Hi all, and thanks for a great interest in the Unix Tutorial membership!
A warm welcome to all the new members!
In just 2 days, more than 50 of you have joined, so I’m confident we’ll have great time sharing Unix knowledge in the next few months.
I’ve got the first few modules of material posted already – they’re really simple but that’s the whole idea as I target beginners of all levels with my introductory course. I’ll be posting more modules in the coming days, and there’s already a curriculum posted on forums for people to discuss.
Only 3 more days of free UnixTutorial membership
Unfortunately, I’m also seeing a lot of interest from spammers – because the membership is free, no credit card or Paypal transactions are involved, and this means anyone can register and start spamming the protected forums.
Given the above situation, and also because I’m going away for a few weeks rather soon, I have just decided to close the first wave of enrollments earlier than originally planned: Unix Tutorial enrollment will be closed down this Friday, midnight GMT.
If you know someone who’s eager to get started with Unix, please tell them about Unix Tutorial membership so that they can get onboard before the enrollment is over. I’m looking for genuinely interested people prepared to commit some of their time, so if it’s just about someone hoping to get a placeholder for accessing premium content in the future – please refrain from signing up at this time.
That’s it for the moment! Thanks again for your interest, I’ll do my best to make sure you learn plenty of new Unix tricks and gain immediately applicable knowledge.
October 2018 UPDATE: thanks for stopping by! Glad to see you are interested in seriously advancing your knownedlge of (most likely) Linux operating system! I don’t have the course available but am writing a few technical ebooks and make Unix Tutorial membership avaible via closed Facebook group: Unix Tutorial group.
Unix Tutorial – Facebook Group
Become a lifetime Unix Tutorial member!
If you think you know enough about Unix Tutorial membership, then wait no more and proceed straight to the Unix Tutorial group. For everyone else, there’s a bit more information below.
Why I’m setting up a members area
As you’ve probably seen, I’m trying to encourage as many people as possible to start using Unix-like operating systems. So far, I’ve been doing this by sharing tips and how-to guides on various Unix challenges I’ve come across in my 10+ years of system administration. While this had proved to be very popular, I would like to take it all one step further by publishing a few courses on various Unix topics.
Structure makes learning much easier, and I hope to involve even more people by providing a thorough learning plan for each level of Unix learners: beginners, intermediate users and advanced users which plan to use or manage Unix professionally.
I’m planning to set up a membership section on Unix Tutorial, because this seems to be a great way to help you grow Unix systems from scratch or just fill in some of the gaps you might have in your knowledge. Some materials with be based on the existing articles, but most of the content is going to be an easy-to-follow series of guides, interactive diagrams, exercises and tests developed in accordance with the curriculum of each course.
Before you ask: no, it doesn’t mean I will stop posting on Unix Tutorial blog – in fact, I hope membership-only discussions will make many more Unix challenges visible and this will allow me to cover them on Unix Tutorial blog pages in my usual how-to manner.
How you will benefit
These are the reasons for you to become a member of the Unix Tutorial site when it opens again:
Structured approach to learning Unix – the Unix Foundation course is going to be an introduction to what Unix is and what are your options when learning or using it. If you’re just getting started with Unix, or even if you’re using it already but just want a refresher – this is going to be your chance to learn the basics and to address any gaps you have
Individual support – I will be actively monitoring forums to help you with Unix challenges, and on top of this there’s always going to be an option to contact me through direct messages on forums. This is not planned to be a technical support hotline, so please don’t rely on this for any critical issues – this being said, I’m going to do my best to address your questions within days, if not hours
Community of like-minded Unix users – it’s much easier to interact in a smaller group of like-minded people. Those who wish to do so, will be doing introductions on forums, and this is bound to help you not only solve immediate technical issues, but to also find interesting blogs to follow, Unix users to learn from and to collaborate with, and Unix fans of all levels to share your experience with.
Learn anything you want about Unix – many books and websites target what their authors believe should be taught to their target group. Quite often such works prove to be quite disappointing for both authors and readers, because not all the topics are interesting or relevant enough to the needs of the audience. You’ve probably seen already – most of my posts on Unix Tutorial are based on the search queries from my visitors or questions asked through the Ask a Unix question form. I love this approach! It helps me to always write about the things you want to learn.I plan to use the same approach with my study courses – anyone can suggest a topic for a course, but registered members will obviously get a preference for their suggestions. If you ever wanted to learn something about Unix – shell scripting, performance tuning or re-compiling a Linux kernel – I will gladly take your ideas, research them and present as learning objectives for you and other members of Unix Tutorial.
Will Unix Tutorial membership be free?
There’s still a lot of planning to be done about the membership area, but here’s how I see it so far:
There will ALWAYS be a number of free courses available at Unix Tutorial
You will still have to register, but it will not cost you anything to join. Most likely the free courses will be of introductory nature – they prove to be both most popular and most beneficial to anyone learning Unix. After the initial enrollment period, I’ll close the registration for a few months to polish off the few courses I have planned, to reopen membership sometime in summer or early autumn.
Plenty of video material will be public and shared via Unix Tutorial Youtube channel.
There will be paid content as well
I’m going to spend a lot of time developing the courses, and therefore I think some of them will be available on a paid basis only. This is most likely going to be a set of niche topics in the intermediate-advanced level of technical expertise. From my experience, such topics will only prove useful to a small group of people who are willing to take their Unix knowledge to a whole new level.
There will be a paid membership
For those interested in constantly learning more about Unix, this will probably be the most attractive option – a small monthly fee will provide access to all the Unix courses available, including the new ones as they get published.
Paid technical support/solutions architecture
I’ve been doing this for quite some time – so it’s probably going to be one of the services available to Unix Tutorial group members. If you have a technical issue which needs a solution, I can research it for you. If you have a project requirement and want me to map out a technical solution for you – I’ll be able to do this as well. Depending on how much time is needed for other activities in the Unix Tutorial members area, such services may come at an additional cost.
There’s nothing set in stone yet, I’m really just getting started. I have a vision of a great learning environment where we’ll be able to learn and share knowledge, and this is going to be my focus. I have a full-time job, so Unix Tutorial membership will not be a chance for me to make a living off it… That being said, if there’s enough people willing to learn and to pay, I’ll be delighted to have an opportunity to spend more of my time helping others.
First Unix Tutorial members
In the next few months, I will work with the first wave of members, help them go through the courses and answer all the technical questions they might have, and will use this experience to further improve the courses and the way they’re presented.
The initial Unix Tutorial membership is a unique offer, because it will be a life-time access to Unix Tutorial courses. I would like to offer it free of charge, but with one condition – if you become one of the lucky first members, you should be genuinely interested in learning Unix and being an active member of the community – participating in discussions and helping others. As one of the initial members, I would like you to help me improve the members area by completing a few surveys (sent out sometime between mid-March and mid-July, I promise not to ask too much of you but it’s crucial that I get your feedback).
The full-scale opening of the Unix Tutorial membership area is planned for July 2009, but is still subject to change.
How to identify what Unix groups are available on your system
Today, I’d like to answer one of the oldest questions I have in my incoming UnixTutorial questions email folder. Please leave comments if you need any more help with researching Unix groups on your system.
How to confirm what Unix groups are available
If you remember, a while ago I’ve introduced you to the getent command. It’s a great way of querying various information databases about your systems’ users, groups and some other objects. Here’s how you would use the command to get a full list of Unix groups known to your system:
This is an abridged output, but I hope you get the idea. This output helps you confirm the following:
Unix group name – first field
Unix group ID (gid) – third field
All the usernames of members for various groups – fourh field, unfortunatelly empty for all the groups in my example.
How to confirm the members of a Unix group
Using the same getent command, you can query the groups database using a group name. In my example below, I’m confirming the membership of a mygroup Unix group:
ubuntu# getent group mygroup
mygroup:x:1002:user1,greys,user2
As you can see, mygroup has 3 users: user1, greys and user2.
How to determine the number of Unix groups known to your system
One more thing you can learn about your Unix groups using getent command is to confirm the overall number of Unix groups – some scenarious require you to have this number. Here’s how you would use getent together with the wc command to confirm the number of groups:
ubuntu# getent group | wc -l
62
That’s it for today, let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to learn about this topic!
First Unix Tutorial enrollments are only 2 weeks away
I will have the first three modules of the Unix Foundations course ready in the next few weeks, and plan to open the Unix Tutorial Members area in exactly 2 weeks, on March 16th, 2009.
It will only be an initial opening, so I will limit the registration period to 2 weeks only: on March 30th 2009, the registration will be closed so that I can get to know all the newly joined members and spend the next few months helping them go through the course. I will happily spend my spare time to answer all the technical questions, and will use this experience to further improve the courses and the way they’re presented.
What to expect from Unix Tutorial membership
The initial Unix Tutorial membership is a unique offer, because it will be a life-time access to Unix Tutorial courses. The way I see it is that over time Unix Tutorial members area will grow into one of the most comprehensive collections of premium Unix study materials.
The basic, foundation courses will be aimed to help as many people as possible to get started with Unix, and will therefore always be free (although registration will still be required so that new members can access forums).
The advanced topics, however, are likely to be much more technical, will have more details and will probably be useful to a smaller number of people looking to specialize their Unix skills to suit their professional needs. Such topics are very likely to be available on a paid subscription basis only.
So here is the deal: all the initial Unix Tutorial members will be given a free life-time access to ALL the courses, even the premium ones. There’s only one condition – if you plan on becoming one of the lucky initial members, you should be genuinely interested in learning Unix and be an active member of the community – participating in discussions and helping others. You will learn a great deal about Unix and will get an opportunity to ask any questions you like, so I think it’s only fair that you commit to helping other members.
Join the Unix Tutorial waiting list
If I got you interested, please take a few moments to subscribe to the announcement list, I will use it to announce the initial registration opening and to also communicate further important updates.
Please know that this subscription is not a guarantee that you’ll get placement in the initial membership group, you will still have to register within 2 weeks of enrollment period.
