You've already learned the basics of computing and you just finished learning about the bits and bytes of computer networking. Now it's time to navigate the Windows and Linux Operating Systems or OSs. But before we dive in, I'd like to introduce myself. We met way back in the first course. But for those of you who might have forgotten or skipped those lessons, my name is Cindy Quach, and I'm a site reliability engineer at Google. The team I work on is responsible for the management and support of Google's entire internal mobile fleet; Android OS, iOS, and chrome OS. Before focusing on mobile, I was a systems administrator on the Linux team, and before that, I was an operations engineer. But like a lot of the Googlers you've met and will meet, I started my career as an IT support specialist. I've been working in IT for seven years now. The first time I can remember interacting with computers was in middle school, when my teacher brought them into our classrooms so we could create fun video and multimedia projects. It was my brother who brought technology into our house. My parents were immigrants from Vietnam and we didn't have a lot of money growing up, so we had to be creative if we wanted to play with a computer at home. I can remember we were spending hours with my brother as he assembled a computer and I would just ask a million questions. Eventually, I wanted to try and build my own computer. So, I gathered up some old parts and saved money to buy new components. I finally put all the parts together from what I remembered my brother doing. But it didn't work out. It turns out I use some incompatible parts but through a lot of trial and error, troubleshooting, and long search sessions on the internet. I finally got it to work. The feeling I got when I heard my computer boot up for the first time was amazing, and before I knew it, I was hooked on computers. I really enjoyed the intense concentration and problem solving required in IT. But I didn't think a career in tech was even possible but then. Once I got to college, I had to find a job to help pay for tuition. And that job was an IT support specialist on campus. That's when I realized that tech is actually something I could pursue as a career. I've been working with computers for as long as I can remember and much of my IT knowledge was based on my own troubleshooting experiences over the years. I was great at troubleshooting issues with operating systems or so I thought, it wasn't until I became a systems administrator on Google's Linux team that I realized just how little I knew about operating systems. I was surrounded by brilliant teammates who maintain code for a large open source operating system projects. Some even had Wikipedia pages written about them. So it was hard not to feel inadequate at times. Like I was learning to walk again as I dove more into Linux, I just wasn't used to working on the command line and it felt overwhelming to use it to troubleshoot obscure issues that popped up. I had to constantly look up commands and figure out where to find certain files, but I didn't let it get the best of me. I took things day by day, and after a year of being on the team, I realized I had progressed incredibly far. One year later, I was building and packaging my own tools then deploying them for everyone to use. As contributing code directly to open source software. Using the command line, had become second nature. There's so much to learn about operating systems and it's one of the reasons why I'm passionate about teaching this course. Learning Linux doesn't have to be scary. It's not impossible to use Windows commands and it's certainly not difficult to get started. So let's just do that and get started. While this course will have some conceptual learning. Will focus more on the practical aspects of the operating system. Not only when you learn how to use the Windows and Linux OSs, we'll also teach you how to interact with these operating systems through the command line. Remember that the command line inputs text commands instead of relying on a graphical user interface or GUI. If this is your first time using a command line for any OS, you may find this a little intimidating at first. That's totally normal, but you'll be well on your way to become a command line wizard by the end of this course. As always, we'll help guide you every step of the way, and you can always re-watch the lessons if you need to take a refresher. Take your time, you got this. We're not only going to teach you how to use the command line in Windows and Linux. You'll also learn how file systems work, and you'll be able to assign different user permissions and roles, which is a super important task in any support role. You'll be able to understand how to use package managers and consider the trade offs between different package managers for Windows and Linux. We'll also teach you about process management, so you understand the nuances of running programs. That could save you valuable time when troubleshooting in the workplace. We'll also take a deeper dive into the remote connection tools you've already been using to help you access other computers, when you're working at a distance. Finally, we'll teach you about OS deployment or how to install OSs on a lot of machines at once. By the end of this course, you'll become a real OS power user, in both the Windows and Linux operating systems. This is an invaluable skillset for anyone pursuing a career as an IT support specialist. After all, we spend most of our time within an operating system. But remember, you'll need to practice, practice, and practice some more to get a firm grip on operating systems. Just like with any skill, you need to really apply yourself to get good at it. Eventually, navigating the operating system will seem like second nature to you. We strongly recommend that you follow along in this course with a computer using one if not both of these operating systems. Navigating a real operating system while following along this course, is a much more efficient way to learn these concepts. If you don't have access to them that's totally okay. You'll be doing active learning exercises in an application called Qwiklabs, to help simulate what it's like to use the Windows and Linux OS. I'm super excited to teach you about Windows Linux OSs. So let's get started.
