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by plongeur
4081 days ago
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I began the course last time it was offered on edX. And I didn't like this course at all. In my opinion it was pretty inefficient with regards to presentation of information, motivation of students, integration and realization of interactive lessons. And that struck me as surprising given how often they emphasize how much experience they have with teaching. I took multiple edX and coursera classes from Alpha to Omega and this was one of the worst. If you want to learn Linux - it's actually really simple: 1. Install Ubuntu (really easy) 2. IF you have a problem THEN Google it END |
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I tried learning Linux since the mid-2000s and failed every time up until recently. I even followed your advice to the letter. I would install Ubuntu and just played with the default apps and tried downloading some other stuff but quickly got bored because I wasn't learning anything and I wasn't doing anything productive on it. Everything I learned I learned in the first day of two of usage. It was that simple. I would always end up booting back into Windows regularly and reclaiming the disk space when I needed it. Then I'd repeat the process a year later.
I finally actually started to get Linux around early 2013 when I decided to try learning again but this time I had something useful to use it for: programming. I've been programming on Windows and wanted to try building software on Linux. Now I had a need to learn my way around bash and all the utilities found within it. I've also taken Intro to Linux course when it was offered on edX last year and although I can't say it was the greatest course I've ever taken it definitely would have helped me out a ton when I started using Ubuntu for my programming.
In fact, it is the best resource I've come across for learning Linux a beginner can find simply because it gives you a good idea of what working with Linux is like for a variety of perspectives. It's got a bit talking about working with text editors (both gui and cli based), a bit talking about users and groups, chapters covering the basics super-useful utilities like grep that you really ought to know exists.
My favorite thing I learned from the course was the `apropos` utility which searches the man pages. One of the worst problems I've had with Linux was remembering the name of some program that did something useful. Now I can just type `apropos pdf` to find a brief description of all programs that have the word pdf in their man page description. Super useful when your searching for that pdf file splitter or merger you used a blue moon ago but can't remember its name.
In fact, I don't think I've ever bothered with man pages up until I've taken this course. Now I do a whole lot less Googling and more fending for myself.
Sorry, this went on for too long but I think my point is clear; you're probably not going to learn much if you just install Ubuntu and this course (in my opinion) has incredible value for a beginner.