Class Proposal

Practical Computing Seminar

Hands On Practice Dealing with some of the Difficulties of Setting up an Operating System and Network

This course will use linux.

14 weeks

3 (1 hour) classes a week (or 1 2-hour class and 1 1-hour class)

42 classes a semester

14 classes per section

// ch: probably modify this

Equipment: There are surplus GXa’s available for us to dissemble and reassemble. A router is fairly inexpensive. (About $40/four machines), but we think that we will use a computer to handle this. We have enough GXa’s to take apart a few and if we have trouble assembling, we can go on to the second and third sections with working GXa’s.

Each student will be expected to acquire a small set of tools.

Electrical testing equipment. Small voltimeter (I have one.) Other testing equpiment? Will have to see what is needed/available through EE. Shouldn’t require much.

Class Size Limit:

// ch: I would suggest that we limit the size of this class to about 10 for its first trial.

Section 1 (discussion and building computer)

Discussion of different types and stats of hardware

Intel vs. AMD vs. Mac - CPU’s

Drives:

Hard drives IDE vs SCSI

Optical Drives

Floppy Drives

Backup Drives

Power Source

Cooling

Case Selection (more important than you think!!)

RAM

Motherboads

BIOS

layout of a motherboard

using jumpers

integrated and add on devices (PCI, AGP, ISA)

overclocking - might make our GXa’s more usable

Internal and external connections

Put together computer and test

Section 2 (Selecting and installing OS)

Discussion of different OS and their uses (Windows, DOS, *nix, Mac OS, SCO, OS/2) // ch: too ambitious

Discussion of partitioning (// ch: theory?)

Setting up partitions and installing multiple OS

Setting up floppy boot and hard drive boot

Ghosting - // ch: on linux??

// ch: suggestion

Getting drivers to work:

sound

network cards

printers

// ch: This section may be a little shorter, though getting device drivers to work in linux can be time consuming!!

Section 3 (Practical Networking)

Setting up a LAN

Routers and switches (hubs are not being used much anymore)

Setting up a server

Security Issues in a Linux Server

(not including email virus detection)

Which services are most vulnerable, turning off the ones you don’t need

Firewall

Detection of and recover from a break-in

// ch: not sure what is involved here

Remote access

File transfer

Network boot(time permitting)

// ch: this section should be a little longer