The LUUG has held introductory Linux courses from time to time. Generally there are two distinct approaches, sometimes held on different days. On one occasion the speaker will focus on beginner-friendly graphical user interfaces and the other, he or she will concentrate on the power of the *nix commandline.

In November of 2009, the LUUG co-hosted with [[Free Culture]] an [[OpenStreetMap]] mapping day for the first time. Prizes were donated by Qualcomm and O'Reilly and the event was made possible in part by the advice and support of [[Peter Sforza]] from the [[Center for Geospatial Information Technology]]. Around 15 people showed up. Footpaths on campus, businesses in the [[University Mall]] and roads and parking lots around [[The Village]] and [[Terrace View]] were added to the map. Since that first mapping day, the LUUG has continued to hold about one mapping day a semester, with variable turnout and different tasks such as importing data from the [[Blacksburg|Town of Blacksburg]].