A Virtual Laboratory for Teaching Linux on the Web

The shortage of experimental platforms needed for learning IT systems in a hands-on way is one reason for the lack of quality education in the area of IT. For most students who have access to a PC, their ability to experiment on that machine is limited by the risk of possible irrecoverable damage their experimentation may cause to the equipment. We report the development of a ´Virtual Laboratory for Systems and Software´ that teaches the basics of Linux. The goal of this laboratory is to give the students a platform through which they can learn the essentials of linux. The student interacts with a virtual instance of a linux machine through the browser on his machine to learn basic tasks of linux system administration. The student´s machine could be running any operating system (not necessarily linux). This obviates the need to have a linux machine on the part of the student. The lab consists of a suite of experiments designed as web applications which are based on IT Workshop courses at undergraduate level in universities.