Open Source Comes to Campus/Curriculum/Saturday/CLI

The command line, packages, and dependencies

Have a general understanding of the meaning of frequently-seen paths: /usr /usr/bin /home etc.
Understand the purpose and basic use of package management tools.
Have familiarity with passing arguments to CLI programs (e.g., tar).
Preferably, understand that a text terminal can display "graphical" (e.g. via ncurses) programs.
Understand enough history of the command line to know it came "first", before GUIs.
Have enough understanding of the command line to succeed at the rest of the day's activities.
Become familiar with different ways of quitting command-line programs.

Use a photo of teletypes connected to a serious UNIX server to explain what a "terminal" means, and why it's really a "terminal emulator".
Ask people what their experiences with the command line have been so far. (If necessary, skip pieces of the discussion.)
With a diagram of a directory hierarchy, discuss different paths like /home and /usr.
Explain the core concepts behind the filesystem hierarchy standard: what's available at boot, /usr vs. /.
Explain the concept of $PATH. Point out that "." is usually not in the path by default.
Split the screen into half Nautilus, half Terminal, and show how they are different views of the same thing.
Explain that programs like "apt-get" install software, and to demonstrate this, use apt-get on your own machine to install something.
- Demonstrate where the resulting files went with dpkg -L.
- Install something that puts its binary in /usr/sbin program, and show that it's not on the path by default, but can be run by specifying the path.
- Maybe do the same for something in /usr/games.
Explain the concept of dependencies, both build-dependencies and runtime depencies, perhaps by showcasing a package via packages.debian.org or via apt-cache show + apt-cache showsrc.
Then, tell students to do the tasks in the "Individual work" section.

Ask students to work through the Six ways to quit tutorial, and talk with a TA or module leader once they have completed it.
Ask students to work through the "Tar training mission". They start by visiting http://openhatch.org/missions/.

(Editor's note: In terms of assessment, this lesson's assessment is the student successfully completing the above.)