Why should we teach students Linux??

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Tue, 2007-03-06 at 18:40 +0100, Roel Bindels wrote:
> Leon Goldstein schreef:
> > Roel Bindels wrote:
> > 
> >> Hello listers,
> >>
> >> I'm tutor on the Faculty ICT, department NID. This is a bachelor degree
> >> and we are preparing our students to become something more then just
> >> System Administrators (such as manager, consulting, etc....). Since this
> >> department is part of the Microsoft camp, the students are educated
> >> mostly in this direction, which I think is not a bad thing. A better
> >> thing would be if we could give our students the opportunity to meat
> >> both the systems on the same level, at least, that is my opinion.
> >>
> >> To change a curriculum of a study, I need a solid case. So if somebody
> >> knows a link/document about why we should educate our students in the
> >> Linux OS, please send it. Or article about the usage of Linux in company's.
> >>
> >> I hope you will all take some time to send me your best links/documents.
> >>
> >> with best regards
> >>
> >> Roel Bindels
> >>
> >>
> >>  
> >>
> > About eight years ago one of my students (Cambell U. NC) went on to get 
> > a MS in Library Science.  He told me he had to take a course in UNIX 
> > because the library cataloging system was UNIX based.  I don't know if 
> > that is still the case.
> > 
> > Of course, the obvious advantage in using Linux is recovering files from 
> > corrupted Windows installations.
> > 
> Ok thanks Leon,
> 
> That is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for.
> 
> One major plus I think in teaching Linux instead of MS is the large
> choice of file systems like reiserfs and ext2/3. This kind of diversity
> is the big plus.
> 
> So more examples are welcome ....

We were just trying to hire a software developer that knew (had at least
heard of - experience was flexible)  C, assembler, embedded systems,
measurement transducers, scripting languages, FPGA. That sort of thing.
We were looking for a newly educated person so that we could form their
opinions on how we want things done :)
Just about every applicant said that, instead, they knew ASP, .NET,
Excel, Access. If it did not have a GUI, they were lost. They had heard
of Linux, but were surprised to encounter a real user. It took a very
long time to find someone. There is simply more to using a computer than
what familiarity with MS OS brings to the table.

-- 
Roger Oberholtzer

OPQ Systems / Ramb?ll RST

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