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Education

Finding Educational Materials For A Linux Class? 109

Posted by Cliff from the teaching-the-next-batch-of-users dept.
Doug Carter asks: "I am a senior Linux developer/system/network guy at a rapidly growing startup. Part of my resonsibilities is to help educate new aspiring Linux folks and otherwise evanglize the use of Open Source within our company. I thought a great way to do this would be with informal brown bag sessions, once or twice a week. The only thing I'm missing is some generic Linux class education material that I can talk to. I could write it myself, but I hate reinventing the wheel and I'm sure there are some useful materials out there already. I've been searching the net for weeks now and the only stuff I've found is online tutorials (that can't be downloaded) and Linux materials that people are actually charging for! In the wonderful world of open source software, where are the open source education materials?"
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Finding Educational Materials for a Linux Class? More

Finding Educational Materials for a Linux Class?

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  • Try rute (Score:5)

    by buttfucker2000 ( 240799 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:30AM (#594525) Homepage Journal
    Rute [sourceforge.net], the beginner's guide to Linux
  • Go to linuxhelp.org (my personal favorite for howtos etc) and print and xerox everything you think is understandable.
  • Is an avid Linux fanatic and he has taught Linux in the past. You can look at his reference materials at: http://apollo.saultc.on.ca/~fcarella/courses.html They are, *of course* in Word format. :)

  • Feel free to create some content, my friend :) (Score:3)

    by Number6.2 ( 71553 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:39AM (#594528) Homepage Journal

    It's been my experience that "free" tutorial/introduction materials are in short supply. Find a commercial book and talk from that.

    I taught a UNIX class, on and off, for about six months. The springboard was an introduction to UNIX book, but the exercises and handouts were developed (and copyrighted) by the continuing education company I freelanced for. Finding the book is easy. Comming up with a "good" set of training/tutorial exercises is "hard".

    Think about how much time you want to put into this, too, and the kinds of sessions you want to have. I gave informal talks at a previous employer where I did "illuminated MAN pages", i.e. print the MAN page for the topic de jure (including the MAN command ;) ) and talk about all the crufty little arguments you can throw at any particualar UNIX command.

    hope this helps

    stirring the pot since nineteen mumblty mumble

  • Re:Try rute (Score:3)

    by dolphinuser ( 211295 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:40AM (#594529)
    From the Terms and Conditions:

    [1. This work may not be reproduced in hard copy except for personal use. Further, it may not be reproduced in hard copy for training material, nor for commercial gain, nor for public or organisation-wide distribution.]

    So, it looks like he can't use it after all.

    John

  • I know there are quite a few books in several formats from the linux documnetation project. Although all the books are not completely up to date the material in them is quite good.

    For new linux people this would seem like a good place to start since they cover most of the major issues of using/seting up/adminstrating linux.
  • A strange side effect of the GPL license is that it apparently discourages or disallows writing documentation.
  • Holy cow.

    I've never heard of Rute before, but thanks for the MLP. That is one hell of a piece of documentation.
  • Although the license is reasonably free, (and it comes in printer-friendly formats like pdf [sourceforge.net] and postscript [sourceforge.net]) it might not be free enough for you:

    'This work may not be reproduced in hard copy except for personal use. Further, it may not be reproduced in hard copy for training material, nor for commercial gain, nor for public or organisation-wide distribution. Further, it may not be reproduced in hard copy except where the intended reader of the hard copy initiates the process of converting the work to hard copy.'

    So it looks like it would be illegal to print it for them, and although I can't see anything wrong with telling them the location of it and letting it print it out, it would be illegal to use it as course material. [This is probably because the book is being published]

    The LDP HOWTOs [linuxdoc.org] are much freer - hence the profusion of $20 books collating them all (generally badly labeled, so most people wouldn't realise that they are HOWTOs unless they'd seen the HOWTOs before).

    Rute does leave some things to be desired, so why not write/start a 'Linux manual'?

  • linux.com (Score:3)

    by selectspec ( 74651 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:43AM (#594534)
    Linux.com [linux.com] has weekly newbie articles. Also Linux Journal [linuxjournal.com] occassionaly has some worthy newbie articles. Of course, nothing beats handing out RedHat cds and making 'em install linux at home.
  • The most obvious thing would be the Linux Documentation Project at www.linuxdoc.org [linuxdoc.org], but I'm under the impression that you want presentation oriented material and not self-study book style. In that case you probably won't find too much, and if you do it will probably be an HTML slide show or something.

    SVG seems to be the best choice right now for presentation oriented stuff. I suppose it might be a noble effort for somebody to start converting some of the LinuxDoc knowledge into SVG slideshows with instructor notes.

  • Free Linux Training Materials (Score:4)

    by davefgbd ( 73667 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:45AM (#594536)
    Have you not seen our free Linux Training Materials for professional instructors at http://www.linuxtraining.co.uk [linuxtraining.co.uk]?

    If our currently released modules don't cover topics which interest you, let us know. There are several unreleased modules in the pipeline.

    Dave Fisher
    GBdirect / Linux Training Materials Project

  • If he doesn't reproduce it, and just talks from it, he can use it (fair use?).

    I agree, if he just copies the book en-masse he's in copyright violation. If he reads the book, says "This is a rational way to present the information", and uses the book as a personal reference and develops his own handouts, he's fine.

    Everything is derivitive. The important word here is derive. Word for word copy is bad. Using the text as a springboard is fine in my book ;) BTW, IANAL, but I've seen "legitimate" companies do this (these same companies also encourage you to buy the book :)


  • You can find some stuff here:
    http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2001/cs3210_f al l/

  • Charging isn't evil. (Score:3)

    by Crutcher ( 24607 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:48AM (#594540) Homepage
    Think of the sheer volume of time that must be spent creating the material for a course, then the additional volume of time that must be spent editing and verifying this material, and then the additional chunk that must be spent making sure that this is all taught in a consistent and flowing manner.

    Now, consider that individuals who have the skills to accomplish the first, second, and third tasks /well/ are usually found in seperate groups (programmers, editors, teachers); that each group's time is very valuable (in terms of average pay); and that individuals who fall far into multiple of these groups have an even /higher/ value placed upon their time.

    People do the hard tech stuff, because it is fun. People write docs because they have to. People edit docs because they are paid to. Noone reorders docs for 'fun', 'cause it sucks, and they could be playing with code.

    -- Crutcher --
    #include <disclaimer.h>
  • You may get tons of manuals - studying them is something personal and *understanding* the nature of things explained there it's an art some very few really master.

    My knowledge on working with complete idiots in this regard is rather limited (thank God!) but I have a friend that tried to "educate" a bunch of them in the CS department. Talking about *total failure*!

    What really counts is having a some sort of common ground - that beeing either programming ( I mean C and/or C++ ) or admining ( though that doesn't help much ). Starting them from somwhere below sea-level knowledge-wise is prone to failure and lots of misunderstanding and problems deriving from that.

    Documentation? humm ... for a start - manuals listed as "man" should be quite enough - then - there's /usr/doc/*. If they miss the basics then you need something printed - O'Really ( :) ) could be a good start.

    No matter what - the will to actually learn something will greatly influence the amount of knowledge they will assimilate.

    --
  • There is a great site at:
    linuxslides.com [linuxslides.com]
    which has a wealth of contributed presentations about linux and open source software. One way to use it, would be to have a different person pick one each week and then offer it as a presentation to the group.
  • www.linuxslides.com [linuxslides.com] is a fairly large repository of materials from various Linux-related presentations and talks (including introductory ones) which you may find useful.
  • Just grab every man page you can find, print it, and tell them to learn it all over the weekend.
    Simple 'nuff ;-)


    --
  • that's what staroffice is for ;-)

  • Open Source != Non Profit (Score:5)

    by gempabumi ( 181507 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:58AM (#594547) Homepage
    We have a great Linux/Apache course that we run in our training programs. It is geared to the new user, without an 'RTFM' attitude, and it has many useful exercises and links to related materials. We spent two months developing the course, and have had customers for it since the day it was completed.

    Would we give it away for free? No chance. Like it or not, we are in the training _business_. Our course materials are our product, and giving them away would mean shutting down our operations.

    The idea that everything should be free as in beer, AKAIK, is not the intention of open source (or free software, whatever). Course materials take time and resources to produce, and they bring value to the market. Those who bring value to the market should be rewarded with more than just an ego trip. Let's not get into the mindset that if it's not free as in beer, it's against the spirit of Linux. Open source software needs credible business models to survive. Training materials and books are a large part of that business model. Let's encourage them, and support open source.

    Anyway, if you search anywhere for "foo tutorial" you'll find a wealth of information for free.

    slairetam esruoc eht ni detseretni era uoy fi di.oc.etutitsni@sugna si liame my

  • Linux User Groups (Score:3)

    by rwash ( 16296 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @04:59AM (#594548) Homepage

    I am President of my University's Linux User Group. A good place to look is on various Linux User's Group's websites. I know my group gives a weekly talk on various topics related to Linux, Unix, etc. and we try to post the slides, etc. of all of our talks on our website. Check out http://cwrulug.cwru.edu/talks/ [cwru.edu]

    I also know of one or two other Linux Users Groups that do a similar thing. This is a wealth of information.

  • Also from the T&C:

    Verbatim copies of the work may be redistributed through any electronic media.

    So as long as each individual takes care of their own hard-copy requirements, all is well with the world.

    Next.

  • Re:What about the LDP? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There are two or three books, not 'quite a few books.'

    And you're right, they are not completely up to date.

    In fact, they appear to be abandonded.

    Look on the shelves at a local bookstore. Everyone is cashing in on writing Linux books for money. The 'free' books have all dwindled away to nothing.

    What would you expect? If the programmers can't make any money selling binaries of closed source, they're forced to live off documentation and support.
  • I have been charged with putting together a class on Linux for a local training company. They do certification training and want to add LPI certification to their list. I have convinced them of the benifit of a general "Getting to know you" Linux course but I'm having a tough time putting something together. So far, my plan is to use one of the many Linux books as the class text and cobble together a lesson plan from it. I've narrowed it down to:
    • Linux in a Nutshell
    • Red Hat Linux System Administration Guide
    (Both available at Fatbrain [fatbrain.com] near you). I'd prefer to teach a general Linux course but the company wants a Red Hat based one. I have no problem with that, though, as I know RH better than the other distros.

    If anyone does come up with a course for Linux that's available please let me know.

    ---

  • Netizen training materials (Score:3)

    by srl ( 23924 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @05:07AM (#594552)
    You might want to check out the training materials put out by Netizen at http://bits.netizen.com.au/training/ [netizen.com.au]. They're more designed for 1-day classes and such, but you could use them for an overview talk with handouts or something. They're particularly strong in explaining what Perl is and why you might want to use it.

    The Netizen training docs are under the Open Publications License, so they're both libre and free.

  • Exactly what do you want to encourage?

    Most of my Micro$oft users have no understanding of files and folders let alone permissions. Frequently I have to 'find' a file they've misplaced by savin' to C:\.

    If your users are mostly application based, then everything should be self-evident. A word processor is a word processor. Sure they're a bit different but basically they are the same.

    If you're trying to teach the guts of Linux, why not use the newbie help files [linuxnewbie.org]?

  • print the MAN page for the topic de jure

    jure is French for swear.

    You may have meant du jour.

    Come to think of it, I prefer your version. ;)

  • I don't know what distro you are using but if you are willing to use Debian you might try this [oreilly.com] Yes with Debian the install is a little harder and you have to configure many things by hand but IMHO this is better for learning and since 2.2 no longer makes you deal with dselect I think it makes a reasonable choice for a class.

  • University class in Linux admin (Score:3)

    by gbnewby ( 74175 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @05:09AM (#594556) Homepage
    I teach INLS 183, "Distributed Systems and Analysis." This is essentially a class in Linux administration, with an emphasis on software installation, configuration and management.

    The homepage is http://ils.unc.edu/inls183 [unc.edu].

    Strictly speaking, the materials are copyrighted by me and UNC. But help yourself to anything useful, and feel free to ask if you want to make more extensive use.

    • Greg
  • > People edit docs because they are paid to.

    I'd have to agree - building a good set of course materials is very hard, and almost no fun. Since you know the material so well, you will probably leave a ton of info out - stuff only a second person (ie. editor) might notice.

    You should also consider what it might cost to print out 30-50 pages of open source documentation (per student) on your office printer plus a binder of some form to keep it together - then paying for a book doesn't look so bad anymore.

    I've got to believe some of the $30 Dummies/Idiots/Nutshell books are decent enough to teach an intro-level course around.

  • Depending on what you're aiming at, my favourite site in the whole wide world - www.linuxnewbie.org [linuxnewbie.org], has a good selection of NHF's, desiged for the newbie (hence newbiedised help files). If you're looking at HOWTOS, you may as well check these out.

  • As a teacher who uses Linux, and has begun teaching it in high-school, I wonder if it isn't possible for some of similar talent to get together and actually create such a work. If the open source community can code great software by working together, then maybe those of use who do not love coding so much can better contribute by using the talents we have. In the case of any others who teach or do training, perhaps we can best contribute by making good educational material, using Rute or other LDP docs as the base, and developing the exercises and assessments to go along with it. If there is anyone else out there willing to work with this, I would love to be involved in such a worthy project. After all, if we are going to teach computers in school, shouldn't we be training kids on good software? And, teachers being the busy people they are, having the materials already prepared would be a big boost in getting others to teach and use Linux.
  • ---"...evanglize the use of Open Source within our company."---

    Is there ANYBODY doing this in the DC metro area? I want a job there! Haha. I'm sick of NT-centric sysadmins. I know HTML, javascript, ColdFusion, and am learning PHP/MySQL.


    ---
  • I may be anon, but at least I know how to say "a hyperlink" correctly. Were you dropped on the head when you were born, AC?
  • Perl and Linux have a pretty good synergy... Perl makes a fantastic little scripting language for Linux use. It gives you some fantastic opportunities to show off the real muscle of *nix based systems (like "find", "dd", "cut", "tar", and many others). Further, you could probably even get a "never ever" to be writing simple programs in only an hour or so of teaching. Having taught Perl on both Linux and Windows, I can think of no better way to demonstrate the strengths of Linux.

    If you get into some depth, you could then teach some simple Perl based CGI. You have to struggle through references, objects, and regular expressions to do it right, but students will totally "light up" when they see a dynamic page they wrote come to life on a web server, and Linux is a great platform for a Perl CGI dynamic setup.

    Feel free to use notes that I prepared for a similiar class for both Perl, and Perl CGI. There are a few typos in them that I need to clean up over the holiday break, but they are 99% fine.

    The Perl notes links [kilgallonfamily.com] are about ten lines down the page. They are GPL'd. I made a point of following the "Learning Perl" (O'Rielly book) order of topic presentation, so that students that want a deeper resource can follow a parallel presentation of topics.

    Bill
  • I'd love to get a Linux, MySQL, Appachie, Java based web server going, but it's such a pain finding the info to do the basic stuff like installation and config.

    The good thing with MS products is you can get Windows Server 2000, SQL Server, IIS, up and running in half a day, and then learn how to use it as you work with it. This ease of installation no doubt leads to lots of badly setup servers, but it gets you over the steap learning curve quickly and you can start to play with the fun stuff...

    I'd love to get my hends on a MSDN type reference for Linux, either web based, or on CD. Surely there is a market there for someone???
  • Oh yeah... I know Linux too (duh). I configured a P1 with Mandrake 7 to run our LAN in the group house where we share an ADSL connection. That's how I learned anyway. Lots of MAN pages and HOWTOs, Linuxnewbie.org forums, etc... - my email [mailto]
    ---
  • man tcsh > /dev/lpr

    I hear it outputs a stack of paper about half an inch thick. :-)

    Better use duplex printing.
  • Yeah, well man pages aren't really what most people need these days. May be for the likes of you and me it is fine. I mean, I understand most of the technical crap they put in man pages because I have been working on UNIX for 10 years. Also, I have a sturdy background training in computing so I can understand the issues easily. Heck, I don't even need the man pages, just read the source Luke!

    But, if we want average Joe Bloggs to start using Linux rather than windoze we have to begin understanding that not everyone comes from a technical background. Shouting at them "RTFM!" isn't going to help them much. What is needed is freely available, easy to understand documentation that explains the concepts and ideas involved in running Linux successfully.

    I am giving some lectures in some Arab countries to people in the Medical profession. The possiblities for them using Linux are hugh. They are so restricted by their present closed source unstable solutions. They are very interested in using Linux. How are they meant to start understanding it?

    We all like to complain how crap windoze is. Personally the only time I use windoze is when I go to my Mum's house because that is all she has. But she is not likely to run Linux unless we make decent documentation available. Enough of "RTFM" lets write some decent documenatition so that Linux can truely be used beyond the current limited cliche of geeks.
  • Go to slackware.com [slackware.com] and read through their book. The WHOLE installation manual is online... and you can probably print it off easily enough. The Slackware book covers quite a bit of material... and is probably one of the greatest features of Slackware (aside from everything else slackware! :).

    Of course, the book covers slackware specific things... but you can easily adapt the information to DistroX.

  • Man pages? Urg.

    Man pages are a little on the archaic side for the newbie. Most of them assume you have a good handle on how your shell works before they become really useful. Often they'll tell you that if you want a certain functionality (forcing 'ps' into BSD behaviour for instance) you'll have to set an environment variable. That's pretty shell-dependant.

    I'd say man pages are a good intermediate trainer. But I am willing to bet money that if you give an average newbie (whom we'll assume is fimiliar with DOS Zip) the tar man and tell them to archive /home, they won't have it in a half hour. Sure, a whiz-bang smart one will, but I'd say that's a rarity.

    DirkBoy

  • Here's a site you could try... (Score:4)

    by Howard Roark ( 13208 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @05:34AM (#594569)
    Here is a site that might solve part of your problem:

    linuxcommand.org [linuxcommand.org]
    --
    Howard Roark, Architect
  • this might be helpful http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/SoothinglyS eamless/
  • I teach Linux, Perl, Apache and some other cool stuff to newbies.

    I suggest you visit http://aiu.linuxroot.org and look at the FAQ
  • If you invest half a day (I'm going to assume an 8 hour work day, so 4 hours) into MS... you could EASILY setup the above mentioned software. installing linux (redhat 7.0) is a snap, and from there... there's files that come with each package named either "INSTALL" or "README" and typically they contain all the info required to install the software... or at least they send you to the right place.

    check it out!
  • First, Open Source does not mean free (as in beer). It means you can contribute back to the project. So if you find some materials or a book you like, but have some problems with you can fix, you should be able to write the author and get them corrected.

    Second, you're working for a company. You should be able to expense some good books on Linux. It's not like you're still in college and the campus book store is your old choice. Read some book reviews and have the company buy them.
  • (NOTE: Handle notwithstanding, SARCASM=OFF!!!!!)

    Thanks!

    This is the sort of thing I've been needing for my home system. I'm hooked on Linux, but I haven't been sure where to go without buying up an entire library of documentation.

    Much obliged, friend!

  • My text [bookpool.com] covers Red Hat 6. It is a bit dated - I've been yelling at the publisher for a revision, but they are not very responsive.

    The book assumes basic UNIX knowledge, so you will want to use this in tandem with one of the basic texts by Sobol or the equivalent.

    The text lacks a chapter on sendmail (which I regret), and I included material on the Gimp which people have found to be superfluous.

    I also have some older articles that I published on UnixWorld Online - I have made them available on my website. My tutorial on PHP and Postgres had great critical acclaim [slashdot.org] (hearing about this review was my introduction to Slashdot). I will formally GPL the contents of these articles if you like - use them as you wish.

    I am actually hoping that my text goes out of print so the rights revert back to me. I will GPL it at that time.

    I do feel at the moment that I chose the wrong route in publishing a book - I turned down too many opportunities to do great documentation because I had such a large commitment.

  • Since they did name NCSU the open source university most of the on campus help materials have been converted away from the Solaris platform to RedHat with KDE/Gnome.

    Anyway... the intro course at the school E115 is available online for independent study and all the training docs are pretty well done although there may be some ncsu specific stuff there.

    Introduction to computing environments [ncsu.edu]

    I also used to have weekly seminars at one of my previous employers and I had my "students" purchase a copy of the best O'Reilly book, Essential System Administration by AELeen Frisch.
    This book takes a broader look at how to accomplish the task you need on XYZ variant of UNIX/Linux. It is an easy to read book and covers 90% of administration/user needs.

  • I've spent much of the past two decades as a consulting documentation specialist, and have all three of the skills you correctly identified. Right now I'm hanging out in North Carolina (with a cable connection!), while awaiting a judge's decision re my NYC digs (concerning Am. with Disabilities Act). My desultory search for part-time, off-site Web content development work while I'm waiting hasn't brought any offers, so if anyone wants me to work (even free) creating teaching materials to further the noble goal of free software (anti-MS, anyway), here I am: techwatcher@onebox.com; probably free most of the next 2-6 weeks.

  • We've been using the unix survival guide for crashcoursing windows users into linux, with mixed success ;)
    It's a whidespread document, but here's a link:
    http://nacphy.physics.orst.edu/coping-with-unix/bo ok.html [orst.edu]

    nicholas [mailto]
    http://squat.net/ascii [squat.net]

  • <RANT>
    Let's see, where to begin...

    "Like it or not, we are in the training _business_."

    The gentleman posting the question is not. If he wants a commercial solution, I'm sure his company will turn to you. As it stands, he's looking for something he can present to give people a baseline to understand Linux. A database programmer sees everything as a database problem, and a professional trainer evidently sees everything as a professional training problem.

    As for your idea that things should not be free, let me try to slightly rewrite that paragraph:

    The idea that everything should be free as in beer, AKAIK, is not the intention of open source (or free software, whatever). Software take time and resources to produce, and they bring value to the market. Those who bring value to the market should be rewarded with more than just an ego trip. Let's not get into the mindset that if it's not free as in beer, it's against the spirit of Linux. Open source software needs credible business models to survive. Closed source software is a large part of that business model. Let's encourage them, and support open source.

    Wait a minute, closed source software can contribute to open source? Oh wait, the two can co-exist on the same system. I forgot because I have a narrow mindset that requires everything to be licenced exactly the same. Silly me. I wonder if the same concept can apply to training materials?

    So maybe you can continue to provide your services at your price, and not worry about those of us who want (the equivelant of) an open source solution for training. Or even better, you could use your income to give back to the community and release some introductory materials for free! After all, you're making money on the backs of the people who created the software, and I hear that "those who bring value to the market should be rewarded with more than just an ego trip."
    </RANT>
    --
  • Most Linux course try to include this demonstration:

    Take out a raw egg and say, "This is your brain." Then say,"This is your brain on Windows." Then pelt Bill Gates with the egg.

    The reason this is usually skipped is that it's tough to get Bill Gates, but it's worth the extra effort.
  • When I was in a position something like yours - giving a week-long course on Linux to a group of scientists, I managed to cobble together a few semi-acceptable bits and pieces, mostly by adapting other people's lecture notes and tutorials.

    It's all here [mu.oz.au], and it's all under open licenses of one sort or another.

    But I've got to say, I was somewhat perturbed by the fraction of Linux training material which was proprietary...

  • Re:As BSD people say... (Score:4)

    by johnnyb ( 4816 ) <jonathan@bartlettpublishing.com> on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @06:35AM (#594582) Homepage
    Actually, a lot of GPL software has _great_ documentation. The GCC manual has about 600 pages of great material, covering a lot of the compiler's internals. The GNOME project likewise has wonderful documentation, including Havoc's book. I don't see where you get the idea the GPL discourages documentation
  • You could try 85321 [cqu.edu.au]
    I once exchanged mails with one of the authors of this fine material. He said that I could print out as many copies that I wanted to, and he'd even send me the CD-Roms if I would in exchange send him a photo of pupils using the material! (Un)fortunately I got another job before I got to use the book, but it's a very cool book

  • The only problem with rute is that you wouldn't be able to print out a copy and distribute it to the group -- the first page has that restriction:

    Further, it may not be reproduced in hard copy for training material, nor for commercial gain, nor for public or organisation-wide distribution.

    If he has an LCD projector at hand, that could work, but for brown-bag affairs, seems like a hard copy would be best.

    Personally, I think the old Linux Installation and Getting Started [linuxdoc.org] is still one of the better free (GPL'ed even) introductions. Chapter 3 [linuxdoc.org] in particular is a great intro to any unix.

    -- Scott

  • The same arguments have been made against free software for a long time. Why do you think its any different for documentation? There are many people who enjoy writing documentation (including myself). The arguments that you put forth are the same ones that were put forth a few years ago against free software. Free things use a different dynamic than non-free things. I'm guessing that in the next few years, several teachers will post their lecture notes on line in a free way. Someone else will correct problems, edit them for their own needs, etc. Just because _you_ would not participate in free documentation does not mean that others wouldn't.

  • Re:Open Source != Non Profit (Score:3)

    by gempabumi ( 181507 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @06:52AM (#594586) Homepage
    > So maybe you can continue to provide your
    > services at your price, and not worry about those
    > of us who want (the equivelant of) an open source
    > solution for training. Or even better, you could
    > use your income to give back to the community and
    > release some introductory materials for free!

    <reason style="type:clear;mindset:level-headed;">

    Actually, we do just that. We also support open source development projects - see http://phpreactor.org/ for one example.

    Now, I have no problem with open source training materials. I learn everything myself from the online documentation, which I get for free. My point, should you choose to accept it, was that there is a place in the Linux world for things which cost money, which was in direct response to the original poster's indignance that people actually wanted money for training materials.

    And though we are "making money of the people who created the software," I feel we are doing our part to promote open source in a corporate world. When I started this job it was a microsoft shop. Since then, I have shifted the entire focus of the courseware to open source technologies, which in turn leads to their acceptance by our corporate clients.

    </reason>
  • I've been searching the net for weeks now and the only stuff I've found is online tutorials (that can't be downloaded)

    Perhaps your first course should be in the use of wget . :-)

  • I've put up slides from several talks I have done on my web page [redhat.com]. Several of the talks are fairly similar to each other, explaining some of the benefits of Open Source to several different audiences. There might be useful material there. FWIW...
  • http://www.wi.leidenuniv.nl/~wichert/talks/
  • After you've had a couple sessions to go through the basics, you could consider using one of the HOWTO's [linuxdoc.org] at linuxdoc.org [linuxdoc.org] for a topic for each brown bag session.

    A lot of people would probably be interested in some of the common time-suckers when you're getting started with a new linux box such as how to get your dial-up connection set up. Mix the HOWTO material with your own experience and tips so that people are getting more than what they just could have read themselves.

    A really big favor you could do to your coworkers is start to teach them about security and linux. Nothing sucks more for a newbie than finally getting their first linux box up and running on their cable modem, only to have it cracked within the hour. Totally demoralizing.

    I imagine you'll do a session on how to install a new machine -- this is a great time to go into why and how to shut down unnecessary services, install ssh, install patches, etc. etc.

    Just include it as part of the standard installation process. That's the sort of stuff that will make your seminars really unique and valuable -- securing your new box is really important, but isn't covered very often in off-the-shelf documentation.

    -- Scott
  • http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ It's aptly named, and you can download. I had no background in computing but was determined to learn Linux, and I thrashed around for a long time trying to understand it and was about to give up when a techie at RedHat told me about linuxnewbie.org. After that, it was a pleasure. Why? Because they tell you what to do when things go wrong. And they always do if you have no background in computing. I simply love this site. It's written in my language as opposed to technical-speak, so I can learn. After this site, I could read the other help manuals and make some sense out of them.
  • check <a href="http://www.ompg.com"> OpenMind </a>

  • There's also Linuxnewbie.org [linuxnewbie.org]. I like this one because the NHFs (Newbieized Help Files) [linuxnewbie.org] are clear, consice and really easy to understand. My networking instructor wanted to show his students that yes, there ARE other OSes that can do file-sharing besides NT, and we set up Samba to do just that using the Samba NHF on their web site.

    I don't see any kind of disclaimer on their site, but you might want to ask Sensei, the owner of the site, about it.

    Hope this helps!

    - Firecaster
    12 days until I graduate

  • Take a look at the O'Reilly [oreilly.com] website. They have a whole section of books on Lnix and several for learning several distributions of Linux.

  • There are scads of great educational resources available in the OpenContent database [byu.edu].

    --------
    meta4
    dw2-dont-spam-me-@opencontent.org
    http://davidwiley.com/

  • url (Score:1)

    by strombrg ( 62192 )

    Not sure this is what you're looking for, but I have
    a bunch of intro-unix stuff (which includes linux material) at http://nis.acs.uci.edu/~strombrg/intro.html .

    Don't forget /usr/doc.

  • actually lasyt time I looked there were about 5 of them.

  • While you are absolutely correct as far as you go, ther are two things I think should be clarified. First, the poster is explicitly looking for non-commercial material, given his situation. Secondly, while there is nothing at all wrong with you charging for your product per se (yes, we all have to eat ;^) it had better be a damn good product, and very well maintained, else it's not worth the money. Free documentation (libre) has a major advantage in a world of Free software that changes constantly - it can be updated without legal problems. As long as you are actively maintaining your materials, updating them as frequently as the products you describe are updated, you can stay competitive, but that can be a tall order at times.

    A suggestion - as time goes on, any material you decide you can't or won't actively maintain and update should be Freed - allowing it to stay useful, be used by more people, and gaining you goodwill and publicity for your for profit offerings.

  • What's a "brown bag" session?
  • An informal meeting held over lunch (as in, "brown bag lunch").
  • 1. In the begining was the Source Code, and the Source Code was with Linus, and the Source Code was Linux.

    2. The same was in the Kernel with Linus.

    3. All code was GPL'ed by him, and without him was not any code GPL'ed that was GPL'ed.

    4. In him was the Open Source, and the Open Source was the GPL of hackers.

    5. And the GPL shineth on Microsoft, and Microsoft comprehendeth it not.

  • Huh?

    I don't know about KDE, I use Slack 7 with WindowMaker and Gnome and they work just fine.

    To go back to the original poster, I agree, the materials on the slackware site are GREAT - regardless of distribution, they cover the basics very well.

  • I believe that many sites offer fairly comprehensive, searchable help databases. For example see www.linuxdoc.org. In my opinion, it is at least as helpful as the MS Knowledge Base (see support.microsoft.com).

    For something truly ammusing, try searching the MS Knowledge Base for Linux and discover their contribution to the Linux HowTos!!! "How to uninstall linux and install Windows NT or 2000!" :)

  • I am not arguing against free docs. I am arguing against the notion that those who produce books are evil.

    -- Crutcher --
    #include <disclaimer.h>
  • Take a look at SEUL (www.seul.org I believe).. That stand for Simple End User Linux.. I think they even have a distro which they have tried to make "easy". Seul-edu is a sub group they have which deals specifically with education, they have lists of resources and do some stuff themselves..
  • Yes, most people do not come from a technical background. Yes, the man pages can be intimidating to a beginner.

    However, I still think that man pages are useful because computers are not that hard to understand. Unfortunately, most people have no context to understand computers, so this approach is not complete.

    Rather, the Linux training I offer focuses on the fundamentals of the OS and how to think about so that the man pages can be of help. Then I print up a sheet of the most commonly used commands as a quick reference and show how to use man. The idea is to make people comfortable with the OS so that they can comprehend the technical information. As any technician knows, the more uncomfortable one is, the harder it is to figure something simple out.

    So my advice is: give people an introduction first to the more frienly interfaces (GNOME, KDE, etc.) then to BASH and finally to the online help system.

  • Please check that link for accuracy. thanks
  • If you are teaching people who already know some C or C++ how to move over to Linux..

    Beginning Linux Programming from Wrox Press is pretty good.

    It's the only book I've read like it, but I'm sure there are many other choices.. that don't assume you already know C.

    It covers shell programming, the file system, terminals, curses, memory/database management, gnu development tools, gnu debugger, processes, pipes, semaphores and shared memory, sockets, tcl, tk and x, html, cgi, and portability
  • I have done some Linux tutorials and the sites I have utilized the most have been Rootprompt.org [rootprompt.org] and LinuxSecurity.com [linuxsecurity.com]. Rootprompt has alot of excellent "essays" on lots of different topics relating to Unix and Linux that can easily be converted to micro-lectures.

    LinuxSecurity is more specialized, but when you do get to your security lecture, their "Reference Card" is indisposable.

    Hope this helps some, and keep teaching!

    -Redux
  • I have been giving my friends copies of spyLinux, a single disk distro of Linux that contains Python, vi, common Linux utilities such as stty, ifconfig, etc. It supports 4 virtual terminals so you can write a script in one, and run it in another. The reason that I think that this is a good approach is that you can boot up on the floppy drive, and not touch the hard disk at all. Therefore, you can be up and running Linux in a matter of minutes on your laptop. This should work for a brown bag session. Also, if you are using corporate hardware, you may have to be wary of loading a full Linux on the hard drive. This approach leaves no footprints. By the way, I have used spyLinux to test serial ports on a Cisco router, so it is not just a teaching tool. Jerol
  • Of course, nothing beats handing out RedHat cds and making 'em install linux at home.

    I can install RedHat in my sleep, and would still hesitate to say I know how to use linux. Installation by itself isn't all that helpful a learning tool.

    Of course, it sounds like these lucky bastards will get to use it at work. *grumble* If I got to use linux at work...

  • I'm shocked at how many people don't know about GNU's online manuals. I find them extremely helpful, and use them routinely.

    Also, there are gobs of docs for general Unix/Linux apps, in varying states of update, of course. Check linuxdoc.org for some pointers.

    As for documentation for an entire *system* all at once, I know of no good source for generic linux distros. The BSD's have a bit of a leg up there, because they control the entire distribution, rather than a few components.

    Or maybe not...I recently pulled up Debian's online user guide, and it is really quite helpful, even if terse. I'd put it about on par with FreeBSD's user guide. The one thing about BSD doc that I envy, though, is the online manpages. Somewhere on FreeBSD's site you can do a query on any FreeBSD command, and it will pull up a nicely formatted, current manpage. I haven't found a corresponding web page for Debian or Mandrake.

    Anyway, my point is that there is just as much free doc around for Linux as for BSD. And the license of the software really has nothing to do with the documentation. Text should use different licenses, anyway.

    --Lenny
  • I have a CD-ROM of SuSE 7.0 LiveEval, and it runs KDE off of the CD-ROM, no installation necessary. This is a good way to show folks the nice GUI stuff, without having to repartition, etc.

  • ? All the guides and How-Tos at ibiblio.org (The Linux Documentation Project) are downloadable.
  • A strange side effect of the GPL license is that it apparently discourages or disallows writing documentation.

    Is this a deliberate lie or just ignorance?
    ___

  • We violently agree :)

    In their raw form, Man pages are G**D*** terrifying at worst, and confusing at best. That's why you have a Knowledgable Individual use them as a springboard when giving a brown bag. I would never give a novice a man page and say "Here, RTFM. Now you know everything." Unless I wanted to be a pr*ck that day.

    For a true novice, you go to your Unix Tutorial Book of Choice, pick out what they consider to be The Most Important Commands (e.g. cd, ls, man, lpr, nethack) (how did nethack get in there?), add or subtract from the list as you see fit, and talk from that. I agree, in that situation I wouldn't even consider springing the man page on them.

  • I was thinking the same thing. Instead of teachng the students about "Linux" why not jump right to the chase and start teaching your new students from the GNU Emacs Manual. It's packed full of exciting information, it's free, and it's very well written. Once your students have learned Emacs they won't need to use any other programs.

  • The Greater Lansing Linux User Group resources webpage [gllug.org] has pointers to a few tutorials that we've cooked up for use at meetings.
  • Check out Apache Toolbox [apachetoolbox.com]. Way less than half a day.
  • Depending on the scope of your class, there's lots of Unix training materials out there that could be used as-is or easily adapted. I used to teach BSD Unix driver/OS classes/networking classes, but that was three jobs ago, and no longer have the materials. But I never invented when I could plagiarize!
  • Making your book free as in speech is perfectly compatible with charging for printed, bound copies. O'Reilly has published some free-as-in-speech books. KDE 2.0 Development [andamooka.org] is a good example of this type of book. For that matter, most of the books on Andamooka [andamooka.org] are both free-as-in-speech and available in print.

    --

  • I'm a participant of the Freebook Project [myip.org] because free (liber) educational materials are very important [myip.org]. From our site, there is a list of free books [myip.org] on all sorts of topics.

    We discuss issues related to producing and promoting free books, and we are collectively writing a book on free books. [myip.org]

    Please help us out if you are interested.

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