Linux Operating System Essentials

Course
Identifier: 
COM S 2520
Professor(s): 
Andrew Miner

Last Updated: Fall 2024

Offered during Fall and Spring Semesters each year.

  1. Credits and contact hours: 3 credits
  2. Instructor's or course coordinator's name: Ambrose Laing, Matthew Tancreti
  3. Text book, title, author, and year: None
  4. Other supplemental materials: None

Specific Course Information

  1. Brief description of the content of the course: This is a hands-on course designed to demonstrate the installation, administration, and utilization of the Linux operating system for a personal computer. A secondary focus of the course is on interoperability of Linux with other operating systems, including Windows and Mac. While the emphasis is Linux, much of what is covered applies also to UNIX systems and Mac OS X. It is a three-credit, online course, meaning you should set aside about 3 hours per week (on average) to view the online lectures. Delivery is asynchronous, meaning you may watch the lectures whenever you like during the week; however, keep in mind that homework assignments and exams have fixed due dates.
  2. Prerequisites or co-requisites: COM S 1270 or COM S 2070 or COM S 2270 or CPR E 1850

Specific goals for the course

  1. Specific outcomes of instruction: 
  • Build and administer a Linux system
  • Install, upgrade, and remove packages
  • Manage services and the firewall
  • Write scripts to automate tasks

Brief list of topics to be covered

  • OS History
  • Primer on computer architecture
  • Linux filesystem and file utilities
  • Disks: architecture, filesystems, utilities
  • Shell tricks
  • Processes, redirection, pipes
  • Filtering utilities
  • Building packages
  • The Kernel
  • Bash programming
  • Regular expressions
  • AWK scripts
  • SED scripts
  • Networking
  • File sharing with Samba
  • Unix user accounts
  • File sharing with NFS/NIS
  • Network administration
  • Security