Linux course and NEU (eg. Northeastern)

[jullrich at euclidian.com (Johannes Ullrich)]

> In light of the Linux on the Desktop, I'd like to elicit some ideas on
> how to set up an 11 week syllabus. In the past, I've taught courses that
> already had some previous syllabus, but on this one, I may need to
> develop from scratch. 

Well, whats the audience and whats the goal? 
SMB sysadmins that are tasked to role out Linux on the desktop
for their company?
In this case, I would consider covering:

- Installation. In particular how to build your own scripts
to automate this ('kickstart'?)
- Licensing. What you can / can not do with Linux. Why do
you want (or do you not want) to pay for various Linux software
- Different distros. What is different 
- basics of shell/scripting
- Windows interoperability (Samba, fat/vfat partitions, dual boot,
vmware, wine)
- Migration strategies.
- walk through of KDE/Gnome (unlike other suggested, I would probably
skip the other windows managers for a "desktop" course). But maybe
add Ximian Dekstop
- OpenOffice
- Evolution
- Networking.(big topic... setup, services, security.)
- centralized system management techniques (ssh, up2date, syslog, amanda
or other backup techniques like via rsync, ntp)

combine these random ramblings with the topics suggested by others and
you will have a great course ;-)


I think a course like this should focus on essentially the "switch"
crowd. People that are used to windows but are willing to come to the
other side. Don't overwhelm them with 'geek' stuff.



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