USB Linux: An IT Lab Instruction Tool During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the worldwide university closure, forcing the classroom instruction to be online Unrehearsed online instruction challenges everyone, especially teaching lab courses This study focuses on creating IT labs that provide the best learning experience with minimum investment during this pandemic We build a portable and low-cost IT lab by directly installing Ubuntu and IT software on a USB 3 1 flash drive The performance of this mini IT lab is tested and compared with a typical installation of the identical Linux on a solid-state drive with a single testing computer The experiment results show that the proposed mini IT lab has acceptable performance and can be used by instructors and students to overcome challenges imposed by distance learning © 2020 ACM