Section 1

The thing that really sank in for me from the first section of this course was the level of effort that's been put into making Linux usable and practical. The first thing that really jumped out at me along those lines was the tab complete feature. My first thought on that particular feature was "why isn't this implemented exactly this way in every OS out there?" The other big revelation that was almost as pronounced was the inclusion of several different layers of documentation in the OS itself. Convenience features like tab complete, man pages and info pages may not seem like a big deal to deeply enfranchised users, but those things are an absolute godsend to students and other neophytes.

Linux is a pretty straightforward operating system and the way it works makes good, logical sense, but because everything is done via the command line, it can be pretty intimidating for folks that are trying to get a handle on it for the first time, particularly folks like myself who are accustomed to using a GUI for almost everything. Included documentation and convenience features not only speak well of the developers that work on the project, but they increase its utility for folks that may want to use it in a limited capacity.