I am sure that the topic of this thread must have cropped up more than once at LQ in one guise or another, but I feel rather strongly about the subject. LQ being a distro-independent site geared toward communication, boasting an offer on basic, solid and practical Linux education is probably the best service LQ could provide to the Linux world at large.

Tutorials and how-to's are of course very helpful, but they are basically preaching to the converted. On another level, more education-oriented, I have recently finished installing a Linux From Scratch setup but that approach, worthy as it is, is a bit of a mouthful for the uninitiated; I finished it because I have been a consistent Linux desktop user for some years now, have inevitably had some exposure to the operating system, and shied away from the Bash scripting language as from the very devil.

So what I think is sorely needed is a course giving the Linux basics from the ground up, coupled with relevant hands-on experience, be it based on screen snapshots or, better still, on practice exercises anchored to a basic but live Linux system (perhaps the live CD approach, in order to save the hassle of the student having to build his own system to work on). Additionally, such an approach should be carried out in an incremental fashion, so the universe would not have to wait for the complete meal before tasting the first dish.

Thank you for your attention.

I second the motion! Being self-taught is fun, but it leaves one with huge knowledge gaps that don't show up till something awful happens to the one installation you've been relying on as you try out others. I notice that a great many of the standard, basic reference books from O'Reilly and No Starch Press are from 2004 and 2005, and while they are pretty much current with command line stuff, they do not treat the more modern distros at all.

I've been a Linux user for a little less than two years, and believe me, I would be delighted to take the sort of course that vmsda describes. Certainly could be a source of income for whichever organization comes up with it first!

And, unfortunately, not only the huge gaps but the tremendous amount of time wasted trying to find out simple things on one's own.
LQ could and very well should be that organization, and I suggest that the course core be accessible via a non-downloadable live CD, subsequent updates being downloaded from the LQ site. The degree of user satisfaction would then be the best marketing strategy for the product itself.

I always thougt that it would be very neat to have a GUI application that you can install that would interactively giude you through using Linux (someting like a cross between this and this).

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What audience are you thinking of? CLI or GUI?
Brand new users - 0 Linux experience; beginners - some Linux experience; or intermediates?

I don't think new project geared toward producing a CD for solo study is the best approach.

1st, because I see it as just another tutorial. I think that a search of the existing on-line resources, followed by evaluation & published reviews would be a better use of our time. A guide that would say, "If you want to learn Linux, read this, this, this, ... ."

2nd, I think that face-to-face classroom instruction is better for beginners than solo study. They get their questions answered on the spot & there is no latency in resolving mis-stated questions. I like to see us design course materials for a Linux classroom.

I have 2ce taught the Linux Desktop (KDE) in the classroom. I am not trained as a teacher & my biggest problems were finding a suitable text book & lesson plans. I used Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye! by Marcel Gagné as my text (w/ his permission, I even called my course "Moving to Linux"), but even the 2nd edition is way out of date. Even if I re-read MtL & found it timeless enough to keep using, it uses KDE 3 & won't apply to KDE 4.

If I were to teach a CLI class (& I almost did), I would use Scott Granneman's Linux Phrasebook.

What's the point of a GUI class? GUIs basically document themselves, becasue it says on every button, menu item, etc. what it does.

But CLIs need to be learned. And if you're learining the inner workings of Linux, you probably need to learn the CLI anyway.

I have to disagree. I've taught Senior beginners "Basic Computer Use" (tm) many many times &, in my experience, there is nothing self-documenting about GUI's. From my own personal experience as a nearly 100% KDE user, I am faster using XP rather than Gnome. I spend a few hours a week on a help desk using XP, while I never use Gnome. As a result Gnome is almost useless to me, but I can be effective in XP, even though I hate it.

I don't understand.

If Gnome were self-documenting, I would be able to just sit down & use it.

Meanwhile, let's get back on topic. I'd like to hear what OP's intentions were/are for this thread.

This is why so many Windows programs include a wizard to guide new users through performing basic functions. Mostly I hate wizards and disable them on first use. I think the almost complete absence of wizards in Linux programs says something about the Linux community's self image. We don't see ourselves needing such things.

Somewhere on the web there used to be a Flash based series of introductory presentations. I watched the entire set, maybe 20 chapters or so, and thought it would be fantastic for new users. Even though it focused on Mepis, which I've never used, the series presented everything in a very accessible and friendly manner which made it a joy to watch. I think it was called What is Linux, but that google search produces too many results to weed through.

My opinion on documenting GUIs is similar to MTK358. Assuming one has used a GUI on any other OS, adapting to a GUI on Linux should not be difficult at all. Furthermore, GUIs change so quickly that documentation for them becomes outdated almost as soon as it is written. By contrast, command line tools work pretty much the same no matter the distro or how much time goes by. Some options get deprecated (very slowly), and new ones are added, but one can easily stay on top of such changes by spending a few minutes with the man page of the latest version.