Fall 2008 SPR720 Weekly Schedule

The tentative weekly schedule shown here is subject to change.

Week 1 (Sept 1) - Intro to Open Source / Command-line Basics

• Course introduction
• Introduction to Open Source and Linux
• Introduction to/Review of the command line
  • Why use the command line?
  • Accessing the command line locally and remotely
    • terminal programs
    • ssh
  • Command recall and editing
• Linux Commands
  • Builtin vs. external
  • Types of arguments
    • Option
    • Positional
    • Option with value
• Filesystem hierarchy
• Accessing Documentation
  • manpages
  • info
  • Documentation viewers
• TODO
  • Set up your accounts as described on the LUX Communication page.
  • Complete the SPR720 Command Lab and blog about the experience.

Week 2 (Sept 8) - Bash Scripting Basics I

Announcements/discussion/review:

• Blogging guidelines
• Louis Suarez-Potts - Thursday Sept 11 2:15 pm
• Paul Frields - IRC chat Sept 11 5-6 pm
• Review: shell, commands, arguments

The Fedora Project

• What is a distribution?
• Main functions of a distribution
  • Packaging
  • Integration
  • Testing/QA
  • Distributing (mirrors, media)
• The Fedora Distribution
  • History
  • Community structure
  • Participating in the Fedora community
    • FAS2, mailing lists, wiki

Bash Scripting Basics

• Filesystem hierarchy
  • Absolute paths: start with / indicating the root directory
  • Relative-to-home paths: start with ~ indicating a home directory
  • Relative paths: start with anything else, relative to "current" directory
• Creating a script
  • Putting commands in a file
  • The shebang line: #!/bin/bash
  • Permissions
    • Three communities: user-group-other
    • Three permissions: read-write-execute
      • Permissions on directories
    • Symbolic and octal notation
    • chmod command
      • Relative notation: [augo][+-=][rwxX][,[...]]
    • ls -l command
• Redirection
  • Standard file descriptors
    • stdin (0)
    • stdout (1)
    • stderr (2)
    • Mind bender: how does less get keyboard input?
  • Output redirection: > >>
  • Input redirection: < <<
  • Cloning
  • Pipes
    • Filter programs
• Result codes
• Flow control (part 1): if/then/else/fi

IRC Session: Paul Frields

Paul Frields is the Fedora Project Leader. He will be meeting with us in freenode:#seneca from 5-6 pm on Thursday (Sept 11) during the SPR720 lab time.

Week 6 (Oct 6) - RPM Scripts

Guest speaker: Andrew Overholt

Andrew Overholt works at Red Hat's Toronto office on Eclipse.