3 ms·
Linux is not a course typically taught in universities. For the same reason they don't teach courses on Excel, Word, Photoshop, Firefox, etc.
by tatalegma 13y ago
Linux is not a course typically taught in universities. For the same reason they don't teach courses on Excel, Word, Photoshop, Firefox, etc.
- arisAlexis 13y agoLinux is much more complicated than Firefox and Word and there is a reason not to teach how to use private company products. Linux is free and open source and I too, cannot see any reason that these courses are not offered. Unix is typically bound with academia.
- zachlatta 13y agoI've found that Unix is often taught as a part of university courses, not as a separate one entirely. For example, every CS student at Berkeley has access to a shared Unix machine that they use to turn in assignments and potentially do work.
- tatalegma 13y agoI agree with you that its very complex, and very widespread, and i could see why you'd want it to be taught. But I still think it's not something that belongs in a university. It's still just a specific instance of a piece of software. BTW, isn't Firefox is open source? You can replace my exaples with their open source equivalents (LibreOffice, Gimp, etc) and the argument still stands. A uni should teach algorithms and data structures, networking, threading, etc, not how to use firefox. Likewise, a uni should teach operating systems, threads, hardware, compilers, memory management, etc, but not Linux. Even programming languages are generally not taught as ends in an of themselves. Good schools expect you to pick them up as part of the class. For example, the course is about data structures, but you will code in Java, C, and LISP during the semester, and you are expected to pick them up. They may help you a bit in learning them, and give you background on them when you move to a part of the course that switches to a new lang.