* Tue, 03 Jun 2003, suse_mailing_list@jimmo.com:
On Monday 02 June 2003 00:24, Theo v. Werkhoven wrote:
--show basic ppp connect scripts and basic firewalling
Again: way beyond basic usage skills.
Here too we have a problem with Linux itself. In contrast to Windows, you don't always have the plug-n-play internet connections. Despite my experience, I got extremely frustrated getting my DSL connection working because drivers weren't included, there was no GUI or even a setup script and the documentation to set it up was spread across several web sites. Thank goodness for the SuSE mailing lists. So, just how do they connect to the intenet without this knowledge?
Be thankfull, I had to write my own PPP script from some poor written howto's and man-pages when I was playing with Slackware 2.3 in '95 Learned an awful lot in those days though, trial-and-error is a great teacher (a very expensive one too, it cost me a lot of connect "kwartjes" (quarters) before I got it right).
On the other hand, if the audience is "standard" users, you are correct that it beyond them.
--introduce basic backups to cdrom (or better if they have it) -> show them the correlation between tgz and zip, let them tgz and untgz directories
Backup in a network environment isn't something you leave up to a luser, you do that on the server with all the NFS mounts etc.
You making an assumption there that these are students who are being required by their company management to take a Linux course and that there is a IT department supporting them. All I said was "In the first stage we will be developing a course for people who are moving up from Windows to Linux. " This *could* be people in a company, but it could be a home user who does not have a personal IT department.
Ok, that's clear now.
Then repeat above 10 or 20 times, that will give them enough to get started and ask questions on maillists or the usenet as they advance.
You want ordinary desktop (office) users to start questions on mailinglists and usenet when they have a problem? Get real please, without a inhouse helpdesk and like I said a sysadmin they don't stand a chance to bring this to a successful outcome.
Maybe I am interpreting you wrong, but that is a very elitist attitude and does the exact **opposite** of what we are trying to accomplish. I see if frequently that a big complaint against Linux is the arrogant attitude that many Linux user have. "Newbies posting to our mailing list? How impertinent!"
Sorry, wasn't ment as such. I wanted to point out the fresh Linux tryers just do not know what the questions are that they seek an answer to, so they always seem to ask the "wrong" questions. That's not their fault probably, it's just that they have no idea where to begin with "smart" questions. You know aswell as I that this gives lots of friction on lists and newsgroups where most of the time more seasoned users gather.
So where do the users go who are trying to setup something at home? Are they forced to pay big buck to SuSE for that support? Just like Windows?
SuSE and others do their very best to keep them from the "source of evil" and show them the "source of knowledge", but getting new users to invest time and effort themself is increasingly difficult imho. There's nothing wrong with payed support afaic, aslong it's not forced upon.
I thought this was about teaching people what to expect in a Linux environment, you seem to want to teach them administrator skills right away.
All I said in this regard was "introductory Linux course" and not that this course "was about teaching people what to expect in a Linux environment". Depending on the length of the course, I tend to agree with Zentara that certain admin skills need to be taught, and I say *even if* they are "standard" users. For example, just understanding the concept of backups would save a lot of heartache.
It certainly helps if users grasp why it's so important to have backups. Theo -- Theo v. Werkhoven Registered Linux user# 99872 http://counter.li.org ICBM 52 13 27N , 4 29 45E. SuSE 8.2 x86 Kernel k_Athlon 2.4.20-4GB See headers for PGP/GPG info.