00: Planning Notes for LUnixTHW

NOTE: I'm now doing Learn Unix the Hard Way Live Streams every Tuesday @ 9pm EST (GMT-05) to develop the course further. You can come, watch me develop new exercises, and ask me questions or get live help.

I'm working out the outline for the course and want people who will attend to get a sense of my process and what I'm teaching. If you have feedback on the topics so far please use the bug button in the header to let me know your thoughts. Here's the current outline as of Jan 8, 2024. Feedback more than welcome from Linux professionals or students. Just keep in mind that this course is meant to be all the things you need before learning about automation like Docker.

Module 1: Basics

This will get you installing Linux a bunch of times, learning how to use the shell, figuring out where things are, and other basics of Unix theory. We'll use Alpine Linux in a virtual machine so you can quickly install and learn Linux without breaking your machine. Alpine is a very simple "classic" version of Linux that will work well for this task. An alternative will be using Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux for those people who prefer to keep it even simpler.

Module 2: Services

This module will cover manual configuration of basic services, since if you can manually configure it then when you use automation like Docker it becomes easier to debug or modified what's being installed.

Module 3: Security

This module will then get into simple security configuration. The security recommended will be the 20% of configurations that give you the 80-90% security from most dumb external attackers, and then explain how--if someone really wants your box--you're screwed.

Development Plan

I plan to change how I make courses in 2024 because what I've been doing hasn't really been very productive. In the past I would think, and think, and think about a course and then eventually years later write the whole thing in a month. Rather than do that I want to build the curriculum slowly over the course of a year, and utilize live streams to get feedback from students as I go.

I'll announce a streaming schedule and will plan on releasing about 1 lesson a week for people to watch and attempt. I'll then take feedback from students on how the lesson works or does not work and fix it up before continuing on with the next one. You don't have to attend the live sessions as I'll be posting edited videos to each lesson after they're done.

The Unix course will also be structured differently from the other courses. It will be primarily video heavy, with the exercise text being notes about the video, important links to tools and documentation you need, and additional study topics to research. This format will work better for Unix since it's a highly interactive subject that is easier to understand when you see it done in a video, rather than read streams of commands without interactivity.

As usual, join the discord to talk to me about the course while I'm working on it.