EdX: Introduction to Linux

I recently completed the course “Introduction to Linux” by the Linux Foundation on the edX platform. Instead of paying 2500USD for the course you now can pay 250USD for a verified certificate, or simply get an honor certificate.

https://www.edx.org/course/linuxfoundationx/linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-introduction-1621#.U-YKjfmSyyY

Course Structure

The course is self-paced, you can take the exam any time and at the end of the month, the certificate is going to be issued.

Course Materials

Unlike other edX courses, most of the materials are short articles covering the core topics. There are short videos, however, they are mostly useless.

Learning Objectives

Sadly the first couple of Lessons are more like Advertisements that Linux is great and that Linux is used everywhere and being able to use Linux is an important skill. The rest of the course covers the basic operations when interacting with a Linux system. The course briefly takes a look at the graphical interfaces of three major Linux distributions Ubuntu, CentOS and openSUSE. As expected most of the course covers how to interact with the Console covers the basic interaction with the console, file operations, security principles, text manipulation and concluding with bash scripting.

Final Exam

The final exam is a 30 question multiple choice test. Sadly some questions are easier to be answered using Google than the actual course material. People with a basic understanding of Linux could just skip the entire course and just take the exam. It’s rather straightforward.

Conclusion

The course is a great introduction to the Linux System. The course is designed for IT-Specialists (Programmers, Web-Developers, and Administrators etc.) that have not worked with Linux and need a quick introduction how to work with the system. Sadly with the emphasis on using the console most users interested in using Linux as an alternative to Windows/OSX will simply say “Oh god, what a hassle, I’ll stick to my current system.” Once again Linux does not realize that GUIs have been invented to solve an issue where most people find it confusing when they do not see what they are doing. Most users interacting with a computer are not aware that it is possible to interact with a computer without GUI, telling those users that sometimes you simply do not have a GUI confuses them. Most of the success of Linux as the core of Android is the GUI and that users have a simple way installing programs and are not able to access any console/text only mode. Once again the core of Linux is great, however, the presentation and usability are that what is lacking.