TODO: Move to gp
Concerns with existing course structure
- The online nature of the course and limited homework assignments does not encourage students to use Linux. Many students write up the C++ asignments in Visual Studio and then cross their fingers when they submit their source code.
- The topic list is at times incoherent and random
- The existing assignments are generally not fun
- Written exams is a really poor way to evaluate a student's ability to use a Unix system
Concerns with specific topics
- sed and awk may be given too much attention (one of only 4 homework assignments), given their end-user usefulness.
- Perl may not be as useful as it once was, and may not necessarily be the most appropriate scripting language to expose students with no prior Unix knowledge to.
- Python may be more future-proof and is insanely more Object-Oriented-minded
Official Linux Distro
I don't really like KNOPPIX and don't feel like it is a "realistic" distro to have students run. At the same time, we don't want to require students to repartition their hard drives and install Linux in such a way that will easily allow them to accidently wipe their existing OS and work. But we also need them to have the ability to save work any work they do in Linux and install new software.
The ideal distribution would
- Boot from a live CD on any hardware students might have
- Be easily installed to a bootable flash drive
As a fallback (e.g. can't get wifi to work), I can instruct students how to install Linux in a virtual environment (I like VirtualBox). Some suggestions I've received for the official distribution have been:
- Fedora
- Ubuntu
- openSUSE
In terms of "ease of use", one thing that was brought up at the meeting was UNetBootin (which creates bootable USB drives from major distributions' .iso's). This would require students to purchase an 8GiB or more flash drive (about $10), but would permit mounting the filesystem in write mode, thus allowing students to install new software and save their files, as well as encouraging students to actually do their work in the UNIX environment. --Weinsteinraun 13:39, 5 August 2011 (EDT)