This primary aim of this short course is to help MAC users install and test a virtual Ubuntu Linux server on VirtualBox, in around an hour.  Although becoming an expert in Linux will take some years, it is not difficult to get a basic server up and running and to get a taste of Linux in an hour.  

Linux is very widely used now in Internet infrastructure like Web servers, in Public Cloud infrastructure like Amazon AWS and in Private Clouds running on OpenStack.  So it will be really worth your while to get some basic experience on the Linux OS before you start working on Cloud servers.  

The two great things about running a VM on your MAC are (i) if it goes wrong, you can easily delete it and start again and (ii) you can work offline without an Internet connection. I hope you benefit from the value of this short course.  I really enjoyed putting it together for you.