Free Linux materials released

PRESS RELEASE — 16 June 1999

GBdirect, Europe's leading provider of Linux training, today announced the release of free Linux training materials. Lecture notes for the first four modules of their "Linux Systems" training course are now available on the web (initially at www.gbdirect.co.uk/linuxtraining, later at www.linuxtraining.co.uk). They cover:

1. An Overview of a Linux System
2. The Linux Filesystem
3. The Linux Command Line Interface
4. Basic Linux Tools

Each module consists of 20-25 pages of bullet-pointed lecture notes followed by graduated exercises. Experienced commercial instructors should be able to deliver the lecture notes in about 1 hour, leaving between 1 and 2 hours for practical work based on the exercises. In addition to good teaching skills, the users of these materials are expected to have sound knowledge of the Linux and UNIX operating systems.

In the interests of good citizenship, the modules are distributed in low-bandwidth, open-source, formats.

GBdirect's primary motivation for releasing thse notes as open source software is to ensure their widest possible dissemination. A secondary motivation is the company's desire to `give something back' to the community which provides them with virtually all of their office software.

The company hope that others will contribute to the Linux Training Materials Project, by authoring their own lecture notes or by modifying those which GBdirect have contributed. To encourage such participation, GBdirect are releasing their materials under an open source licence derived from the Linux Documentation Project. This allows end-users to copy and distribute the lecture notes as the please, but protects the copyrights of their original authors.

For further details contact GBdirect at the above addresses, or ring Dave Fisher on 0870 200 7273