Topics for a Linux intro course

This looks like an amazing class! I would absolutely take it, it looks awesome to me.

You should probably explain what a distribution, a DE, a WM, and a DM are. I feel like this is something that Windows users lack in particular, as they have little control over these features.

I would consider that ifconfig is deprecated on many distros and would therefore teach about iproute2 (mostly the ip and ss commands) instead. Additionally I would consider editing files essential, even if it is with nano.

Maybe mention more modern and simpler help tools like tldr, as they could be even more useful to beginners.

To introduce the shell and utilities, I would try to find a somewhat realistic use case that combines multiple aspects, like analyzing some files or spellchecking instead of simply mentioning every feature one by one.

It's too much for 20 hours, if it's introductory. Also, wouldn't you want to teach them how to actually install Linux?

For the love of God make them all practice using tab completion in shells, and show them nice shells that do completion for command options. I spend a significant amount of time dictating commands that could be completed by the shell 😅

It's missing GNU 🐂 project and free 🕊️ software.

With files, include user and group permissions (read, write, execute).

You could talk briefly about the FOSS philosophy.

I would do it completely differently. Do some intro about history and philosophy. Next:

• everything is a file -explain and actually show /proc & /dev with some fun examples (/Dev/urandom /proc/cpuinfo and so on). Not necessarily CLI
• explain the idea behind Unix way of having lots of small tools. Show examples of grep, cat, ps, head, tail...
• explain piping and streams, show ps | grep and so on
• combine it all and show some fun examples (a one liner to change display setup or something
• explain processes, input output streams, pid, kill
• combine and show how do a one liner to find and kill a process

I like to courses to have natural flow where you keep adding stuff and build more and more complex things. A lot of small tidbits are hard to follow.

Maybe the linuxupskillchallenge is a good inspiration?

I would consider teaching them about a CLI shell, like Fish or ZSH (through oh my zsh), whilst they're not usually going to have the luxury of a nice shell on a remote server but they will if they're on a desktop. A good shell makes the CLI soooooo much easier, and faster, to use. Work smarter not harder, install a shell other than bash.

I would also HIGHLY consider teaching them about desktop app software development on Linux, there's a surprising number of developers who don't know about the different ways you can distribute software on Linux:

• Native system packages
• Snap packages
• Flatpaks

Teaching them about this is definitely a must imho, there are so many OSS projects out there that insist on distributing their software via native system packages (without supporting most distros). They're also likely to run into it even if they're just in IT, the server market uses Snaps quite a bit.

For package management i would also give a brief explenation about repositorys.

I think you've got it all covered. But for my 2 cents: maybe resources to keep them engaged after these classes, a beginner's book like "the command line by william schotts" might be an Excellent resource to recommend.

Throwing in a word for foss as someone else is also a nice idea. It would be even better if you could relate it your own life. For example - I use tons of custom scripts for purposes like creating automated git backups and syncing my gdrive using rclone. If you could show your students a glimpse of what you as a enthusiast could accomplish(and what they might customise someday too) it can leave a very lasting positive impression and desire to learn more in their minds.

Looks awesome! I'd put a big emphasis on piping/IO redirection (maybe move it further up the curriculum?). I find this video, when Kernighan explains some basics, just amazing: https://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0?si=3l48F_Ci9FYDkNEi

I'd also maybe move shell script basics up a bit --- like the really basic stuff. I think it really hammers home the point that the command line and a script are doing the same thing --- telling the computer what to do!

I'm not sure it's the 'right' topic to learn, but I'd want to learn about some of the terms. At least why there are so much 'Linuxes', and what is a distro. It doesn't have to be a full day, but some background is important, IMO.

+1 for the FOSS philosophy and why that's important when it comes to privacy (ie closed source crypto implementation back doors etc) + full system control, lack of spyware etc. KVM for the VM demo - keep it Linux, right? Introduce the concept of how almost everything in Linux is a file and can be read from / written to. This is important when understanding pipes. Show pipelines - logical && ie cat x | grep y | grep z. Logical || ie grep -E 'x|y|z' Useful commands like top and ps. Explain selinux and why it's a good idea.

Keyboard shortcuts, for example, CTRL a to move to the beginning of the line, or CTRL e to move to the end. These are extremely important for moving around quickly and getting things done faster, and knowing just a few basic ones make huge improvements to productivity.

https://ss64.com/bash/syntax-keyboard.html

How to access a system overview (installed hardware, memory, drivers, etc.) It doesn't have to be super detailed or interactive; I'm thinking of the System Information report available on Macs.

You should explain free software and copyleft

I would also consider having some sort of final project. It can be anything from a game server to a desktop widget

Lmao in university we had a Linux Kernel/OS - system calls class (4 months). You want to cover all of that in just 20hrs?

I happened to have put together a class curriculum for something quite similar when I was doing volunteering work at FreeGeek. This was a few years ago, but it should still be good.

https://gitlab.com/Free_Geek_PDX/command-line-guidance

Depending on your audience (don't overestimate your audience!) you might also want to have a look at the material from The Carpentries. The participatory live coding style works really nicely in workshops for minimally technical beginners. Also don't make the assignments too hard, or give multiple difficulty levels.

Yey! I know all of these.

Why not align the course with a LPI cert?

I would put shell scripting basics higher up on the list as part of the introduction to cli, because that's one of the major benefits over using a gui.

Otherwise it looks really good, maybe sprinkle some vi(m) in there, because it is the defacto default editor outside of Ubuntu and few others.

Also maybe focus more on iptools2 over the legacy commands like ifconfig, netstat etc as they are not available everywhere anymore (use ip or ss instead). It is still very useful to know both though.

Finally you should pay close attention to anti patterns like "sudo su", "ps aux | grep ...", "cat ... | grep ..." etc and make sure to teach proper usage of the tools. I have seen it way too often done wrong in beginner guides.

Before you talk CLI, I'd talk about; customizing the machine, connecting to networks, installing programs, backing up and other regular tasks.

Can I take it?

You might find good resources at https://carpentries.org/community-lessons

Looks great. Suggestions, but I only slimmed your list and did not internalize.

• I installed a thing. How do I run it? (And other fun topics.)
• How do I find a program that does X? (Grepping man pages or a internet search engine.)
• fifty ways to do a thing. (To emphasize how everyone does things differently. Most are fine, some are wrong, a few are horrifying.)

@clif @linux I think your plan is way too technical if your goal is to teach non-technical people to use Linux. For grandma it's pretty much the same as Windows - click on "Internet" to open the googles. What is your target audience and what are they trying to get from the course?

Personally, I'd enjoy if the class had an aside about how the display graphics are used to render graphics in something like Groff vs. a desktop environment like GNOME or KDE.

Also, emphasize that your students could choose vim/neovim or emacs to edit text rather than nano.