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Hawaii Puts Old Computers To Work in Linux Labs
johnp pastes "'As pressure mounts to meet state-mandated educational technology standards, some Hawai'i schools with limited budgets are getting updated computer labs at a fraction of the typical costs.'"
You mean someone realized that they could get a comprehensive solution for extremely little money by NOT buying windows? What a concept. I really hope more schools get Linux labs, even if they already have MS systems. I like the idea of kids getting their hands on something other than MS.
As the UoH basically invented computer communications by using a discarded satellite to create the ALOHA system, the basic mathematics of which govern Ethernet and the Internet.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is *laughably guilty*. Check the evidence.
A more interesting question is total cost of ownership; i.e. how much money this really saves over the long run (factoring in things like the fact that the PTA is probably giving the schools grief because the students are learning Office or similar skills that will help them get jobs... believe me, this happens). I'm sure someone has opinions (and hopefully data) related to that.
An even more interesting questions is why our schools aren't adequately funded...
Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
Apparently, he doesn't realize that other branches of the state gov't feel differently, and are putting out bids to convert from Windows to Linux
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
My l33t hax0r student just 0wn3d your honor student's Windoze boxen.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Cause in 1991 when I was on "business computer" class in Kaneohe, HI (east side of Oahu) we were running some crusty old 386 machines w/ MS Works. We still had quite a few old Tandy comptuers with 8" floppy drives in the room too. Though nobody used them.
My first taste of the internet was in sept. 1990 on these NAPLS terminals w/ 1200bps modems they were brand new but right after 2400bps modems came out. But every school and state library had at least one. They connected to an X.25 PSDN called "Hawaii FYI". There was a taxpayer funded chat service on the system, as well as links to the state lib, U of H and some state info systems.
I met some uni students who then turned me on to MUDs, though you had to break out of the library system to get on the net cause there was no public ISP back then. Unless you counted the university system, but then you had to go to Keller hall in the middle of the night. I actually got to meet a member of LoD while messing around online who was at the time an admin for Santanfe.edu. Oh man this brings back memories!
Now that's out of the bag, Redmond will be on the phone by the end of their week with their Hawaiian office to offer "discounts" to the schools.
And they smegging well should too. ;-)
This not only stops certain groups of corporate facist pigs from getting that little bit fatter - using the older computers is good for the environment.
There's a crapload of toxic waste generated from every circuitboard and chip that is made.
How much toxic krud came from the crappy computer you are using now? huh? Huh? Go out and plant a tree.
Im off to run my super-cluster of older PC's in support of the environment, right after I install that 3-phase power circuit and breath in some more coal fumes...
...we just didn't tell anyone about it until about 1976.
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
I graduated from Moanaloa High School, Honolulu in the 70's. The only computer on the whole campus (besides calculators the size of paperback books with red LED displays and fixed decimal points) was an ASR-33 teletype with a 300bd modem that could talk to a UoH computer. The math teacher would demo some real simple COBOL-looking stuff and cover basic boolean. I remember being very under-whelmed and wondering what anybody outside of NASA wanted with one of those things.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
The thing is, schools are starting to realize they don't "need" new computers for what they are teaching. Unless they are having classes that require lots of computing power. Most school computers get used for, writing papers, surfing the net, learning basic computing and in some cases a bit of programming. Universities and colleges are another matter though.
As far as I'm concerned it's a good thing the money can be used in other areas.
"I also realize that no body owes the third world a living."
:o(
We may not "owe" them anything, but being human beings, people *deserve* to have basic needs met. To deny those who live in poverty while living in luxury seems terribly hypocritical of our "humanitarian" Western society.
Seriously, the main thing that guaranteed the well-being of many of us was a spin of the cosmic roulette wheel: we were born in countries with economies that allow us to provide for ourselves. Hundreds of millions of people don't have that luxury.
And honestly, in response to those who may complain about the United States' current economy, I don't mean to undercut those who are actually suffering, but ask yourself this: Are you going to bed hungry tonight? Are you going to *a* bed? In a mostly dry and comfortable place? You have it better off than many.
Clark
P.S. So what are we going to do about it?
How could they resist the temptation to say .. "Notebook'em Danno!"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The first database software I used - well before I started high school - was MySQL. On Windows. Call me wierd, but I didn't find it hard to learn the nuts and bolts of that at all. MySQL is quite well documented.
Then again, I suppose I was quite a bit more motivated than your run-of-the-mill high-schooler is.
IMHO, the best way to teach people to use a database is via the backend-to-a-website route. Get them to make a website, and then keep asking them to add/remove/update pages. They'll soon be begging to be taught to add a database backend
Pirate Party UK
You can learn concepts of point-and-click, copy-and-paste, desktop metaphor, and most importantly how to use a help system on any OS. Schools that take the perspective of "we have to teach them system X because that's what they'll use in the 'real world'" are thinking wrong. Teach kids how to think not just which widgets to click.
And if they weren't screwing around in HyperCard on a Mac they'd be screwing around in Solitaire on in Windows. HyperCard may not be an application used in business today, but the kids learned some skills that can be applied elsewhere. If the teachers stressed that aspect of it, the kids will be OK.
Constitutionally Correct
I'm at a high school in Toronto, and sometimes I help with computer maintenance and things like that, and the entire department agrees, computer labs like these, with recycled computers can't stay! We get mabey 15 times more requests for help from those labs than any other in the building! Open-source is great, but look into off-lease Dell's, in the long run, it is much easier to use, and easier to make sure they work, and if you're going open-source anyway, the price is quite reasonable.
That's not how they treated Philadelphia and other school systems they sued.
It's funny how the administrative people are afraid of free software because they are afraid someone is going to have to fix it. No vendor ever back software and all will charge you to fix it. Given M$'s terrible record with visuses worm and all that which has cost everone plenty, the case for reliability is firmly on the free software side and the costs of switching will probably be lower than the cost of continued upkeep, let along upgrade.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Check out:
http://k12ltsp.org/contents.html
I was skeptical when I first heard about ltsp. Now I use it.
Sadly, it got pulled. The last I heard of the project was this (quoted from a private email, but it's relevant and I'm sure he won't mind):
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
They are probably using the servers to forward applications to the client display, which is easy to do under X, though I know that there are many guys from Hawaii active on the http://k12ltsp.org/ mailing list, so they could just be thin clients, but the article makes it sound ontherwise.
Either way, the applications run on the server, and is displayed on the client, so that's how the old computers work just as fast as new ones.
Put identity in the browser.
The old computers work as well as new ones because they work off of open-source servers.
... 8-year-old computers can run software just as quickly as newer ones using the open source servers.
Photo caption.
From body of article.
When the public learns that installing open source software on eight year old machines lets them work as well as new ones, Intel's business is gonna go down the toilet. Dell's gonna be circling the sewer with them.
Ever wonder what else the newspaper is getting wrong?
Then you would be wrong. There are DOD standards government agencies have to follow regarding disposal of excessed equipment. If the hard drives can't be securely wiped then they will most likely be shredded.
Hi all, I'm the teacher that runs the lab at Liholiho Elementary, so I guess you could call me the horse's mouth. We're not talking about enterprise level business here, we're talking about a school that must fundraise for a tech budget. I know nothing about the TCO studies you're referring to. I just know what has happened here. With the help of our fantastic Hawaii LUG (HOSEF) and the great folks on the K12OSN email list, we have spent zero, that's $0.00 on support for the year that we've been using K12LTSP. I'm not saying we'll never need paid tech support, I'm just reporting what is fact (not marketing fluff). The great part about being a part of the OSS community is the willingness of people across the globe to help you for free, out of the goodness of their hearts, or their passion for the cause. I wonder if the same would be true from the "M$ community?" It seems like the bulk of the M$ support community is motivated by billable hours. P. Nakashima pnakashi -at- k12.hi.us Computer Teacher Liholiho Elementary School
While he certainly has an argument with no merit, he does remind me of several studies (which you see mentioned in MS sponsored ads) where Windows Server 2003 out-of-the-box does beat a few Linux distros out-of-the-box. This is not necessarily an issue for Linux users, but it should be for the (commercial) vendors, since unknowing CIOs/CTOs/VPs might take those studies as the final answer.
I have little doubt that Server 2003 could beat the standard Linux server distros (SLES, RHAS) straight out of the box. MS has decided that they should excel in those tasks with the out-of-box configuration, while the Linux vendors have not, instead focusing on more general tweaks. Any experienced Linux SysAdmin could beat any of those benchmarks with about 5-10 minutes of work, but for obvious reasons, the studies MS uses to advertise don't include that disclaimer. Some of the tweaks that make a great webserver don't make a great file server, database server, firewall, etc. Systems on both sides should be customized for the benchmark, then benchmarked. Out-of-box benchmarks are almost completely worthless, unless you just want to buy something and never touch it, just expecting it to run forever, which is not how any decent IT department works.
Back on topic, it's easy to see how they could save money. Where I work, we purchase several workstations for client use, and recently purchased AMD Sempron 2200+ systems with 128MB RAM and 40GB HDDs, no CD or floppy (just like a school would want), for $160 each. Add in another $65 for 17" monitors, $5 for keyboard and mouse, and you've got complete systems for $230, with Linux adding $0 to each one. Considering that Windows XP OEM rates are about $80/copy for the Home version, is it really worth spending half as much on the OS as you spent on the computer to run it? Every 2 copies of Windows is another computer without monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and every 3 copies is another complete system.
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.