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posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the hungry-for-FOSS dept.

The Linux Foundation reports

We've focused a lot of attention in recent years on making Linux learning materials more accessible to more people. This year, for example, together with our partner edX, we were able to offer our Intro to Linux course for free to nearly 300,000 people from all over the world.

While the United States ranks first in the number of students taking Intro to Linux, it only represents about 30 percent of all class participants. The top geographies include the U.S., India, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Spain. Linux attracted more people with this one course than the number of people who attended all seven games of the recent World Series combined.

What's even more overwhelming is that our Intro to Linux course saw one of the highest enrollments of any class offered on edx.org this year. It's also worth noting that while MOOCs have a reputation for low completion rates among registrants, the Linux course is ranking well above the industry average. This enthusiasm and participation bodes well for the future of Linux and the many individuals getting involved.

Related:
Free Intro to Linux Course

Related Stories

Free Intro to Linux Course 30 comments

Brad Rodriguez at Goodbye, Microsoft notes

I just got word of this, from LifeHacker[1]:

Intro to Linux is normally a $2,400 course from the Linux Foundation, but it's being offered for free now on edX. If you've ever wanted to learn how to use the open source operating system, there's no better time than now.

The free course starts on August 1st, but to get the best experience from the class, you should install Linux on your computer before it starts. The Linux Foundation has a helpful guide [Ed's Note: Link unreliable, PDF] for doing just that so you can hit the ground running when the course starts in a couple of days.

The class is designed to give you a good working knowledge of Linux over 40 to 60 hours of course work. It's taught by Dr. Jerry Cooperstein, who oversees all the training content at the Linux Foundation. There's no syllabus for the course yet, but it promises to teach experienced computer users with little or no previous experience with Linux the ins and outs of the OS, from both a command line and graphical perspective.

The edX course is here.

[Expires 2015/06/17] Linux Foundation & edX Offer Second SysAdmin Course 19 comments

The Linux Foundation partnership with edX platform is expanding, and users will now get the Essentials of Linux Systems Administration (LFS201) online course.

[The Linux Foundation's courses] that help people make a career out of Linux [...] are provided in different ways, but now they are also available on edX, which is a nonprofit online learning platform launched in 2012 by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The first course was Introduction to Linux (LFS101) and the Linux Foundation says that it has been accessed by 400,000 students, which is actually a very big number. In fact, LFS101 is the biggest course on the edX platform and that says quite a lot.

"The new course, which is appropriate for those who have completed LFS101 and want to take the next step, as well as individuals who have worked in IT positions but not directly with Linux, will be offered for a fee of $499, which includes a Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator exam attempt, a $300 value which includes one free retake if not passed on the first attempt. The course will be offered at an introductory price of only $399 [until June 17]," reads the announcement for The Linux Foundation.

Related: New Linux Foundation Self-Paced Sysadmin Course to Prep you for Certification
"We Want Linux" Say 300,000 edX Students
Free Intro to Linux Course


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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:00AM (#120435)

    With Debian moving to systemd, it's clear that Linux just won't be a viable option for serious users going forward.

    FreeBSD, on the other hand, remains systemd-free, and likely will remain this way forever. Of course, FreeBSD offers so many other benefits, including excellent ZFS support and a robustness that's unmatched.

    This is a great chance for edX to really get ahead. FreeBSD is the future, and Linux is not.

    • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:06AM (#120440)

      Haha, systemd trolls are the new "Don't forget to pay your $699 licensing fee you cock-smoking teabaggers" trolls, and motivated by the same sponsor.

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:13AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:13AM (#120445)

        After having my Debian system trashed by systemd, I now wish that SCO had won that dispute and had taken stewardship of Linux. At least they wouldn't have been dumb enough to have integrated systemd.

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:23AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:23AM (#120452)

          Can somebody mod the parent comment up please?

          I think it's very insightful, actually, in an indirect way.

          Systemd has managed to piss off some people to the point that they like Sco even more than they do systemd!

          That's a pretty damning revelation, I'd say!

          Sco was universally hated by the Linux community.

          For a Linux user to say they'd prefer Sco over Debian really means something is totally wrong with Debian in every way!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:31AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:31AM (#120458)

            Keep smoking, Microsoftie...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:15AM (#120447)

      How is the suggestion that edX do a FreeBSD course "flamebait"? It sounds like a really good idea to me. I'd take that course.

      • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Couuard on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:24AM

        by Anonymous Couuard (797) on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:24AM (#120479) Journal

        The FreeBSD in the subject gets a +1
        The bullshit systemd comment in the body gets -INF

        I agree for the Good Idea on the FreeBSD course and I would take it too.

        • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:29AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:29AM (#120481)

          How's the systemd comment bullshit? I've seen enough people here comment about how they're moving from Linux to FreeBSD. I know of a number of businesses looking into it now, or actively in the process of migrating away from Linux. The topic starter is right, Linux is losing credibility because of systemd and all of the problems it has caused. Linux was once was trusted, but now it is not.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:49PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:49PM (#120682)

            It's flamebait. systemd has nothing (well, at best tangential) to do with the topic at hand, yet it was brought up in order to incite conflict and flames to disturb public order, just like shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:04AM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:04AM (#120503) Journal

          The FreeBSD in the subject gets a +1
          The bullshit systemd comment in the body gets -INF

          Well, I've personally seen no benefit from systemd, and am more than a little perturbed by the way it was foisted on the world. Still I don't think it is the cause of any lack of trust of Linux.

          Still, the Linux ecosystem has taken a hit in the last couple years. The shenanigans at Ubuntu perpetually dumbing down the interface, shellshock, and heartbleed, all on top the 4 year debacle of KDE's forced march too soon to version 4.

          The casual Linux user was not impacted by any of these, and couldn't care less about systemd.

          But a lot of long term Linux users are starting to worry, and are casting around for other solutions. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are getting second looks from a lot of these people.

          And its kind of sad, because Linux has slowly progressed to be usable for every day use over the last 5 years, and most distros have a long term support version to get you out of the re-installation every 18 months, while your workmates can run Windows-whatever for 5 years or more. Some of this is owed to breaking the MS Office juggernaut, but no small part of it is due the stability and reliability of Linux itself.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 2) by caseih on Friday November 28 2014, @03:50AM

            by caseih (2744) on Friday November 28 2014, @03:50AM (#120767)

            But Linux has always struggled to be usable for everyday desktop users. This forced march of which you speak has if anything made Linux more palatable to users used to windows or Mac. You may hate Ubuntu unity or KDE 4 but they did make strides. Of course it was really too late. The desktop no longer matters really. It's apps and infrastructure that seem to matter now. The os is just a means to an end which it should be.

            • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 28 2014, @05:39AM

              by frojack (1554) on Friday November 28 2014, @05:39AM (#120781) Journal

              Actually, I do lie=ke KDE4, its a fine system.

              But as far as the desktop being obsolete, once you step away from the couch, or the dorm room, and into corporate world, you will find the desktop, and the laptop, still rule. The Ipad may be in the CEO's hands, but those guys never bothered to touch their keyboards anyway. The real work is done on desktops, or rack mounts.

              And windows is in a state of flux and chaos right now. The perfect time for a Linux surge. Stability is what it needs now. Mint just announced a long term support release, Ubuntu has has them for some time as well.

              And the tablet craze is tapering off. Don't call the OS dead just yet.

              --
              No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:02AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:02AM (#120537)

        Because he used the word "instead", meaning he just thinks linux is not worth the course, but freebsd is. This is a topic about a linux course, coming here with that off topic crap is not acceptable. If he had said "they should do a freebsd course too" then that'd been fine atleast to me. Fuck that *bsd religious crap already.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:46AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:46AM (#120513)

      I hate systemd, but these bsdtards are even more annoying.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:50AM (#120559)

      > freeBSD

      So, to escape from red hat turning linux into a corporate distro, we should switch to a distro that has already been turned into a corporate one, by apple! LOL, well I had underestimated this troll.

      But, wait- if you defend the viability of freebsd, you defend non-systemd linux, because the two are equivalent free territory from corporate interest creep.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:39PM (#120573)

        LOL! My gosh, you couldn't be any more wrong! LOL!

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:11AM (#120443)

    I've taken some Coursera courses in the past. They were not a pleasant experience. The course material was superb, and the online system is good too, but most of the rest of the students ruined the courses for me. There are about 0.5% to maybe 2% of the students who are there to learn. The other 98% or more are there just to get the frigging PDF cert that one gets for completing the course. Of course, these students don't actually want to complete the course! They just want the cert. It's a real pain in the ass using the course discussion forums. If you're serious about the course, you have to wade through one idiotic thread and comment after another before finding one that's also from another serious student. It got to the point where if the comment had a name that was obviously Indian or Middle Eastern, I just didn't even bother to read the topic or comment. I don't think I ever found one of them that wasn't begging for deadlines to be pushed back, or begging for an exemption (but while still receiving credit!) from the assignments or exams, or otherwise asking where their cert was just a week into the class! Is edX as bad as Coursera was for this? I would consider taking this course if there was some way where I could easily have it exclude any discussion from say students who aren't located in the USA, Australia, Europe, Canada, and Japan. The students from those regions were the only ones I ever encountered who were usually serious about taking the course, and weren't just begging for a frigging PDF.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:29AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:29AM (#120457) Journal

      Just ask a qualifying question and have a bot to personally highlight only those threads that will answer the question correctly. Usually moste noise is dumb and thus easy to filter out.

      Another way is to put some secret but in plain sight keyword in the subject line. So you know directly which threads to bother with.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:41AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:41AM (#120488)

        That sounds like a lot of effort. Coursera having some way to isolate and/or ignore third-worlders would work much better.

        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday November 27 2014, @04:38AM

          by kaszz (4211) on Thursday November 27 2014, @04:38AM (#120497) Journal

          Making coursera do anything sounds like a lot of effort and frustration. :p

    • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:23AM

      by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:23AM (#120564) Journal

      I took a look at the edX registration page and turned away because when I did the first few times, it was lousy with javascript. It wasn't just many domains from edX but also a great many third-party ones. Those just don't belong on a site trying to reach a large audience, especially one that is probably going to be a little more security minded than average.

      Just now when I looked at the page again, the link to register opens up a nasty iframe that is two rows high.

      So I wonder how many more people would have taken the course had they used standard HTML without requiring javascript, no iframes or other stupidity.

      --
      Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:30PM (#120693)

        That further demonstrates just how eager those 300k folks were to access this information. ;-)

        ...and that wasn't the only gotcha mentioned here back in August. [googleusercontent.com] (orig)[1] [soylentnews.org]

        [1] #83735 has the 2nd nugget.

        -- gewg_

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:11AM (#120444)

    Linux attracted more people with this one course than the number of people who attended all seven games of the recent World Series combined.

    Yeah, by around 3%. But that isn't really much to be proud of when the 2014 World Series had the 3rd lowest TV ratings of all World Series in the last 20 years.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:18AM (#120449)

      LOL!

      What has happened to the Linux community lately? The software they produced used to be a lot better than what others were producing. But the standards have dropped so low. Debian has had a ton of problems lately, and now there's this.

      You're right, this isn't remarkable. It sounds like a total failure to me. Out of the billions of people on the Internet, they could only interest 300,000 of them with a course that's so general?! This should be seen as a disappointment, not an accomplishment.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:28AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:28AM (#120456)

        What has happened to the Linux community lately?

        The same thing that happened to the ISO/IEC committees during the OOXML debacle. They're experiencing a hostile takeover, and by the same malicious group.

        That's one of the unfortunate problems with being open. They're vulnerable to being "embraced" by people who have no intention of keeping to the spirit and intent of the community.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:23AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:23AM (#120472)

        ...or are simply a shill.
        You're definitely not looking in the right places.

        TAILS is awesome and they recently made a new release.
        No footprints left behind after you have used that box.
        Point to anything non-Linux that compares.

        antiX continues to work on near-nothing hardware.
        Point to anything other than Linux that has current support and will run an a Lose9x-era box.

        Munich's city fathers handed out thousands of $0 Ubuntu disks to folks whose eXPee installs went EoL.

        From this week:
        We have a winner! Fresh Linux Mint 17.1--hands down the best [theregister.co.uk]
        (Long-term support till April 2019.)

        Linux is doing just fine.
        There are still lots of excellent choices.

        -- gewg_

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:36PM (#120650)

          Disregard that, I suck dicks.

          -- gewg_

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:56PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:56PM (#120684)

            I won't question your confession that you suck dicks, but you're not gewg_.
            You're just another coward who won't sign his own name.

            -- gewg_

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:12PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:12PM (#120708)

              He did sign his name. His name is clearly "gewg_".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:26AM (#120454)

      No, they went by in-person attendance at the games. The WS sold out all seven games, in fact there was standing room attendance, but the stadiums in San Francisco and Kansas City have capacities of about 40,000. (The newer baseball stadiums have smaller capacities than football stadiums to maintain the intimacy of the viewing experience).

      So it's a silly metric for the Linux Foundation to be using.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:22AM (#120471)

        No, they went by in-person attendance at the games.

        Yes, I know. I can actually read English. The total in-person attendance was around 291000 people. So as I stated in my post the gap between that number and the attendance of this class was only around 3% or something not that significant. But my entire point is that this was one of the 3rd least cared about World Series in the last 20 years so it's even less to be proud of.

    • (Score: 2) by hubie on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:45AM

      by hubie (1068) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:45AM (#120473) Journal

      So how many football fields would hold all those people?

      • (Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:04AM

        by rts008 (3001) on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:04AM (#120562)

        Depends on how high you stack the the corpses....

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:21AM (#120451)

    I know, I know, I could file this bug report using GitHub, but I have moral and ethical problems with that service, so I just don't use it.

    Well, here's the bug report:

    When I view all comments at -1 or when I go to reply to a comment, the "Free Intro to Linux Course" link at the bottom of the comment is all fucked up. It links to https://soylentnews.org/__SLASHLINK__ [soylentnews.org] instead of whatever the real link is.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:44AM (#120462)

      When I view all comments at -1

      Cannot duplicate.

      when I go to reply to a comment

      Yeah, that one is a problem.
      It also fails if you want to see just one comment (a subthread).

      soylentnews.org/__SLASHLINK__

      There has been an ongoing problem with Slashcode auto-altering links to S/N pages when those are in a summary.
      The coders are making incremental improvements, but there are still bugs to be squashed.

      -- gewg_

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:45AM (#120512)

      I see this also. Kudos for reporting it and for dissing github.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:17PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:17PM (#120599) Homepage Journal

      Dissing github is all fine and good but next time drop a note in IRC with my nick in the report so it pings me, or email dev@soylentnews.org or themightybuzzard@soylentnews.org if you would. I absolutely do not have time to read every comment on every article and still get any coding done. I would have completely missed this one if not for Bytram bringing it up in IRC on turkey day morning.

      Anyway, thanks for the report. I know exactly what's going on and it's full on My Bad for not parsing slashized links for the new article/journal/poll/etc review area above reply pages. The links should be proper everywhere right up until you hit Reply. It may stay bugged through December though because our next release most likely isn't going to happen until January because of the holidays and Life.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:16PM (#120710)

        There needs to be an easier way of reporting bugs here. Some way that doesn't involve creating an account of any type. I don't have a GitHub account, I don't have an email account, and I'm not going to use IRC.

        I don't expect you or any of the other admins or devs to read every comment, of course. That's why there should be a bug submission form linked to from the home page that anyone can use to anonymously submit bug reports. It can email you or whoever else should get notified. It could maybe even create a GitHub ticket. But it needs to be easily accessible, and most importantly, not require an account of any sort to use.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:24PM

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:24PM (#120600) Journal

      Thanks for reporting this!

      It's been reproduced on our development system, and working with TheMightyBuzzard, reproduced.

      Unfortunately, it looks like it requires a code update and that won't occur on the main site until January. (see TheMightyBuzzard's journal entry: 14.12 Update [soylentnews.org].)

      Given the nature of the bug, it may also manifest in Journals and polls.

      Again, thanks for letting us know!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @04:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @04:08PM (#120629)

      Just look at this thread, this is why I love SN.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:49AM (#120514)

    They could even offer a companion course intro to userland with it.

  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:25AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:25AM (#120541) Homepage

    Linux attracted more people with this one course than the number of people who attended all seven games of the recent World Series combined.

    Uh... what?

    Why don't you just give us the number? I have literally no idea how many people might have attended those games.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:02AM (#120553)

      I actually have no idea what the "recent World Series" refers to.

      • (Score: 2) by jimshatt on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:49AM

        by jimshatt (978) on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:49AM (#120558) Journal
        "Seven Games of the Recent World", namely "Olympic Games, Hunger Games, World of Warcraft, Minesweeper, Game of Thrones, Monopoly and Russian Roulette".
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:07PM (#120689)

        It's an Americanism.
        Only USA teams are in the running, with the best 2 qualifying to compete for the "world" championship of Baseball (best of 7 games).

        It's like having a "Miss Universe" contest and only allowing 1 species from 1 planet to enter.

        -- gewg_

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:19PM (#120644)
      Maybe the numbers aren't that important or big?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:39PM (#120652)

      Why don't you just give us the number? I have literally no idea how many people might have attended those games.

      That's the point, they want to make it sound like a number that could be large without saying exactly what it is.