[ILUG] Linux courses

[Jeroen Massar]

Leo wrote:
> There are lots of documents and manuals available on the Internet but a
> hands on tutorial with a teacher is sometimes much better. A simple
> example: I wanted to set up an FTP server on one of the machines on our
> LAN. A friend advised against this and suggested putting winscp on the
> windows machines, and using fish on the Linux machines. Something that I
> would not have looked up on Google.

In this day and age one would say: Wiki Time!

There is no real way to 'learn' those things in a course anyway, it is
much better to be able to know the right places to look for and what
questions to ask. As such: shout on the mailing list. The above question
I would most likely have answered the same, though it also depends (hey
that nice word again) on what exactly you want to achieve of course, if
you need anonymous or accountless logins the SCP is more or less not
done. Then again that problem seems mostly to be solved with HTTP
nowadays. FTP, except for large file transfers, seems to be quite dead.
Some of these things are tips and tricks that one learns by doing it.

Of course next to the mailinglist, popping in on the IRC channel is also
 really helpful, for the person asking questions and also the other
people in the channel, as one will read along and will discuss if one
doesn't like what is being said.

> I have also been looking for a couple of Linux courses but found the
> cost to be prohibitive; they look as if they were geared at (rich)
> companies willing to pay for their employees to attend.

Of course they are, as those also have the "stupid" people who would pay
for them and who actually need them. That said, you most likely won't
learn much from them anyway.

> Alessio Porcacchia suggested that he would be willing to give a class or
> two. I could imagine ILUG members meeting let's say once a month with
> one member giving a lecture/class. The venue would be a problem, but if
> people could bring their own laptops it doesn't need to be anywhere fancy.

Come up with a list of questions and I am pretty sure there are enough
people who are able to answer them. For bigger subjects like "how to
configure your own mail server with anti spam etc", an hour or so intro
to it might be handy for some people, though in general, google for it
and you will actually find it on the web.

Of course, it depends again, for what one is setting it up and how and
what one prefers etc etc etc....

Greets,
 Jeroen