"At the start of this academic year (September 2001), I was asked to teach a new module in my Institute's B.Sc. degree program in Information Technology. This final-year undergraduate module, entitled "Network and Systems Management", covers a wide range of system administration technologies, practices and principles. In effect, students of the module are the system administrators of the future. 

As is probably the theme at the majority of third-level educational establishments, student's exposure to OS technology at the Institute of Technology, Carlow is Microsoft-focused and desktop-based. This is easy to understand, for the desktop is very much a Microsoft stronghold, and if an institution can use the same PCs to teach business undergrads Excel and science undergrads programming, then they will. However, what many of my students often fail to recognize is that, as system administrators, they will find themselves managing servers running OS technology other than Microsoft's. 

So in an attempt to expose my students to a more realistic view of the technologies in use in the real world, I try to deemphasize Microsoft's technologies in favor of the alternatives. As you can imagine, Linux features quite heavily. 

At the start of this academic year, I informally surveyed the 31 students enrolled in the module about their exposure to Linux. Most (if not all) had some exposure to the OS. I probed further and asked how many students had used Linux as the basis of their third-year project (the previous year). One or two hands were raised. Then the first shock came: someone blurted out, "nearly everyone who used Linux last year went on to fail their project". It came out that a number of individuals were missing from the final year due to failing the project element in year three. When I probed for the root cause of the project-failing problem, I got my second shock: "Linux is too hard to install". I was shocked not because these two statements were necessarily false but because these 31 students had pretty much convinced themselves that success was tied to Microsoft and failure to Linux. 

While I covered Windows 2000 and Linux as case studies, pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of each OS, I gave the class an assignment that would require them to do some simple research and, as a consequence, allow them to learn a little more about Linux. The task was simple enough. I stated: "Despite considerable success as a server platform, Linux will never threaten Microsoft Windows as a desktop operating system." I asked the students to research the subject area, form an opinion as to whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement, and then present their case in no more than three A4 pages of typed text. As I marked their assignments, a number of themes recurred. Additionally, numerous myths became evident, and--perhaps not unexpectedly--a number of blatant untruths presented themselves. These I classified as clangers. In the remainder of this article, I present the themes, myths and clangers uncovered, in addition to my own personal commentary. 

Read the rest at <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5650">LinuxJournal</a>" 


OK, now maybe I have a little higher expectations of our graduating computers students(CS, IT, MIS), but this is ridiculous!!!!  If a student about to graduate with a four year computer degree can't install Linux they need to change degrees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Every student in this guys class should have been failed!!!!!!  I am not saying that they are wrong in their opinion, but they are obviously not technical and have incredibly poor research skills!  

Is this the kind of student UH and HPU are putting out?

Dusty

So I asked my accountant, do I get an agriculture 
exemption for my server farm?