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Linux Win In Schools
Xaleth Nuada wrote to us about a Wired article that talks a school in Colorado choosing Linux over the traditional choices. The reason? Prohibitive costs for licensing, of course. The school's network is maintained by parental volunteers, and thanks to Linux, can be easily maintained remotely. And for what schools use computers for - primarily the Internet, it's a great solution.
It's a great solution if by "internet" you mean ftp, news, mail, gopher, WAIS, etc. But if you mean "the web", you get...poor plug-in availability, instant lockout from loads of sites due to outdated flash plugin...
Nice to see public schools moving towards a non-proprietary alternative to current software. Of course the reason for this now is budgetary concerns, but I can see a greater result--increased computer literacy.
Its been my experience (as a web development instructor with a private post-secondary school) that teens these days, despite the stereotypes, actually posess less computer literacy than geeks of my generation.
I learned DOS and UNIX on the command line. Windows and Mac will stunt your understanding of how a computer works, and make you think only of pushing around cute little icons. WIMP interfaces make people dumb. They can't understand how the computer works, so they end up relying on 'geeks' to fix their problems.
Teach programming to everyone (Thanks to GvR) and teach kids a command line in school. Make them understand the technology that they'll use every day of their lives. Let our kids develop some computer savy and brains.
Beware the Whyte Wolf.
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...
And for what schools use computers for - primarily the Internet, it's a great solution.
If that includes web browsing, I disagree. Sadly, most of the technical benefits of Linux are cancelled out of the horrible web browsing software available for it. The Linux kernel beats Windows in any test imaginable, but in browser tests IE 5 walks over everthing else by a wide margin. Sure, you *can* browse with Opera or Navigator, but only if you're willing to accept that you won't be able to view a good number of sites correctly. (You can take the idealistic "I don't want to see those sites anyway" road, but not everyone does.
Most colleges use a UNIX environment (especially for CS and engineering). Putting a UNIX environment in high/elementary schools is the next step. And you know how school boards love to save money.
Solution? Linux.
It isn't very surprising to me, other than the need to have a good *NIX network administrator in your local school (seems odd, doesn't it?).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
For every one story we read abotu a school adopting Linux, theres a few hundred schools that buy Windows.
This is a fascinating story, honest, it's just buried in an avalanche of MS boxen.
...To start teaching the free-software mentality. Since the parental volunteers and teachers are tacitly endorsing OSS and GNU principals by choosing Linux over the pay-for competition, they're letting their kids know that Free software is good and acceptible.
This is in stark contrast to the days when I grew up. I remember my Pascal teacher 'giving' me an copy of Turbo Pascal compiler because she knew I didn't have one at home to practice with. Then I felt bad because I knew it had been illegally copied. If only she or I had known that there *were* OSS compilers out there. These were something I didn't discover until college.
Let's see if the decision to include OSS in schools will mean things like a chapter in the computer literacy class about the GPL and the mentality behind it. I'd also like to see the schools encourage their kiddies to 'give back' to the OSS movement by releasing their programming projects and any software they custom-build under the GPL.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
This is a huge step forward for linux... but ofcourse my high school still uses macs... and not just macs... iMacs! What kind of idiot came up withthat computer? GRRRR!!!
Sorry just venting... i hate those colourful pieces of crap!
Hopefully we will install some sort of *nix by the time I'm a senior!
I got a question though: What are they going to do about taking work home? Not every kid has a copy of StarOffice or AbiWord at home...
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Sig
Honestly, they're volunteering so they're taking time to do things right the first time around. My old high school (which i keep tabs on, as I was the sole computer expert there for years) is horrendous with computers. Using the easily circumventedd security program known as Fortress, they wondered how everyone still played games. And the crappy cyber patrol software would block search engines and leave www.lotsofsexforyou.com open for anyone. For a county with more than 25 schools, all of them running through a single shared T1 (roughly), its pretty bad. Linux could fix a lot of it. The current problem is version differences, they've switched about half the staff over to Windows 2000 servers, leaving the other half on Novell. Thus, no one can access anything as the servers dont have access to the databases any more because the techs are ID10Ts. Rather than pouring money that should be going to teacher payraises and better books, they just upgrade windows again and break more stuff.
Sorry, ranting a little there...but the computer mishaps that my poor HS goes through really bothers me, as it has a negative impact on perceptions of computers and the internet...
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
What about all the people in physic's , chemistry and engineering to name a few who work in a *nix enviroment. Advanced skills skill's scale down easily. Low end skills don't scale up at all.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. - Albert Camus
Linux is making an impression upon school kids now. Great! Now all we need to do is fix the biggest problem with Linux distros these days. They are all designed to be servers!
/usr/local/bin myself!
In order for Linux to really make a good desktop OS, a distro must be designed with that goal in mind. Namely, get userspace programs out of the RPMs!! Nothing ticks me off more than having to search through a list of installed system RPMs just so that I can uninstall an old copy of mozilla. We really need to get a separate installer for applications, and get it distro immune. This way, people can start making professional looking install packages for their apps so non-geeks will take them seriously. (Sorry, but I don't know any grandmas out there who believe that source code is the best way to distribute applications. We need to start statically linking apps, and using a generic installer/uninstaller sort of like the Add/Remove programs in Windows.)
Secondly, I haven't seen a gui application yet that I religiously envoke from the command prompt. Get gui applications out of the $PATH! If I wanted to run xcdroast from the command line every time, I would put a symbolic link in
There are other issues that I'm SURE will get me modded down (like X11 no longer being an efficient display method), but the two biggest problems that I see are the two I listed. There are other obvious issues (like the need for autoruns), but most of these have been taken care of. We really just need a desktop inclined distro, and a way to keep system packages separate from user installed packages.
Okay moderators, down we go.....
By the time these kids get out into Real Life the corporate standard (of what corporation BTW ;-) may/will be changed.
Besides there are very good professional office apps out there. Myself, I actually prefer Word Perfect over MS Word, and have done so since before Microsofts predatory behaviour dawned on me.
By stating that using this or that for K-12 kids in school because todays business use or dont use it is absurd and had it been applied before we would still use feather pens and ride a horse to work...
And, even if they use more advanced things such as automatic table of contents, columns, merging, or anything else that I myself have never used, wouldn't it be better to get people to use document formats with open standards (such as XML, others?) instead of lame proprietary standards?
Is it really a sterotype if that's what she wants to do? Does everyone have to follow what you think their life should be? Isn't the point of "breaking sterotypes" just to be yourself? What if that's what she, or even he, wants?
Hell, I've love to be a stay-home dad, myself. I wouldn't mind at all. Is that not ambitious enough for you? Should I go to the top just because I could? Or should I just be happy?
Whatever makes you happy, and for some, that means a fairly mentally trivial job. That requires training, usually in MS Word and Excel. That will no longer be provided.
Your time has no value.
I am a Linux user, both at home and work, where my advocacy sometimes gets me in hot water. I think it's great that these schools are going Linux, but having "parental volunteers" maintain the network is, or can be, a recipe for disaster. Unless you get some slick Linux people in there, the AOLers and the A:\SETUPers will not be able to support it properly. Thus, it will be a classic straw-man case for Windows. Any budding MCSE geek can keep a Windows LAN limping along, and there are a lot of them.
That all being said, I think this is a great way to teach people, kids especially, how computers and networks actually WORK, instead of creating another generation of double-clickers.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
From reading the article, it looks as if this school district is doing the same thing as Largo Florida. They're basically taking a bunch of old and otherwise useless machines and outfitting them into Linux thinclients that run off a master server. This is great so that schools aren't only strapped to keep up with costs for software, but this frees them from having to keep up with the latest hardware to run that software. Bottom line for the residents of the towns using linux are either (A) lowering taxes from not having to spend so much on computing resources, or (B) better overall school performance by using the extra cash to help the school run better.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Honestly, it would be so much simpler to get a Mac OS X Server (which can do Windows Domains (RSN with 10.1), YP, and Mac domains). Then get a small group of each kind of computer. Life is good. As people use more of one kind, get more of that kind; user accounts will move with the person. Then there's no debate over liscensing from the server and/or what kind of computer you use.
So yeah, it's happening more and more and we see a story here and there... some city government adopts Linux and now some school. That's wonderful!
Some other reader comments that it's a mystery that it took this long for that to start happening. Well, no it's not... the teachers and administrators often choose the computers and OS's. What *is* a slight mystery is why Apple failed to donate to the school... now that's a mystery... are they slipping or can they no longer afford to do that?
The best part of this is that it better assures Linux's acceptance from the ground up. Now it's in the hands of more kids. Let's face it, the younger Linux users fit the profile of that kid (played by Matthew Broderick) from "War Games." Now we should (hope) to see an increase in comfortablity with this "new OS choice." (Okay, so it's not "new" to us, but it's still going to be very new to a lot of people and isn't that part of the detractor of Linux? It's new and/or unknown?)
As for these 43 machines... I have to wonder if they are "good enough." Will the impression grow that Linux is slow to the point of being unusable? My first adventures in Linux were on my scrap computers... not powerful enough for my Windows usage... But since Linux was making a name for itself (at the time) for being able to run on my more modest hardware, I expected great things. When I didn't get great things I was very disappointed.
I hope this new direction goes smoothly for these new pioneers because these first impressions can mean a lot. Now we are starting to migrate from FUD to FACT and Linux's reputation is even more on the line than ever. The solutions to problems may ultimately be simple but if the answers aren't to be found, it often makes some situations appear impossible under Linux. It's not time to celebrate yet. I would love to see a follow-up on this story with interviews of the support crew, the faculty and the students about their reflections on the migration to Linux. It could be important information for anyone who is concerned.
Hmm. Unix doesn't provide any inherent security over Windows NT.
:)
The way you achieve security is by proper administration.
P.S. Being able to obtain root on a Win98 box doesn't make you l33t.
Make room everybody, Bernie has brought in his Beowulf Cluster for show & tell...
Instead of giving her teacher an apple on the first day of school, Suzy brought in a G4, running LinuxPPC.
As someone who came of age in the days of cassette drives and TRS-80 model 1's, I cannot imagine anything cooler.
I remember that it used to be Macs everywhere in the schools. The major difference I can see between the Mac of the late 80's/early 90's and linux today (at least as far as the general public would see it) is that there wasn't an abundance of business software available for the Mac back then. There is a ton of quality, low/no-cost business software available for linux today.
There is also a good number of 'fun' software packages out there too -- MP3 players etc. to attract the Internet surfing masses. We just need a killer browser.
Sorry, if they want free software they can use Linux, but they are rightfully expected to pay for commercial software. Why should government agencies (which schools are) have software free that the public pays for.
How long before local governments decide commercial software must be made free for the benefit of the people (but only to governments, businesses can pay full price)
I cannot see how its backfired for MS, they are a corporation, and corporations are supposed to make money. If the schools don't want to pay they have a choice.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yep, only then it was Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, Sidekick etc that ruled the PC (relatively rare as it was then)
Today you can get Word Perfect (that I actually prefer) and the others are defunct AFAIK
So, your parents post is very valid.
Slashdot doesn't work when I use Konqueror. 1.9.something (I think?). I have to hand edit the URL. An extra "slashdot.org" is in every link. I don't think that would be good in a school.
Best Slashdot Co
I've been using StarOffice to submit my weekly status reports to my boss. The difference is imperceptible. In fact, we recently discussed the possibility of putting Linux on our corporate workstations, just as an in-the-back-pocket concept, and we spent about two hours creating a test workstation that would do everything our users needed to do. smbmount and smbumount made attaching to the Windows NT network easy. Mapped drives, created word documents, etc. The fundamental lesson I learned from this was that no matter what was running underneath, if the user interface was kept consistent the end-user need not know the difference.
Good money decision, but really bad in the long run.
Aside from your misunderstanding of what constitutes an "education", exactly why is this bad in the long run?
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
If we're all referring to the "Get Legal" BSA terror^H^H^H^H^H^Hletter-writing campaign (which is what I'm sure caused this), let me assure you that it has backfired in heavily MS-friendly corporate areas as well. Bill may not be aware of it, but the economy is in a recession, and companies are cutting costs, not increasing them. Being frightened witless by a BSA campaign caused some people in my IT department to re-evaluate the potential of putting Linux out there. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but we do know it can be done and the next stupid thing MS does may be the last one they do for us.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
More recently, I've seen several churches and charities make the switch. Again, it's an issue of licensing. Such organizations usually get 2 or 3 year old hardware donated to them, Linux fits the bill in that it doesn't necessarily need to be the bleeding edge to do the "office stuff".
As other applications, such as attendence, inventory and other fun stuff get up and onto sourceforge & freshmeat, and as long as Linux to get friendlier and friendlier, more and more charitable organizations will make the switch.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
But the hardware HAD to be bought. The software? Well, they have a choice. And you can run a PII -266 with 64MB of RAM all over the net and have it be plenty responsive under linux (well, maybe not Moz yet). IE5 on NT? I tried NT 4 on my laptop with those specs and it blew.
Linux will continue to run well on antiquated hardware (by virtue of turning off bells and whistles), while Windows will not.
There.
Dirk
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
Okay, how about WordPerfect Suite 2000 for Linux? Costs about a quarter of MS Office and has full functionality. And don't give me this crap about how MS Office is SOO much better unless you have ACTUALLY TRIED both. WordPerfect is as good, if not better than Word. QuattroPro is not as good as Excel, but it is not something to scoff at. The everything else, Presentations, Paradox, etc... is as good as any MS product. Just because MS has illegaly used their monopoly to pressured the computer manufactures to install MS Office, and on top of that, broke all conversions as soon as they had the upper hand, thereby creating larger dominance in the market does not make their product orders of magnitude better.
Funny thing, unless the people are trying to attach Visual Basic scripts to their documents or spreadsheets, which I doubt your part-time secretary will be doing, someone who learns on WordPerfect and QuattroPro will have no problems with moving over to Word and Excel. This is probably because MS copied the WordPerfect and QuattroPro layouts (yes, WordPerfect and QuattroPro were there before Word and Excel).
Anyway, cost is a huge deal. When I was in high school Windows 95 came out. First the school was not about to install Windows 95 on their 486SX25's, but they A) didn't have the money for new computers, and B) didn't have the money for the OS. 20 licenses at $100 each is $2000, that could buy one classroom full of books. And considering our US Government class's text book was from 1984 we desperately need the books over an expensive OS.
Look at today. If you are a principal who is working with a very tight budget you have a couple options.
- Spend $X per license each time MS comes out with a new OS or a new Office suite. That way your school can produce those workers for the "standard" jobs. Thereby running your school in the ground by spending way too much money on expensive software.
- Have the volentary Sys-Admin install Linux, which is free, and then 1/4th as much on licenses for Office software that is just as good as any MS product.
In the end it not only costs less to do the second plan but there are also other benifits. Students can learn how to work with a UNIX environment, which, in big businesses, is not as uncommon as one might think. The students, especially in a charter school, are probably getting quite a bit of experience with Windows at home anyway.Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Yeah, no kidding. Thank God my school gave me all that WordPerfect training! I mean, that's all anybody uses, right? They taught us the proper function key sequences, and now I can get a job anywhere, all thanks to my WordPerfect training!
Students do not need to be trained in how to use specific applications. The period my school spent training my little brother (9th grade) to save documents in Word was completely wasted. Students need to be taught how to use computers in general, and how to figure things out on their own. Even if Office is still the dominant productivity suite in ten years, it will most likely be completely different. Rote training in application use today creates the lusers of tomorrow.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I think you're missing the point. There are many purposes for computers in a school system.
Unrelated to the actual teaching mission, computers provide database capabilities for tracking the students' progress and special needs, if any. Grades, attendance, counselor or faculty notes, all can and should be retained electronically. Computers provide communication via messaging or email between administrators and faculty who are likely in widely-separated buildings and often widely-separated towns. They permit rapid production of mind-numbing statistics and colored charts that are so in vogue with top-level edubosses.
Within the educational mission, though, there are a lot of things computers can be used for. For the schools fortunate/large enough to offer computer-focused classes, does the operating system matter? Well, if you're learning C or C++ or Java or Python or whatever, then not really. If you're in a class teaching computer basics (what's a CPU, what's RAM, etc.) then again no. If you're in a lab and using a computer to interface with a data-taking gadget, once more we find the OS to be irrelevant. Foreign language tutorial? Electronic arithmetic flash cards?
There _is_ a role to be played by Windows, though, and you've hit on it. Students who intend to pursue clerical jobs should be exposed through their vocational classes to Windows and Office. Those, as you point out, are the standard tools and it's reasonable to expect that the students will need to know them. However, even these students should be exposed to alternative office suites on alternative operating systems to prepare them for the fact that they might end up in (for example) a Macs-only office. Exposing them to concepts that span a single product makes the difference between teaching and training.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
I think that a number of events may conspire to give Linux a possibility of entering the mainstream market over the next few years, the most prominent events events being...
a) MS tightening up on casual user piracy by actively preventing multiple user installs.
b) added cost of licensing MS products under the new scheme, this will mean that companies will think twice about paying for MS when a similar amount of bucks buys you a single RH Linux disk and a fairly hefty admin staff.
c) some (currently small) demonstrations that Linux now has the capability to function in school and public service environments
d) KDE and Gnome genuinely appear to offer almost everything on the desktop that Windows does (OK the Office suite for KDE is not there yet, but real progress has been made).
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
The worst offenders are commercial sites of all places.
But if they use their Internet connection for mainly educational purposes then I cannot see them having that many issues, if any at all. In fact most sites run perfectly well (never had Flash lock me out due to it being old! Had it lock out on some werid 3D stuff though).
In fact some IE sites may just lock you out based upon the fact you're not running IE, even though Konqueror/Mozilla may well render the page correctly.
Really your issues are purely FUD and are hardly based in the real world to any large extent. Right now I am using Konqueror.
This is great that a school has done this. Hopefully more will follow, then finally the owners and designers will have to think about providing support for Linux. Support for Linux basically means good web design anyway.
StarTux
This is not a Troll, but are you all on crack? This is not a good thing. For hardly anybody. Putting Linux in a k-12 school system is not a good thing. Despite what anybody here says, Linux is not as easy to use as a Mac, or even windows. I make no bones baout this, and it may be part of the reason I love it so. Linux was designed for servers, and high end workers, not kindergarteners who have enough trouble putting their coats on, much less operating KDE. As someone who supports an elementry school's computers, software for schools often needs to be bright, simple, and colorful. You guys remeber MECC software, and Broderbund? Elementry school are places where using Print Ship can be a challenge, and the concept of "where did I save my work" or "I have to save my work?" are allmost insurmountbale. 9 times out of ten, teachers tend to be the least computer savy people you'll ever meet. And this is not necesaarily a bad thing, since they deal with very small children each and every day. Perl scripts aren't skills they need. Remember the idea here is total cost of ownership. Linux takes time to learn, time that teachers don't have to put in.
Mod point free since 2001
I think a subtle point you miss here is that nowadays children ARE more computer literate in the sense that they know how to use a computer to do things for themselves. The difference with these children is that they will be Linux-literate instead of Windows-literate.
;)
Think about it. A big reason why I use Windows today is because I grew up using DOS. If I'd grown up using Linux and StarOffice, I'd probably be using Linux today as my main OS.
The biggest problem I have with talking about Linux to most people is that they've never even seen it, much less used it. It puts them at a disadvantage, and since most folks like to pretend they know everything on the 'net, they certainly can't admit they're at a disadvantage.
These kids are going to grow up knowing better. And they're going to wonder why all these people bothered to pay money for office and OS software that was dramatically inferior to the free stuff.
Great question! Every time I hear some goof talking about how children are supposed to learn ``the standard'', I wonder whether this is supposed to be a general education or is it supposed to be vocational training. And you never hear a decent argument about why teaching a vendor-specific product is the correct thing to be included in a school curriculum. Heck, when you hear any arguments at all that attempt to support it, they all boil down to ``we got a donation from the vendor'', blah, blah, blah.
What was that Isaac Asimov novella again? Oh, yes: ``Profession''. Should be required reading for any numbnuts that proposes teaching a vendor-specific technology in schools.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Not only is this a blow for Microsoft in terms of market share, but in PR as well.
Yes, it damages Microsoft's image, making them out to be a greedy Goliath. Yes, I think it's a great single instance of Linux getting some perception coup. However...
One, if you use proprietary/closed/commercial software, then you must pay for it and be licensed. If the schools are not in compliance, then they owe the software makers the money. When students see teachers cloning disks to work around "budget shortcomings," is there any wonder why kids think everything digital is free for the taking?
Two, if you choose libre/open/gratis software, that's a reasonable alternatve, but only if it serves the needs. It's not a hobby, but a job, so choose the right tools for the job and be prepared to pay for them if they're not free. Personally, I hope this just improves the free tools to where they fit the needs of the job.
Three, why are the schools strapped for cash? Because people don't want to pass school bond measures when they see it's going to affect their property taxes. Elderly people don't vote for schools, and homeowners don't vote for schools. Lotteries "give" proceeds to schools, but that just makes the legislature shortchange the schools even more.
Making Microsoft into the bully here misses the main arguments here. Microsoft chose a business model and is sticking to it. If you're going to do business with someone ethically, then you have to respect their business model. If we can't expect ethics from our schools, then we surely can't expect ethics from the next generation of graduates. Find alternatives that are functional, sustainable, and ethical, so you don't find yourself on the wrong end of the gun.
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It's nice that everyone feels that Linux use in schools would be good. But if you want to see Linux in use at your local K-12, get out and volunteer with their technology committee. I did, and it was an eye-opener.
Because school administrators aren't technical, they decide what to implement based on what other schools in their area are doing, and the Windows status quo is maintained. Install Linux? What's that? How would you do it? It's free, sure, but without an expert to help them learn, all but the bravest will stay away. They have too many other issues to worry about, like getting electrical upgrades, equipment, and developing computer curriculum with teachers that aren't up to speed.
If you volunteer and work as part of a school technology team, you'll be helping them move through all of these issues with minimal risk. It's then that you'll be able to bring up Linux, piquing their interest with the cost, helping them understand why it's better, and assisting with the implementation and the learning. They'll be exceedingly grateful, and you'll get to increase your karma somewhere other than here.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
There are computer room monitors at the local high school. They are there to help students when they can't figure out how to do something. Unfortunately, these people were given jobs for some political reason and not for being actually qualified for the job.
When I was there, NOBODY was allowed to use the 40 IBM machines in another room, everybody had to use the 20 Macs. There were many reasons why we weren't allowed to use the DOS/Win3.1 machines. I personally was blamed for attempting to crash the hard drive by removing the "Leaf" wallpaper from Windows 3.1. They really flipped out when they saw me sitting in from of a command prompt typing in DIR. Apparently that causes hard drive crashes as well.
They EVENTUALLY got off my back and let me do whatever I wanted after I kept ignoring them and using the IBMs anyways. Gee, no HDs ever crashed either.
But the moral of this story is that no matter how many computers you have, you still need somebody to show the kids how to use it. And how many schoolkids are going to have Linux geeks for parents? Do Linux geeks have the ability to get a date, let alone procreate? Just kidding. But I don't see this helping out so many rural schools due to lack of knowledge and lack of funds to acquire knowledge. Linux may be free but somebody has to learn how to use it. Of course, if one of the major distros were to have an install feature for "Super-Secure-Only-StarOffice", then it may make this a little more likely in a lot more schools.
Installing Linux is something I would be thrilled to do, since it is what I work with and it is the OS I am the most familiar with - plus it won't cost them anything. But what good is that if there is no educational software available? I'm thinking elementary school stuff, like spelling/grammar, mathematics, geography, educational games - that sort of stuff.
I'd prefer if it was opensource - not because I'm a zealot or anything, but since english is not our mother tongue, I guess I'd have to do a bit of translation work before they can use it.
I'm totally ignorant as to what's available, any suggestions (reply or mail) would be very welcome in deed.
^]:wq!^M
I hate to rag on Wired, but this article is a huge Linux puff piece that takes as fact everything that the people involved with the effort say. Why don't they have any responses from people at Microsoft or Apple (who in particular is hugely invested in the education market) to any of the issues brought up?
Examples of useful command-line calls:
I agree that it's good to have these things in menus and such, but please don't take away ready command line access. As others have pointed out, having stuff in $PATH doesn't hurt anything.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
We have 140 Linux based X-Terminals up and running, and this is year 3 of the project.
It is possible :) Props to LTSP for making it almost easy :).
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
Now we're going to have third graders screaming their heads off at each other about the merits of emacs vs. vi and Gnome vs. KDE!
/. accounts!
If you thought the arguments were juvenile and immature before, just wait until those first graders get
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Actually, Linux is probably just as good an answer as Windows. At least this way they are exposed to something other than "the standard." Might help them keep an open mind about such things when they're out in the real world and making decisions. If they've had first-hand experience with Linux, they won't be as likely to dismiss it as "that arcane hacker OS." Most people that do dismiss Linux like that haven't even used it. Stick them in front of a Linux box and tell them to install Windows on it and see how friendly they think Windows is then.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You have it wrong. The guy said to teach without the GUI. I'll tell you a story which might change your mind...
While working on a grant at SDSU, I heard of an instructor in Maryland who found that her students who used a DOS-based PC to write english papers received better grades then did the Apple Mac counterparts. A 2 year study found that she was correct in that the DOS-based PC users used larger words, had a higher wordcount per sentance, and used more complete sentence structures. The students were enrolled in an English class because they didn't fail the entrance exam but also weren't good enough to bypass the English requirements altogether. The English department at the university didn't determine exactly what was going on but figured it was because at a DOS-prompt, you have to think about what you need to do next. In a GUI, you are prompted.
The DOS-based users has the DOS prompt staring at them and THEY had to figure out what the next step was. When they got to the wordprocessor they were already in a higer thinking mode then when ICONS lead you thru the task.
Once you're well versed and trained in the skills the computer is HELPING you with, you don't need to have such a bare-bones interface to get to what you want to do. Teach kids how to think and they will take off from there.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
And exactly why is that a bad thing? Students should be required to know how everyday objects work. I certainly wish someone had told me how these things worked when I was in grade school.
I don't expect the school to teach my children these things, but I certainly will.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
It's like $30 per seat
It's like $30 per seat every two years and that is just the OS. That doesn't include the $300 student version of Office and any other applications that you usually have to pay for. Coupled with the fact that the security is swiss cheese and you have to buy additional security software, the $30 is just the hook. You end up spending ten times that just to defend your initial investment and make it workable.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Actually, Linux is probably just as good an answer as Windows. At least this way they are exposed to something other than "the standard."
Unless we are talking students aged at least over 15 this is a moot point anyway. Since you have no possible way of knowing what "the standard" will be when they leave school in the first place.
This is a victory for "free as in beer"; "Free as in speech" wasn't a player. Implications with respect to political agendas, possible corporate countermeasures, etc. should be obvious.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
It's sad that the primary use of a computer in a shcool is "The Internet"
whatever happened to expressing creativity through code? I remember when I was in High School, our computer room was a bunch of TRS-80 model III's. Computers in schools should be a tool to learn. Internet access??? Why? Maybe a networking class, with your own web and mail servers to play with.
Let's not forget why children are in school. To learn important skills they can't get elsewhere. How does being able to browse web pages help this?
What was that Isaac Asimov novella again? Oh, yes: ``Profession''. Should be required reading for any numbnuts that proposes teaching
vendor-specific technology in schools.
I hate to be a me-too, but that story has to be among the most insightful ones in recent history. I think mine is in a collection called "10 tomorrows".
A dingo ate my sig...
Yep: I can just see it now.. Kids going home, and telling their parents that they need a linux partition to do their homework. Learning how to do a linux install, and/or doing a Linux on FAT installation --- parents learning that Linux is so much more sane and capable than Wintendos, then mentioning it at work, where they try it out....
We can't have that, now, can we?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
First off, the GUI doesn't make one computer illiterate it actually lets more people use computers. It raises literacy. Maybe not to the level you like, but that's your opinion. The millions who use PCs and have no understanding of their innards are about as much as a problem as the millions of people who can't rebuild the engine in their car or replace a C-V joint.
Secondly, they're still using windows at home which is good because when they move on to college and then some job, chances are if they aren't CS majors they'll be using windows.
The problem, if there really is one, is that no one is programming typical home machines and there's an assumption that you have to know C++ and some Unix to get a handle on it. If you're using windows, use Visual Basic.
I'd much rather see a school teach VB or VBScript in a Windows environment to automate tasks and actually program the thing instead of being limited to whatever software you can buy.
I don't have a problem with the linux + windows solution this school is using, but this elitist attitude of dropping the GUI is just short-sighted and stupid. With linux advocates like these its no wonder it has such a teeny tiny market share in the workstation market.
Well, barring some sort of divine intervention, it's a pretty safe bet that Microsoft will still be on top for the rest of the decade. Even if Linux makes some really astounding progress and captures 30 percent of the desktop OS market by 2010, that still leaves MS with over 60 percent. So far, there are no other challengers. Apple doesn't look to be making any progress. They've maintained their few percent of the market and that's about it. Be went down the drain. What's left? Yeah, there's always the slim possibility of something coming out of left field and being so amazingly revolutionary that everyone will forget their existing software/training/admin investments and jump right on it. But that's a really slim possibility.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Real geeks use punchcards!
What the Microsoft Bully moves have done is given schools (and businesses) the incentive to actually LOOK at using other tools -- Including free tools like Linux, to see if they can do the job. When people take a serious look at Linux, they often find that it really is as good as -- or better than Wintendos for many tasks.
Linux's advantages are in many areas -- both financial and technical. What these 'single instances' do is provide proving grounds and examples where people can go and see 'live' examples of Linux working -- and working well -- for people in their industry.
This is much like what happened in the server universe, where Linux was first used by the forward thinking mavericks who were then able to prove that it had the power, stability and tools to do the job that people needed to get done -- Often (usually) doing it better than the mondo-dollar proprietary '$olutions' sold by companies like Microsoft.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
At the risk of feeding a troll, I'm going to take issue with your statements.
Freeloaders mentality, that's what you mean right?
How exactly is it freeloading to use free software? It is provided for free and its use is encouraged by those who create it.
No, we are talking here about technical education and polluting their minds with leftist crap from RMS front is NOT what I want my tax money to be spent on.
Again, how exactly are their minds being polluted by having the GPL explained to them? Living in a world with the DMCA, the ??AA groups, BSA license audits, etc., I think it certainly should be explained that not everything is like that. What's wrong with pointing out that some software exists that won't require you to agree to a EULA the size of a novel or take away your rights to actually make use of what you purchase in a way that is most beneficial to you instead of the company that sold it to you. What exactly are you so worried about?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I think I know the real source of the more-poorly written documents...
It looks like you are writing a term paper... Would you like to use a template wizard to:
* create an outline
* fill in generic content
* have me write it for you
You bet schools mainly use their computers for 'net access. Judging by all the emails I get about horny schoolgirls wanting me to check out their websites, they must be at it 24/7.
...j
But the question he never answered in that story was: why do they call it the Olympics?
Yeah. Nine Tommorrows was one of my favorites when I was, oh, about nine years old.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
I learned that stuff when I was in school!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You whined about your post on K5... but seriously. This borders on flamebait.
Hint: People who learn more abstract ideas about computers, and more generic ideas usually have no problems adapting to other systems.
Are you trying to say that every school should be obliged to teach windows because that's what you need to get a job? Hello? You aren't in highschool as 'job training', you are in it to learn theory and academics, to gain some base knowledge. I'd MUCH rather have my kids learn a thing or two about linux than 'here's windows'
Can you point me to some information on this? I didn't think this was possible...
You cannot use an X server to view sessions served out by MS Terminal Services, as far as I know; that's completely contrary to what MS does.
I'd think users using old X terminals to view windows apps is the *last* thing MS wants.
Here are a few cool things you can do with Linux for just the cost of the hardware.
1. Diskless art terminals: ThinkNIC (www.thinknic.com) has a wonderful product, a diskless internet workstation. Use some technical knowledge, and you can run GIMP from a server with Remote X, get 4 or 5 of these things at $300 each, and you've got a graphics lab for under $5,000.
2. Web Terminals: I don't mean to be plugging the ThinkNIC (no, I don't work there), but you can use it as a web terminal, placed strategically, like in a student rec center, where kids can surf or check e-mail.
3. Administrative Management: If you're skilled with PHP, and don't want to spend any cash on a competitive product, you can whip up a grades management system or something of that nature with just a dash of MySQL.
4. Haxor Checks: I admin at a private high school, and we just got a donation of about 50 Pentium-133 computers, complete with 2GB drive and 10/100 NIC. So, I set up Snort and SSH on about 10 of them, and put them in the basement of our dorms, sniffing for haxor activity.
5. FreeMail: I don't know if that word is copyrighted, but if you replace MS Exchange (which alot of schools have) with Sendmail or Qmail, you can save quite a bit of cash.
6. Critical Services: Who says you need WindowsNT for a DHCP or DNS server? Linux! A small to mid sized school can run a DNS and DHCP server on one underpowerd box, say a Pentium-100.
7. Support Windows 9x: If you sit down with Samba for a while, you can make it do everything you could need it to do. I have Samba set up as a Primary Domain Controller, and this computer holds all my home directories for the whole school.
What it all boils down to
This is what I have saved with Linux:
3 Windows2000 Server Licenses. (DHCP/DNS Server, Primary Domain Controller, Exchange Server)
1 Microsoft Exchange Server License
5 Windows98 Licenses (ThinkNIC's in the art labs)
5 Adobe Photoshop Licenses (Replace with GIMP)
$2000x5 = $10,000 (Replaced actual $2,300 PC's with ThinkNIC's)
1 Microsoft Proxy Server License (Replaced with Squid)
I hope this gives you guys some ideas.
--Ted
Check out the ROX Desktop project.
/usr/local/bin). There is no install procedure required other than copying or dragging one directory. It also means that apps are compiled purely relative to their own application directory and are fully relocatable in terms of where they can be installed - I could just as easily install it in ~/bin as in /usr/local/bin and the app wouldn't care.
It's mainly an alternative desktop environment (lean, mean, not bloated like KDE and GNOME, etc., etc.) but he also has an interesting way of packaging applications that's somewhat Mac-like. Basically, all of an application's files are kept in one "application directory" rather than being sprawled all over the file system as is the current practice. The only change needed from the current system is that the file manager must be aware of these "application directories", and when the user clicks on one of these directories, the file manager runs a script inside the directory that then takes over and runs the application. Applications can thus be installed simply by copying (or dragging in a file manager) the application directory from the distribution medium or tar file into any directory in your path (such as
> Privatize all schools! Get the tax thing out of the way,
> and funding problems disappear! It's called "free market",
> and it works for everything else, doesn't it?
No, it doesn't. There are some thing for which the free market is ideal, and some where it is a very bad fit. Schools are one such area. There are several reasons:
1.) Privatizing schools assumes that everyone can afford to pay for an education. This is an extremely dangerous road to tread, as it holds the very real risk that poorer kids will fall behind scholastically, starting a cycle of "can't get a good job because of lack of education/can't educate the kids properly because it costs too much". This already happens in the public system, and there's evidence in history to support that it just gets worse if there are private schools but no public alternatives.
2.) Privatizing schools completely changes the goal of the school. The idea behind a not-for-profit venture is to maximize services given a certain budget. The idea behind a for-profit venture is to maximize profit. By completely privatizing the system, you run into some of the same problems that you encounter in hospitals, where monetary considerations can affect the quality of care.
3.) Privatizing schools can (but does not always) lead to excessive commercialism, as schools accept funds from corporations in exchange for considerations like advertising or exclusive product contracts (there are many schools that get paid money by distributors, for example, to sell only certain brands of soft drinks or snacks from the vending machines). Although public funds certainly don't eliminate this sort of thing, they do help take the pressure off somewhat.
There are some services where government oversight is necessary (think of what the roads would look like if taxes weren't allocated for maintenance, or consider that the only alternative would be toll booths everywhere to support it). Since quality education is the backbone of any advanced (or advancing) society, it must remain available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay for it.
Virg
> They did afford the hardware that costs atleast 20
> times as much in my experience.
This argument comes up time and again, and every time, the failure of logic astounds me. But, I'll go through it again. The school has to buy the system hardware no matter what OS they run on it. The licensing for Windows sits on top of the hardware, but last I checked, if the school's going to run Windows they still need to buy the computer. So, if the computer costs $X and Windows costs $Y, the following equation applies:
$X is less than $X + $Y (eq.1)
So, the school saves money by using Linux, no matter how cheap Windows is.
Did you finally get it this time?
Virg
StarOffice (and soon OpenOffice) runs just fine in KDE, is definitely "there", and has everything most average users and school kids need in an office suite.
Educational publishers create web-sites that complement their printed content. Interactivity is the main feature that online material has that printed material won't.
Linux advocates must, must, must move away from thinking "if it can't be done with Linux, it must not be worth doing" towards "how, both technically and politically, can we get Linux to do this thing as well as Windows does and do so at least as easily as Windows does." Otherwise, Linux will be the sour-grapes alternative only.
Actually, linux desktop share will continue to grow exponentially and overtake windows and Mac os in the nearer-than-forcasted future.
By 2005, as the prescient Linus Torvalds divined, Linux will have all the functionality of windows, all of the core apps, and all of the pretty interface quirks. Linus has never been wrong before so this is now assumed as fact.
6 months after this point of, shall we say, "Singularity", linux will own 10% of the desktop market. IBM is already replacing AIX with linux, windows shouldn't be too far off.
Now this is the moment where exciting things start to happen. In 2007 Linux will own 45% of the market, and will have 60% more features and applications than windows. This is the point at which game developers are releasing for linux at an equal level as their windows releases. Now the linux growth is unstoppable.
By 2010, the date you gave arbitrarily as the end of this decade, linux will have 95% of the market. Windows will only be used to service legacy file formats that businesses still rely on. Bill Gates will go to the far east and become a shaman monk, donating $30 billion to His Holiness the Dali Lama's orginzation. Steve Ballmer will be the focus of Chimpanzee/Human genetic similarity experiments, and will be treated with extra-special care, given ropes and monkey bars to play around on. The rest of the employees at redmond will get real jobs doing something useful for humanity.
Agreed as far as this point goes. That being said, I think that it is a bad move for Microsoft, and it is also a symptom of a deeper problem.
The reason for it being a bad move is not that it is unethical or immoral but rather that it is likely to damage their already embattled image and cause lost future revenue. Think of it this way: in a game of chess there are no moral or immorral moves. There are legal and illegal moves, and of the legal moves there are good moves and bad moves, but to say that it is a bad move strategically speaking is not the same thing as condemning it morally.
Now, I also think that this is the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft has, according to the courts, acted illegally in the past in order to maintain their Windows monopoly. However, this does not completely show how or why they became so successful in the first place. They did so by exploiting the quirks of the software industry's economy of scale that others were overlooking (selling lots of software allowed them to do so for less, even though the products were somewhat technically inferior, and be successful by being value-conscious). The economic contributions to the software industry may be a mixed lot from Mocrosoft, but there are some great contributions.
Microsoft management is aware, I think, that the economy of scale which has worked for them in building their business only works properly when the computer market is expanding rapidly. As it starts to reach saturation in the developed world, that same economy of scale which helped Microsoft be successful becomes very dangerous and can cause their ruin just as it helped effect their success. Basically, if only half as many copies of Windows sell, then the research and development per unit sold actually becomes much higher, and it quickly becomes difficult to make a profit. After all, if you raise prices, you cut demand even more.
Microsoft is, IMO, trying to stave off the drying up of their market in order to transition to the
In essence, Microsoft has backed themselves into a corner and is becomming despirate.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I'd have to disagree. Actual academics *do* push Word quite hard, mostly to make it do the same sort of thing that LaTeX does by default . . . :)
However, your essential point is right. Very few people push word processors hard. Many of those that do would be better served with something else entirely.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Well, barring some sort of divine intervention, it's a pretty safe bet that Microsoft will still be on top for the rest of the decade.
Actually it could take a lot less, considering the way Microsoft organises it's finances. Even if it is still around, even if it still had the market stranglehold it has now it isn't going to be selling the same products in the first place. In 10 years time Windows XP is going to be as much "scrap" as Windows 2 is now.
Before I went to bed last night I started xftp downloading the entire kde 2.2 SuSe directory from sourceforge. Now I've just got to get everything compiled and installed. In my copious spare time.
Best Slashdot Co
Bingo. The human brain is designed to take the easiest path in most cases. The easiest path is very seldom the best path. There are so many examples ( a big on in Redmond ) that I will leave it as an exercise for the student. ;)
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
But then when you're teaching a class you have to give different instructions. For each mac we have a common system that's secure and very stable, we would have to make one for all types of computers. We would have to have networking staff know all OS's and be able to fix them. It would cost more than the OS in man hours. We're talkin K-12 here.