Free Intro to Linux Course Surpasses One Million Enrollments

The Linux Foundation course has consistently been one of edX's most popular offerings

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Sep 22, 2020, 11:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced its Introduction to Linux training course on the edX platform, currently in its sixth edition, has surpassed one million enrollments. The course helps students develop a good working knowledge of Linux using both the graphical interface and command line across the major Linux distribution families. No prior knowledge or experience is required, making the course a popular first step for individuals interested in pursuing a career in IT.

Introduction to Linux has helped countless individuals launch their IT careers. Jules Bashizi Irenge for example, completed the course then proceeded to intermediate Essentials of System Administration training and received a Linux Foundation Certified SysAdmin (LFCS) certification, and now is a PhD candidate who has contributed over 200 patches to the Linux kernel. Fabian Pichardo also followed the introductory course with Essentials of System Administration and LFCS, and now is employed full time as a software developer.

"To have introduced over a million individuals to Linux is a tremendous milestone," said Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin. "One of our primary goals is to bring more talent into the open source community, and offering free, high quality training that is accessible to anyone who wants it is essential to achieving that goal. Thank you and congratulations to everyone who has supported these efforts, including our members, instructors, training support team, and the students themselves. We look forward to training the next million!"

With Linux powering all of the world's 500 top supercomputers and the vast majority of mobile devices, along with serving as the backbone of the cloud and the internet itself, it is essential to understand Linux to pursue many IT job roles. Upon completion of this course, students possess a good working knowledge of Linux, from both a graphical and command line perspective, allowing them to easily navigate through any of the major Linux distributions. They can then continue their progress as either a user, system administrator or developer using the acquired skill set.

"The Linux Foundation has been an incredible partner of edX for the past six years, bringing dozens of courses in high-tech and in-demand fields to our platform of 34 million learners," said Anant Agarwal, edX Founder and CEO. "Introduction to Linux, their very first offering, has been a true blockbuster - it's one of our top 10 most popular courses of all time. We're thrilled to congratulate Linux Foundation on reaching 1 million enrollments and look forward to bringing accessible high-tech education to countless more learners, together."

Introduction to Linux remains open for new enrollments. There is no cost to complete the course, and verified certificates of completion are available for $99. The Linux Foundation offers two dozen free training courses on open source projects including Linux, Kubernetes, Hyperledger, and more in partnership with edX.

About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contact:
Dan Brown
The Linux Foundation
415-420-7880
[email protected]

SOURCE The Linux Foundation