Exam of Linux Basics 15 – Spring 2011

There are almost two hours of time.

Rules briefly

Forbidden: Two-way communication, any items not specifically allowed, speaking without permission, looking others monitors.
Forbidden: Paper notes, mobile phones, logging in to anything else but the local computer.
Allowed: Browsing public web, using search engines



Background

Welcome! You are the new CTO (chief technological officer) in CodeMonkey Ltd. CodeMonkey offers turnkey solutions to all your programming needs, offline and online.
Your company has 7 employees: Jorma Mähkylä, Pekka Hurme, Ronaldo Smith, Håkan Petersson, Jim Jones, Einari Vähäkäähkä, CEO Eija Väntäri.

Web

Create a sample homepage for Pekka Hurme and Ronaldo Smith on your local web server.

Leave all homepages open on tabs after the exam.

Coders

Enable PHP and create a sample PHP page to Pekka Hurme.
CodeMonkey Ltd also codes in Python. Create a sample Hello World (in a file) to Pekka Hurme’s home directory. Run it, and leave a terminal open showing it run.

Remote access

All users want to access the computer remotely from various countries. Make it possible for users to access the system remotely. Write brief instructions how users can remotely login to this system (command line) and transfer files (command line or gui). Users are using a Linux system on their own computers. Do tests on your computer that show these services working.

After the exam, leave on your screen the instructions for remote access. Also leave on screen examples of remote file transfer and remote command line working.

Feedback

Leave feedback as a comment in the bottom of this page.
I’d like to know

  • Did you learn something?
  • Is it usefull to you?
  • How do you plan to use your skills after the course?
  • How could the course be improved?
  • How was the test?
  • Would you recommend this course to your friends or collegues?

and the course code or name. You can also tell me other things that pop into your mind. Your feedback is highly valuable to me.

The End – Loppu

Verify that you have

  • Returned hard drive (and saw that it was marked returned)
  • All required documents and tests open on your screen
  • Your name and student number is on the documents
  • Your screen is unlocked and your saver will not lock screen
  • You have left feedback
  • You have your ID with you

Thanks for the course!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

14 Responses to Exam of Linux Basics 15 – Spring 2011

  1. Vu Thanh Bao Quyen says:

    I learned a lot in the course. It was very useful. Although I’m not an IT student, I think I’ll probably run into Linux someday as long as I intend to work here in Finland. So getting the basic ideas of it wouldn’t hurt. The course was awesome, I may think of studying more of IT stuffs, esp Linux stuffs. But anyway, it was a good start. I did recommend this course to a friend and he’ll probably enroll for it next term.

  2. Laura Niemelä says:

    I think the course Linux Basics was excellent. I learned a lot during these 8 weeks, but I still hungry for more. I think I learned the basics and now I can also search help from internet by the right way. Thanks For the course.

  3. Lasse Repo says:

    Hey-o, here’s my feedback on the course:
    Q: Did I learn anything?
    A: Did I ever. I’ve only ever just briefly used Linux before when forced to (few of my friends have the OS on their computers) and knew practically nothing apart from cd and ls in the CLI. I think it’s safe to say that I know a lot more now.
    Q: Is it useful for you?
    A: I kinda think it is. I mean, when working, I’m going to run into Linux systems sooner rather than later. Not to mention that now, thanks to this course, I have installed a cool new server at home I can try all kinds of tricks on, which will help me even more in the long run.
    Q: How do you plan to use your skills after the course?
    A: Not sure yet. I will, like I said earlier, probably run into Linux systems in the real world, so there’s that. Also I think I’ll keep tinkering around with it, and maybe look into open source development too.
    Q: How the course could be improved?
    A: Not sure about this one. There wasn’t all that much I knew about Linux before, so I can’t even begin to guess if we’ve covered all the essentials here. But I guess there could be more implementations of the course or a bigger lab for the implementations if possible.
    Q: How was the test?
    A: Surprisingly tricky. Challenging in a way. Though I really liked that we could use the most common tool, the internet, for the exam.
    Q: Would you recommend this course to your friends or colleagues?
    A: Yeah. Definitely. Unless they already know how to use Linux well enough. But otherwise, yeah. This has been one of the more interesting courses in a while, in my mind.

  4. Benyam says:

    It was really nice course when i started i really thought it was just a basic lniux course wit installation and checking the operating system but after i took the course i really learned a lot of things and i am thankful for that may be something to be corrected will be if we get enough materials

  5. Atikul islam says:

    this was a gr8 course.lots of thing have learned in future i wish some day i will be using linux in my personal computer!

  6. Jari Kuivaniemi says:

    Erittäin hyvä kurssi, kiitokset!

  7. Asif Iqbal says:

    The course was so nice and i have learned a lot during this course but it was too fast for a beginner like me. I would prefer this course would be full semester and some more credits.

  8. Titta says:

    Did you learn something?
    En ennen ollut käyttänyt Linux käyttöjärjestelmää, joten kurssi oli erittäin mielenkiintoinen. Opin käyttämään Linuxia yllättävän nopeasti ja olen kiinnostunut oppimaan lisää tulevaisuudessakin. Olen asentanut Linuxin myös kotiin yhdelle koneelle ja ehkä tulevaisuudessa otan käyttöön oman apache webserverin.
    Is it usefull to you?
    Työnpuolesta en tiedä, mutta yksityisesti kyllä.
    How was the test?
    Tuli aika kiire.
    Would you recommend this course to your friends or collegues?
    Kyllä, niille jotka ovat kiinnostuneet opimaan käyttämään Linuxia.

  9. Irina Shapovalova says:

    * Did you learn something?
    I learnt a lot! Being a very basic user of Ubuntu I have obtained a more profound knowledge and realized that there is so much to explore.
    * Is it usefull to you?
    I would have not enrolled to the course if I did not find it useful. I alsready could solve some small noob problems with my home computer simply by using command line. Thanks for that!
    * How do you plan to use your skills after the course?
    I am not an IT student, so it very unlikely that I am going to work as a network administrator, still I plan to read and practice more. In my private life these skills would be also useful.
    * How could the course be improved?
    Sometimes in discussions with more advanced students it was hard to follow, as the conversation speed went too fast, though I can’t say that it is ultimately bad, becasue the amount of information given that way is substantial.
    Quite a lot of time was dedicated to homeworks, which is a good point. Probably, more practice tasks during the class would be reasonable to implement, as at home too much time may be spent for solving some stupid problem, finding an error, etc, which could be pointed out by the teacher to enhance the learning process.
    Personal feedback on homeworks could also be useful.
    * How was the test?
    It was fine, not too deep, referred to the most important topics, without “optional extra difficult tasks”. Time was limited. Bad thing is that the notes were not allowed to use.
    * Would you recommend this course to your friends or collegues?
    Definitely, to those who are interested in IT, and have at least some idea of what is Open Source (as others might not even pass the pre-exam).

  10. Alina Ronin says:

    Dear Tero,
    Personal:
    It probably would sound stupid, but this is the way I feel myself at the moment. I was absolutely unprepared for the Linux Basics Exam or at least not prepared in a proper way. At the same time I am completely aware of the fact that this is purely my fault. I should have done the home work on time and should have practiced more.
    The thing is that it takes tremendous amount of time, at least for me. I purely underestimated the difficulty of the course, since I thought it is basic course and should not be difficult to manage. Additionally, only at the very end I realized what kind of approach I should have used for the lectures in order to make the most of them. This course is not compulsory for me (I am MUBBA student). I am able just to drop it and to take any other one for the credit purposes. But I got myself hooked on the topic and your approach to the teaching. Besides, I am very stubborn. I came to the exam just to see what it is like, although I suspect that the eventual mark will be zero, hopefully not minus something.
    The purpose of all the previous mumble-jumble and the bottom line is what would you recommend to me in case of failure? To take this course at the different time or to drop it and not to waste limited resource, which may be used for somebody gifted.
    General:
    The course is extremely useful and knowledgeable, 😀 providing all home work is done on time:D. The only improvement I would suggest to let somebody record you and to put lectures on-line, since you are too quick, at least for me and I regret that it didn’t occurred to me to record all your lectures at the very beginning. I would have something to refer to whilst I practicing and lost:) .
    Yours Sincerely,
    Alina Ronin

  11. Aleksandra Voroshilova says:

    It was very useful, interesting and very well-done. Test was not that hard but something went so wrong for me.. I am still sure that a learned a lot
    I would recommend this course for anyone. There are lot of interesting staff, not only theory.
    It lasts 4 hours on Friday and I even wasn’t falling asleep on the theory as it usually happens with me))
    I would like to take Linux Advanced Course if there will be some on English
    Thanks Tero a lot!!

  12. Benyam says:

    i know there are enough notes on your home page but not easy to find everystep to do the assignments but that helped me to dig more so i dont know if i put it as posetinve or negative but i give the course a grade 5 out of 5
    Excellently done
    Thank you

  13. On this course I’ve learned what is Ubuntu. Never before I didn’t used it. Classes where very interesting. At home I have Ubuntu on my computer and I am planning to use it in future. It is better then present windows 7. I would recomend this course to all of my friends. Thanks!

  14. Thanks for participating the exam!
    – Quit/kill programs with ctrl-C (ping), q (less), ctrl-X (nano). Not with ctrl-Z, that just freezes the process in the background.
    – Don’t use sudo under /home (or in front of normal commands like ssh)
    – Create users with ‘adduser tero’. In the easy command, verb (add…) goes first. Use lowercase, max 8 char user names.
    – Use IP address (ifconfig) or name (host IP) for your server, not localhost
    – Php errors are in /var/log/apache2/error.log
    – To enable php in user home directories, edit /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/php5.conf
    – Use good passwords. Don’t publish them on a web page (really!), don’t use a web service to generate the passwords.
    – Use unique names for python scripts. Good: helloworld.py, statcheck.py. Bad: python.py, database.py…
    Remember to keep practicing at home,