> > or an explanation of pipes, or how to use the semi-colon on the command > line, or parentheses to make subshells, but some of those are even a little > advanced. > Yeah, subshells and an actual explanation of pipes and how they work is quite advanced... The biggest questions I have are about the best order to teach things in. > What's best -- explain the concept of a shell, or just start typing > commands? Probably the former, then go to the kernel/shell concept, then > back to commands. I think you're right. I'd start out with a little history on the shell, this doesn't have to be Bash specific. Just touch on the conception of, "The Shell". Maybe mention some stuff about how a shell is a command interpreter. It's another layer of abstraction between the operating system and the user. Mention something to the affect of shell scripting is *really* just a way of gluing together system calls, tools, utilities, and other programs. Why do we need a shell? What you can do/should do/ should not do with the shell. Mention shell limitations. How much time do you have with these students? One day? -> Jake On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:52 PM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: > Thanks, but that is way, way too advanced for the people I'll be working > with. The level should be more like "there's a 'sort' command and this is > what it does," or an explanation of pipes, or how to use the semi-colon on > the command line, or parentheses to make subshells, but some of those are > even a little advanced. These are psychology and genetics grad students. > > The biggest questions I have are about the best order to teach things in. > What's best -- explain the concept of a shell, or just start typing > commands? Probably the former, then go to the kernel/shell concept, then > back to commands. They need to know about "arguments" and "options". They > don't know anything. I know that they can make good use of sort, grep and > awk for grabbing certain info in big data files. They need to know how to > use 'less' for looking at output. Then there are gazillions more little > things that we use like cp, mv, cd, df, du, cut, paste, tr and a lot of > aliases, plus a lot more that I can't think of off the cuff. > > Like I said, I've done this before but I was hoping someone knew some good > web pages for the basics, in a step-by-step kind of layout. > > Mike > > > > On Wed, 20 Mar 2013, Jake Vath wrote: > > I, typically, point people to the Advanced Bash-Scripting >> Guide<http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/**html/ <http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/>> >> >> . >> Although the title says 'Advanced', It has a good introduction to shell >> programming (who's, what's, why's...etc). >> It also has a great section on the 'Basics' of shell scripting. >> >> I reference this guide quite ofter. >> I hope this helps. >> >> -> Jake >> >> On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 3:19 PM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> I have been doing this now and then for a long time, but resources on the >>> web are always changing and there may be lots of good new stuff. The >>> thing >>> is, there's always so much out there that it's hard to decide which >>> things >>> to use. >>> >>> I'll be teaching a group of grad students how to use our Linux server >>> next >>> Tuesday. I always start by showing the basic commands like ls, rm, >>> mkdir, >>> etc. The best thing would be to minimize class time dedicated to that >>> kind >>> of thing and give them something nice on the web that will show them a >>> lot >>> of the most useful things people do from the command prompt. There's so >>> much to know and it's hard to decide where to start and where to end. So >>> I'd like to give them something they can use to go much farther on their >>> own, for those who want to do that. >>> >>> It would be great to hear from you guys if you have some ideas about >>> good web resources for training Linux users (all using Bash shell). Thanks. >>> >> ______________________________**_________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/**mailman/listinfo/tclug-list<http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20130321/004667e2/attachment.html>