The course has started on Thursday September, 15th. 2005

If you want to join late, you can do so. Catch up to the chapter we are discussing at the moment (see below for dates). The book can be found here. You should also decide on a Linux-Distribution to use for the book and install it on a machine you have access to. Alternatively, you can get a Live-Distribution (like Knoppix, Kanotix or Ubuntu-live) and do exercises by booting Linux from CD.

Be sure to read these important posts that explain how the course will work

We read through about one section of the RUTE-Book every week. Since this will be our first trip through the book, we might squeeze two small sections into one week or spread one section out over two weeks.

This tempo should be ok for people who do the course on weekends or after work. It should also make it possible to catch up if somebody misses a week or two (think: sun, sea, sand, but no PC :)

This leads to the following dates: (Future dates are targets, not promisses!)

1. Sept, 15th: Chapter 1: Introduction and Chapter 2: Computing Sub-basics
2. Sept, 22nd: Chapter 3: PC Hardware - plus the addition Understanding the GPL
3. Sept, 29th: Chapter 4: Basic Commands
4. Oct, 6th: Chapter 5: Regular Expressions and Chapter 6: Editing Text Files
5. Oct, 13th: Chapter 7: Shell Scripting
6. Oct, 20th: Chapter 8: Streams and sed
7. Oct, 27th: Chapter 9: Processes and Environment Variables
8. Nov, 3rd: Chapter 10: Mail
9. Nov, 10th: Chapter 11: User Accounts and Ownerships and Chapter 14: Permission and Modification Times
10. Nov, 17th: Chapter 12: Using Internet Services, Chapter 13: LINUX Resources, and Chapter 16: Pre-installed Documentation
11. Nov, 24th: Chapter 15: Symbolic and Hard Links, Chapter 17: Overview of the UNIX Directory Layout/35. The LINUX File System Standard, and Chapter 18: UNIX Devices
12. Dec, 1st: Chapter 19: Partitions and optional 20: Advanced Bash Scripting
13. Dec, 8th: Chapter 21: lpd -- the Printer Service and optional 22: Trivial Introduction to C and also optional 23: Shared Libraries
14. Dec, 15th: Chapter 24: Source and Binary Packages
15. Dec, 22nd: Christmas-Break
16. Dec, 29th: Christmas-Break
17. Jan, 5th: Networking: The LBo-Tutorial plus Chapter 25. Introduction to IP, 26. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and 27. DNS and Name Resolution
18. Jan, 11th: 28. Network File System, NFS
19. Jan, 20th: Well, I am sorry. I forgot my homework… :)
20. Jan, 26th: 29. Services Running Under inetd
21. Feb, 2nd: 30. exim and sendmail
22. Feb, 9th: 31. lilo, initrd, and Booting and GRUB Grotto
23. Feb. 16th: 32. init, ? getty, and UNIX Run Levels (which includes receiving Faxes), and for those who want to try: 33. Sending Faxes
24. Feb. 23: obsolete: 34. uucp and uux and the modern equivalents: scp, ssh, rsync, …
25. March 2nd: 37. crond and atd (We already did chapter 35, and we will do apache, PostgreSQL and bind later).
26. March 9th: 39. smbd -- Samba NT Server
27. March 16th: 43. The X Window System and remote access
28. March 23rd: 40. named -- Domain Name Server - before apache → virtual hosts
29. March 30th: 36. httpd -- Apache Web Server
30. April 28th: 38. PostgreSQL Server
31. May 4th: 41. Point-to-Point Protocol -- Dialup Networking for those who need it.
32. May 11st: 42. The LINUX Kernel Source, Modules, and Hardware Support - Let’s bake a cake :)
33. May 18th: 44. UNIX Security
34. May 25th: Final Week: D. LINUX Advocacy FAQ

Everybody does the reading and experimenting whenever it fits him/her best,

The starting-date for each section has been picked to be a thursday so that:

• Those who read their mail at work (or ‘during the week’) have a chance to read the material before the weekend.
• Those who read their mail at the weekend have a ‘fresh’ lesson.

and

• everybody has a chance to glace at the material before chat on sunday 20:00 UTC (that’s afternoon in the States).

The course has been designed mostly ‘asynchronous’. That means nobody needs to be at the PC at any given time.
Everybody reads the sections in the book whenever it fits best.
Everyone asks questions via e-mail when it fits best.
Everybody answers questions via e-mail when it fits best.

The only ‘synchronous event’ that you have to be on time for is the chat, and that is NOT mandatory. IRC-chat is a nice opportunity to get in touch with other’s on a casual level. It is a great problem solver, because the respond-times are much shorter than with e-mail.
But if you miss chat (like: Sun, 20:00 UTC is your traditional familly-tea-time, or in the middle of the night at somebody’s place in the world, or an hour of online-time is expensive where you are, or whatever) that is NO problem. You will be able to follow class anyway.

— Stefan Waidele jun. 2005/08/29 12:50