Not to be a wet blanket, but most of those people being sucked into support roles are sucked into a mostly or completely Microsoft environment. Small businesses typically have not been your *nix users for a number of reasons. Originally Unix was costly, Microsoft was cheaper. Microsoft was easier to use. Only recently has there been desktop ready for the average user a cheap Unix variant (Linux). You'd be better off helping them with their Windows skills and teaching them how about the possibility of saving some dough by using Open Office instead of office, on Windows. Then later show them some of the other things Open Source and Linux have going for them that might allow them to save more money. One thing to consider too. How successful in these businesses will a "switch" campaign be received or even useful to them if they already have say an NT environment in place with exchange that runs acceptably, that they are comfortable with and don't need to upgrade? Your class might be better for people that don't have much invested in an existing environment. I don't see OS/Linux as a natural fit for these small companies unless they just hire their adminning out, as a lot of them won't have full time "IT" guys anyway. The person likely to be stuck in this support role is looking for the easiest way out, not necessarily the most technically superior because he has "real" job duties too besides keeping the computers running. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Wayne Johnson To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org; nonprofit_tech_talk at communityforum.net Cc: dcoats at mlla.org Sent: 10/5/03 12:42 AM Subject: [TCLUG] Using Linux for Small Businesses & Non-profits Class My partner and I have been tossing around the idea of having a class on "Using Linux for Small Businesses & Non-profits". The focus will be for the accidental techies that get sucked (imagine a black hole) into the job in their respective organizations. So far, I've been making a list of subjects to include. Here's just a small start: Computer Basics (what is a CPU, memory, hard disk, I/O, video card, etc.) Installing Linux (we have a lab with ~20 PCs, might as well give them some behind the wheel). Access Control (passwd, group, file system security) GUI vs Command line (including a tutorial in Vi) Available packages: OpenOffice Samba E-mail Serving Printer Configuration Networking (DHCP, Routing, Subnets, etc.) Apache, PHP, MySQL, Postgres, Perl, etc. Firewalling & Gateways (SNAT) & the Internet Backups Hardware: Modems CD-RW At this rate, It'll be a 4 year course. Any suggestions? Frequent subjects at InstallFests? Text books? Remember, some of these folks are pretty low end techies, so simpler is probably better. Maybe we can tie the class in with an installfest? _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list