> On Fri, 2006-01-06 at 08:06, Tim wrote: > > > > Hmmm, I guess I could make them repeatedly installed Fedore Core -- > > > and thereby drive them to hate Linux in general. > > > But, I would think that a student destroying the operating system should > > learn the consequences of their actions: Fix it up, learn to do it > > properly (whatever it was that they did wrong), and hopefully they'll > > learn to be more careful next time. > > If you install fedora, you should know how to boot the install > CD with 'linux rescue' at the boot prompt to repair it. Learn > to appreciate the foresight of the distribution packagers. This > case is trivial, but if you know how to run fdisk/mkfs/mount > and a few other tools by hand and have a suitable backup copy > you can reassemble the bits on your disk into a working system > regardless of what went wrong. I agree and I thoroughly endorse giving students root access to their "personal use" systems. Book learning is valuable without a doubt, but there is no more valuable lesson for a would-be sysadmin than the one that follows from an "Oh S**T!" moment. In fact I would go so far as to say that the sysadmin training is not complete until the person has sat in front of a system that is no longer functioning perfectly (or at all) due to some ill-advised thing they have done. One of the things I have always appreciated about the *NIX OSes is the ability to completely trash an installation but then to recover assuming only that you have the installation media and good backups. (Which backups have been proved to be restorable. How many people do backups but don't bother to check that they are good?) Another valuable resource when trying a recovery from a bollix is a list like this, of a sysadmin who has made about every possible kind of screwup and had to recover. [In 20+ years I may be qualified. Looking back it would seem possible ;^) ] dlg System Administrator Emeritus. [from the Latin: e meaning "out of", and meritus meaning "damned well ought to be" ;-) ] <snip> -- > Les Mikesell > lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx > > > -- > fedora-list mailing list > fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
