Please pardon the stream of consciouness formatting...

I have enjoyed the lectures in their formats so far. I think I find trying to systematically work my way through the readings to be a little intimidating; so what I have done is to skim the reading and then head straight to the videos and links and then come back and actually do the readings. Additionally, I'll try to work my way through the assignments and come back and re-read the readings afterwards. A lot of time I find that I am intimidated by the subject matter until I can actually get my hands on it. Admittedly, this week I felt intimidated by a lot of the information mainly because I didn't really have to do much as my home networking system is already in place. I will be interested to see what next week's assignment looks like, I think I'm building it up to be more than it is in my head. My approach to this week's material was to skim it literally every day and then towards the end of the week I had my husband read it too and then we started discussing it conversationally and comparing opinions as to what the requirements are and discussing what next week will bring, explaining my take on the readings really helped clarify things in my head. I've been doing that with most of the lessons; boring my friends or family members by trying to explain what I'm doing in this class in my own words. I would say my two favorite formats for the lessons have been the videos and the VTC online software tutorials. I find myself going back to the VCT tutorials quite a bit and have even watched a few that weren't relevant to the class but piqued my interest. I find Professor Fulton's "conversational" approach to the lectures to be quite enjoyable and they often make intimidating material more approachable.

Unit 5

So either I have failed horribly on this week's assignment or I'm starting to catch on (or it was just an easy week) because I really didn't have any problems with the assignment this week. (safe a few very minor, easily remedided glitches) Admittedly, because this is a heavy homework week in my other class, I chose not to install the desktop on Ubuntu, but I have set a goal to do that next week just for the practice. Adding users and groups was a fairly easy task, I am interested and excited at the prospect of going in and changing permissions, I am hopeful that, that will be what next week is about. I enjoyed installing XWindow in ubuntu, I am appreciative of the simplicity of this desktop; my chief complaint would be that in Mozilla my keyboard seems to be highly sensitive so I have had to adapt with a very funny sort of "swooping in" hunting and pecking typing methodolgy that has caused those around me to exclaim, "What the he&& are you doing??!!??" I understand that this glitch is not unheard of and the remedy is can be a little more complicated than just dealin with it, so I have chosen to do just that.
I have found that the thrill of being able to "read" command line to be as exciting as it was to learn to read music. I love that when I look at a composition I can hear a song in my head and that when I look at my user permissions file I can automatically know things like who can read, write, execute, what groups they belong to. I look forward to the opportunity to delve deeper...

Victory in our time

Admittedly I'm a little giddy right now. I have just spent the last couple of hours sucessfully "playing" around in Ubuntu and it is exhilarating.

I really enjoyed the VIM tutorial, I found it to be well written, easy to understand, and incredibly helpful. As suggested, I took my time with the tutorial (about and hour) and repeated the exercises a few times to make sure they were familiar. Admittedly I still went online and printed up a "cheat sheet" to have handy should something slip my mind.

Next I used Nano to configure the shell to automatically show hidden files at both the ls and dir prompts. I had no problems with the "show hidden files" configuration but the dir prompt did not work, so I used "history" to display my command history and realized I had typed "lis" instead of "ls". Once a library student.....

Then I configured my sources list so Ubuntu would find an install available software and upgrades. Again, when I entered the command to install patches and upgrades I was presented with a blank screen, so I ran the history command and realized I had left out a space. I fixed the error and installed the patches/upgrades without an issue.

What I learned from these specific exercises (which has also been stated by Bruce, and the tutorials) is that Linux is finicky and it's very important to ensure your commands are precise. Duly noted.

After completing the required portion of the assignment I decided to test the waters with some of the commands we had been studying. I went into Vi and created a file called "Experiment" I then closed VI and tried $ cp Experiment Experiment2" [Enter] $dir and saw that indeed this command had written Experiment 2 and copied the contents of Experiment to the file. I then typed $ rm Experiement 2, $ dir, and checked to see that Experiment 2 had been removed. Finally I tried $ mv Experiment Experiment 2 [enter] and then $ dir and sure enough Experiment was now listed at Experiement 2. I went ahead and removed Experiment 2 and cleared the screen. For the fun of it I took at a second look at the history just to see what had been done and then went back into VI to play around with creating and manipulating files.

I will add that while I read the readings before the assignment I felt intimidated by the material because I really felt like I wasn't absorbing any of it. After my experiments this afternoon I went back through and skimmed some of the readings and really felt that I had a far greater understanding of the material because I was able to associate it back to the activities I had just completed.

All in all a very fun afternoon! I can't wait to move on.

Working my way through this week's tutorials.

Our first assignment for this week was to boot Ubuntu from the disc. I had no problems with this as soon as I improved my F12 trigger finger. Next, I began to work through the tutorials on VTC. I found the introduction to Linux and the "look around the file system" to both be useful and a handy reminder of a lot of the information we had already covered. Admittedly the file permissions and the change in ownership tutorials both seemed a little unwieldy, however I have a feeling these things will make more sense as we start getting into the practical applications.

The written tutorials will be coming with me everywhere I go. Of particular joy tonis the tables which provide a quick reference of the Linux commands and their equivalent action. I booted the Ubuntu desktop from the disc and played around with these for a cheap thrill.

Finally, we were tasked with installing the Ubuntu server in VM ware. I would say that this task provided me with the most valuable lesson of the week.

Before installing Ubuntu in VMware I needed to install VMware workstation 6. I had previously installed the VMware server with no problems so I assumed that this would be equally effortless. Admittedly the actual installation of the VMware was quite easy as was the installation of the Ubuntu server - but typical to my style I made it much more difficult and time consuming that it needed to be.

I am coming into this Digital Information Management program with a somewhat limited knowledge base. My undergraduate degree is in history and at the end of the summer I will also have my MLS. All of my technical skill and knowlege (which is generally better than average) has been gleaned from my own curiousity and motivation to self teach. I decided to apply for a this program despite my concerns that I may not have all the needed qualifications. This had been nagging me and I have almost been unnerved by the fact that I have had no problems with the first two modules. The first half of the 3rd module went swimmingly but I think I got it in my head (largely because I had watched the wrong videos AND out of order somehow) that installing the Ubuntu server was going to be far more difficult than it was.

Fundamentally, what this comes down to is that my previous approaches to studying and information retrieval will not suffice for the subject material of this class. All of my education up to this point has largely been theoretical. When I have approached readings and lessons I have done so by "scanning" the information and looking for the most salient points. This modus operandi has served me well up until this point. What I learned most from the tutorials and this week's lesson is that I need to;

A. Assume nothing about the relative ease or difficulty of each assignment
B. Take the lessons from mistakes and system errors
C. Read everything!!! Read every pop up screen, every detail, every footnote and check internally for comprehension.

This is a unique opportunity and I am scared, elated, and excited to be stepping out of the relative comfort zone of my previous decades of education. Now THAT is a tutorial!

Okay literal issues with the installation:

Nothing really big here, just as predicted I did have to install with a NAT instead of a bridge.

The mistake I had been making was trying to install the desktop instead of the server. The classic putting the cart before the horse.

I did get well versed in removing extra virtual machines

I did pat myself on the back for figuring out that I could switch from Bridge to Nat with going back by right clicking on the icon in the lower right hand corner

I did do a double check of closing the virtual machine and bringing it back up several times to make sure all was well. I then did play around with some of the CLI prompts from the tutorial just to "see" what was out there.