some sort of fee (modest) for all the
courses. If we are going to do many of the wonderful things people are
talking about for Comdex then we are going to need some funding beyond what
we make selling software, books, etc. at the InstallFests. I think courses
could be our best fundraising vehicle and I don't think people would be
turned off by a modest fee, especially if we just installed Linux on their
computer for free. We'd essentially be following the open source business
model: Provide the software for free and then charge for support (not that
I want to see us turn into a business!).
I think an honorarium for the organizers/instructors is also a very good
idea, especially if we expect them to actually spend time developing the
course material. I don't think we'd be talking about big bucks.
>Three possible courses/tutorials:
>
>1. Linux for Windows users (2 - 2-1/2 hrs?)
>
> (similar to the ORA book "Learning the Unix Operating System, 4th ed."
>
> "Topics covered include:
>
> Linux operating system highlights
> Logging in and logging out
> Window systems (especially X/Motif)
> Managing UNIX files and directories
> Sending and receiving mail
> Redirecting input/output
> Pipes and filters
> Background processing
> Basic network commands "
I think vi basics should be covered in this course as well (I'm assuming
this would be our introductory course) as a text editor is essential to
using Linux and it's not exactly the most intuitive piece of software out
there.
- Ben