I would say get them basic skills first: --have them install a system which boots to the commandline --have them setup the X server with different window managers --show them how to use mc --introduce them to "hello world scripts" in bash and perl -> introduce them to init and the boot.local - autoexec.bat correlation --show them the basic routine for compiling c source: -> configure, make, make install --show basic ppp connect scripts and basic firewalling --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
This sounds like an ideal "first steps" course. You could really stretch this to a full week - well, four days at least, of actual classroom training. The only thing I would add would be to include using bzip2/bunzip2 for backups. Since current Gnu versions (at least) of tar include the "j" option as well as the "z" option, this just makes sense. -- John LeMay KC2KTH Senior Enterprise Consultant NJMC | http://www.njmc.com | Phone 732-557-4848 Specializing in Microsoft and Unix based solutions