A Skinner Box to teach Unix to an NT admin.

[reddragdiva]

This is the task list I wrote to get competent NT admins quickly up to speed on Solaris. It's not directly relevant to Linux and so on, or, indeed, many of your lives. But I prepared it for posting for zey, so thought I might as well make an entry of it. The idea is to start them on the PFY stuff and show them where the good stuff is.

Unix tasks to learn

1. Backup setup (days and weekends) [as per local procedure]

2. How to deal with simple backup problems (see my doc)

3. Learning to use vi (the Unix text editor) - essential! (Start with a vi cheat-sheet and use it as much as possible. There is also a Windows version available if you want to practice more.)

4. Setting up user accounts [as per local procedure]

5. Installing or changing hardware on Sun workstations (types of hardware, typical tasks, how to tell Solaris about the hardware)

6. Applications - what to ask [app support guy], what to work out oneself - how things work, how things are launched off the [application launcher] menu

7. Go through Solaris OE Guide for New System Administrators - "the 20% that tells you 80% of what you need."

8. Go through Unix documentation folder, read everything at least once [my site-specific notes]

9. Solaris 8 System Administration Guide - bookmark these URLs and skim over the contents pages to get an idea where to look things up - http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/805-7228 , http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/805-7229 , http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/806-0916

10. Look at http://docs.sun.com/ , familiarise yourself with it. Most of what you want is here, you just have to find it (the search is rubbish).

Documentation is listed as a task, because everything on Solaris is documented - you have to learn the basics by reading about them, then trying them, and learn where to look up other problems.

Your suggestions are welcomed. It needs better stuff, rather than more - the list is too long already. (The hardest part is teaching them to learn from those squiggles on a page or command line, rather than bright shiny pictures, ticky boxes and clicky buttons on a screen.) Generalised equivalents of the above, too.

And if they're not competent, the list above is sufficiently eminently reasonable that it'll be readily apparent to your mutual boss in short order.

Edit: Please, less vi flamewar and more useful NT admin herding tips!