[id10t]

So tonight was our "Celebration of Learning" (aka Final Project Presentation) for the intro level Linux class I teach. While some other classes use Linux to some degree (Novell networking, microarchitecture), this is the only pure Linux class the college offers.

Had 12 students, only two of which had seen Linux before. My final project requirements are simple - prove that you've learned something about Linux, and do something that interest you. Also, there is a requirement to eat donuts, which I provide...

Several students made custom LiveCDs of Linux - everything runs from CD. Variations included a router/gateway, an emergency webserver w/ DNS, and a few game discs that detected what video card was being used, loaded appropriate accelerated 3d drivers, and presented a menu of games (classic Quake, Urban Terror, Enemy Territory, Flight Gear, etc). One student turned an old machine into a motion detecting security camera that would take 15fps movies when motion was detected on a webcam. One student wrote a shell script that would take mp3 files with proper names and "bad" id3 tags and correct the tags. Another student created a live cd that would boot and either become a "master" or "client" for distributed computing - any program that uses threads (multiple processes at once) could be passed thru it, and use all of the computational nodes available. One guy even wrote some kernel level code to fix the wireless (bluetooth) control of a Lego robot, complete with area mapping ability (like a Roomba).

Sixteen short weeks ago, these students didn't know a shell from a *****, didn't know about Free software, etc. All but 3 had never had any programming experience.

The money is sorta nice ($2k for the semester), but the big reward is seeing the light bulbs go on over their heads and the neat ideas for projects emerging and becoming real.