Report on Cairo University beginner's course

• Volunteers who participate in this event:

• (Conceptor) Diaa Radwan

• Marwa Youssef

• The GNU/Linux Course was a 3 days course every session was 4 hrs.

• There were about 40 of the SSTE members and the university students to attend this course so we had to divide the course into 2 courses we were going to make the second course later but we had to make it the next week Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday as the supervisor Dr.prof Mahmoud Taher El-Hadedy meet us the last day and thanked EGLUG for this course and asked us to finish the course urgently within these 2 weeks so we didn't want to dissappoint him, In the first course there were 20 attendee and the rest of them will attend the upcoming course .

Here are the outlines of the course

First day Tuesday 26 - 7 - 2005 from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm

We introduce to them an overview and an introduction about FOSS and GNU/Linux..

• Who we are and What is EGLUG.
• Introduction and overview about GNU/Linux.
  • Historical reviews
    • Important and major events in the development of GNU/Linux starting from 1969 till 1991.
  • The Birth of Free Software
    • About Richard M. Stallmen
    • The four freedoms
  • GNU is not Unix
    • A complete users work space programs
    • All Free Software
    • Unix like
    • Use existing components
    • Free software foundation
    • GNU development tools
  • What is Linux
    • A Unix Free operating system
    • Created from scratch
    • Free of minix code released linux as an alternative to minix
    • Open development process
    • anyone can contribute
  • What is Linux core (Kernel)
    • Perform many low level and system level functions
    • Communicates with hardware
    • Developed by developers around the world
    • Capable of running on tiny embedded system (PDAs, Robots, DSL routers)as well as the largest mainframes
  • Why Choose Open Source
    • Open Source is Flexible
    • Open Source is Inexpensive
    • Open Source developers are motivated
    • Better Security and fewer Bugs
    • The code will survive
    • You can contribute
  • Linux System architecture
    • User applications
    • Linux based operating system
    • Shell
    • Linux Kernel
    • Hardware
  • Process handling
  • Linux File system
    • Everything is a file
    • File Tree
    • Ext2 Filesystem
    • Ext3 the journalized file system
    • There are many filesystems and the default differs from one distribution to another

• The installation
• What we covered in the installation session:
  • What we need in order to install GNU/Linux
  • How to boot the machine in order to install linux
  • Security levels
  • Partitioning
    • Which choice to choose in according to their computers
      • Use Free Space.
      • Erase entire disk
      • Use the free space that is available on the windows partitions
      • Custom disk partitioning
  • Why to Use Ext3
  • How to make the needed partitions and why do i need them
    • /
    • Swap
    • /home
  • Package selection
  • Adding User accounts
    • Root User
      • What is the Root user
      • Creating the Root user
      • Setting its password
    • Adding ordinary User accounts
      • What are the normal or ordinary users
      • Setting passwords
  • Boot loader
  • Configurations
    • Country, time, and date .
    • Detecting sound card, keyboard and mouse
    • Network
    • Monitor card detection and setting the resolution
  • Reboot

Second day Wednesday 27 - 7 - 2005 from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm

In this session we introduces to them the GNU/Linux Operating system as an environment and how they can easily use it and deal with it using the GUI (Graphical User Interface)

• X structure
  • What is the X server and why to use it and what does it do
• Several Desktop environments
  • KDE
  • GNOME
  • Other Desktop choices

• Using the applications
  • Office Applications
    • Wordprocessors
      • OpenOffice Writer
      • OpenOffice Math
      • AbiWord
      • LyX
    • SpreadSheets
      • OpenOffice Calc
      • Gnumeric
    • Presentations
      • OpenOffice Impress
    • Drawing
      • OpenOffice Draw
    • Graphs
      • Kivio
    • Publishing
      • Xpdf
      • Scribus
      • KGhostView
    • Task management
      • Planner
    • Time management
      • KOrganizer
      • Kalarm
    • Communications
      • Kphone
      • Kfax
      • Kdeprintfax
      • Kpilot
      • Kandy
    • Accessories
      • Kcalc
      • GNOME Dictionary
      • Kdict
      • Knotes
      • Unicode Character Map
    • Address Books
      • Address Manager
  • Internet Applications
    • Remote Access
      • KPPP
      • KPPP -Log Viewer
      • Virtual network connection
    • Web browsers
      • Mozilla
      • Konqueror
      • Epiphany bookmarks editor
      • Epiphany Web browser
    • Mail
      • Kontact
      • Evolution
      • Kmail
    • Instant Massaging
      • aMSN
      • Kopete
    • News
      • KNode
      • Pan
    • File Transfer
      • KBear
      • gFTP
      • Smb4K
    • Video Conference
      • Gnomemeeting
    • Web Editors
      • Mozilla Composer
      • Quanta Plus
  • Multimedia
    • Sound
      • KsCD
      • Kmix
      • Xmms
      • Beep media player
      • KAudiocreator
    • Video
      • KmPlayer
      • Kaffiene
      • MPlayer
    • Graphics
      • The GIMP
      • Ksnapshot
  • More Applications
    • Accessability
      • Kmagnifier
      • Kmouth
      • on-screen keyboard
      • Xmag
    • Development
    • Documentation
      • Howtos in english
      • Mandrakelinux Documentation in english
    • Editors
      • Emacs
      • Kwrite
    • Finances
      • GnuCash
    • Games

Third day Thursday 28 - 7 - 2005 from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm

This session was a comand line session but we couldn't make it all a command line session as they wanted to know more about applications as they were completely beginners so we had to say just the essential commands that are frequently used and they tried some applications from the previous day

• The System
  • How to install Packages and how to uninstall them
  • Configuration
    • Desktop Configuration
    • Boot and init
    • KDE
    • Hardware
    • Computer Configuration
  • User administration
  • File tools
    • Searching for files and finding them
  • How to use the terminals
    • Just a little introduction on how to deal with the terminal Pseudo terminals
    • How to switch between virtual terminals and how to use them

• Why Command line is powerful
• When a command is executed , what is going on?
• What are the components of Linux command line user environment?
  • Kernel
  • Shell
  • Terminal emulator
• Basic Unix system concepts
• Running Commands
  • How to write the commands and what is the command syntax
  • Some of the most popular commands that are usually used
• How to get help when you are in front of the terminal
  • Info Pages
  • Man Pages
• Virtual and Pseudo consoles
• Command line completion