Slashdot Mirror
Indiana Schools May Purchase 300K Linux Computers
GuitarNeophyte writes "According to an article at PC Magazine, Indiana School systems may soon be purchasing around 300,000 Linpire desktop computers. Linspire, via its Education Program has a straight $500-per-school (not per-seat) cost, providing an incredibly-alluring price incentive for this to happen." From the article: "Many schools across the state have already had the chance to try out desktop Linux, and everyone seems excited to get this program going...This groundbreaking initiative makes it possible for schools to afford computers for every student, something that makes a huge impact on their overall educations."
Why not a REAL distro?
For a Linux box?? How much does SCO get?
What?
Possible 300K KDE deployments ... Those K just goes fine ;-)
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
does it run Linux?
Oh, wait...
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
A whole crop of sudents entered the workforce at a time when the move to CAD was in it's infancy, all familiar with, and able to use AutoCad. They were put in charge of the move to automation, and they all purchased AutoCad when they entered industry.
A very effective marketing strategy for a company looking beyond the next quarter.
... when it actually happens. A PR release from the company trying to sell their stuff isn't exactly news; it's marketing.
I don't respond to AC's.
...ubuntu or such would free, even cheaper no?
take it easy, but take it.
Way to go. Good to know there are smart people other than Munich's officials.
This is great!
Linspire: the company whose CEO says root is save.
I know most schools don't operate in class computers and labs in a traditional Windows Domain environment, most of the time running as stand alone workstations. Provided the right setup of these systems, it could be great for them. Not only can they lock the systems down from students, they also remove most of the chance for spyware and other malware. Best of luck to them.
Wonderful!
I'm an out of work Linux admin. I know where to apply for jobs if this happens . . .
...MS provided steep discounts to Indiana schools for their purchase of Microsoft software
I agree. Obviously Linux is not mainstream and never will be if every time somebody does something with Linux it makes the front page of Slashdot. Even for a slow news day, this rabid fanboi shit does not belong on the main page.
500K cheap linux boxes. This is going to be a massive number of hard drive crashes and system rebuilds per day. Why the heck dont schools use thin clients to servers. Or at least use some of those multi-headed configurations that can seat four students per box. Even the power bill makes this attractive. 500K * 200 watts = 100 Megawatts of power at 10 cents a kilowatt hour is $100,000 dollars per hour to operate. In winter time this might offset the cost of heating if they can distribute the heat, but the rest of the year the cooling costs to offset this heat load will double the operating cost. (since it usually takes one watt of cooling to offset 1 watt of heat generation) so $200,000 per hour of operation. Now imagine you had a four headed system. it would cut this cost by half to a third. Will Linspire Netboot. If not they are going to have a lot of corrupt systems to fix every day. yikes!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There are tons of discarded machines out there that can still run a good linux.
What would be nice is a distro meant to make it as easy as possible for relatively unskilled people to turn them into a desktop linux. Linspire may have a lot of that, but here's the elements I see.
A simple program, on a floppy and/or CD, which analyses the hardware in the machine, and gives an estimate of how suitable the machine is to the task. Ie. how well supported the components (chipsets, cards etc.) are, and how much performance one can expect from it.
It could also estimate what you would have to buy to bring the performance to your specs. "This machine is great but by just adding 128MB of ram -- just $20 -- it would be super." and "The machine is good but the ethernet card is one known to have problems. Cheap solid ethernet cards include these..."
And so on. School boards, not wanting to do a lot of fussing, might insist on a certain "easy to convert" rating from this program before taking donations.
Stage 2 is a distro which does a super-simple install on machines that make the cut. It knows the hardware is approved, so it's a hassle-free install, with ideally no questions asked, or barely any.
Then you would get a lot of computers converted and ready to be linux boxes.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Linspire has a nice update service which might be more attractive than the free update services from ubuntu.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
oops, dropped a decimal point! make that $20,000 per hour to operate.
500K cheap linux boxes. This is going to be a massive number of hard drive crashes and system rebuilds per day.
Why the heck dont schools use thin clients to servers. Or at least use some of those multi-headed configurations that can seat four students per box. Even the power bill makes this attractive.
500K * 200 watts = 100 Megawatts of power at 10 cents a kilowatt hour is $10,000 dollars per hour to operate. In winter time this might offset the cost of heating if they can distribute the heat, but the rest of the year the cooling costs to offset this heat load will double the operating cost. (since it usually takes one watt of cooling to offset 1 watt of heat generation)
so $20,000 per hour of operation.
Now imagine you had a four headed system. it would cut this cost by half to a third.
Will Linspire Netboot. If not they are going to have a lot of corrupt systems to fix every day. yikes!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Not a bad deal, overall ... just not a computer on every desk for $500 or a single laptop.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
In most schools, the windows computers are soo very old AND locked down, so students don't install random fishy fudge and take the computers down. Unix-like system are perfect for mult-user environments.. They're designed for it. Very Computer literate students will adapt and find that they have more priviledges and options than before.. Like installing applications as a user. Students who care less about computers will continue to flame their admin about how they can't install pirated starcraft on it. (which they couldn't do before on these boxes.)
Considering my Indiana High School just bought 30 or so Dell systems pre-loaded with Windows XP last year, I doubt they'll even think about buying more new systems that the sysadmin will have to deal with learning about. And considering they use Novell's NetWare for the network, I don't know if the systems would be compatible or not.
More than likely, they will take their current IT staff and send them to some training classes to get them spun up and have a couple of linux savy consultants on standby for when stuff breaks that is over the full time staff's heads.
And why won't the sell go through? Cheaper licensing, cheaper service? How is that a bad thing for a cash strapped school system?
Right now, someone is boarding a plane at SeaTac, on their way to the Midwest with a special, one-time offer...
I just don't get it. The Linspire marketing droids must have a pact with the devil of something. They always seem to be pushing 1000 units here 10000 there. Ok they never seem to make any money but...
I just can't help feeling that there are better (and probably better maintained) Linux distributions to choose from. Surely if you are going to drop in 300k copies you would do you home work and come up with Debian or Fedora but not Linspire.
I suspect the reason they seem to be doing so well is because they market to the masses and no other Linux distribution does. I would like to see other Linux distributions spend some cash on marketing - try and loose some of the geekiness.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
So hundreds of thousdands of students will have Lindow^h^h^hspire as their first experience with Linux? Who the hell's idea was that?! Why not a real Linux distro? One that doesn't require a subscription fee to access the package collection for starters. Oh well, at least it might inspire (Without the 'L', thankyou very much) them to investigate alternatives at home and set up an actual Linux box.
Maybe is good that they didn't choose Windows, but Linspire (IMHO) is much worse.
I've tried linspire and I couldn't do anything without paying.
On the other hand, Ubuntu has worked much better in cheaper hardware and the installation for new applications is SO much easier (and FREE).
For some schools thin clients are impractical, I know it my school, mind you I don't live in the states so I can't say what it's like there, but at my school we have full blown animation and film courses along with some heavy photoshop classes. For situations like this you'd need a pretty powerful server and it ends up being more trouble than it's worth.
Having a computer for every student is not a good thing, in my opinion. Actually, I believe that any computers in classrooms are for the most part a bad idea - and this is coming from a former computer programming student.
With computers in every classroom, it really requires each teacher to become a system admin and I think it really distracts the students from their work. I have a friend from Vietnam, who never had computers in his classrooms growing up, and he was way more skillful in math then the rest of us students that grew up with computers in the class in Canada.
And, it's not just the cost of software that's expensive for schools. It's the hardware, maintenance, and electricity costs too! The Ontario teachers union is always bitching about not having enough resources, but any good teacher should do just fine with a box of pencils, some paper, a chalkboard, and some chalk.
Offtopic:
Now with the standardised curriculum, many of the teachers are basically just babysitters that hand out material written by someone else. It must be hard working 6 hours a day, 9 months a year.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Remember kids, buying a computer without an operating system is the first step towards piracy. Act now and call BSA and report anyone who offers you a computers without a licensed operating system. Say No to Piracy.
Offer not valid outside the USA especially Finland.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Is the idea here that once the schools have the licenses, that they'll feel strongly compelled to purchase a service contract agreement with Linspire to provide technical support?
Because if it was free, they wouldn't want it.
"Computers for every student, something that makes a huge impact on their overall educations."
Does it? After just finishing at a school that had ample access to computers, i can tell you first hand that the whole thing was pretty pointless for the price it cost, and that most kids just messed around during it lessons (more so than other lessons by far) I can honestly say that it was pretty pointless, including to the computer illiterate.
I'm not saying it is completely without benefit, but i do not understand this assumption that spending money on computers in schools is a good thing.
However, i come from the UK, and i think part of my problem with it is that the teaching of IT in our school was so terrible that I'd find myself searching Google for answers instead of asking our teacher a question.
I agree. My main complaint, and what Linspire's real plan is? This scenario.... "Mom! I can't edit this file/whatever on our computuer! I need $50 for a copy of this operating system!" "Ok, here ya go". I'm well aware OpenOffice could bridge most compatibility issues, but if you know little about computers, and are using some "strange and exotic" operating system at school, I'm guessing your average user would just get that OS, because it seemed to make the most sense. I wouldn't be surprised if Linspire gives them fliers to give to students to get it for home, perhaps for a slight discounted price....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
As a student in the Indiana Public Education program, I can't wait for this. I have long helped teachers out with computer problems and have even used knoppix to fix problems deemed 'unfixable' by our support staff. Now I can't wait to see how much more stable my life will be when people can't fsck everything up. But, however nice this is, the main problem in my school, as I see it, isn't the number of computers, but how they are used. Constantly broken machines that won't let you print to certain printers and teachers who barely know how to turn the computer on are a humongous drawback. On top of that, our school corporation is just NOW getting on track with Windows, teaching everyone how to do simple things like delete programs (my mother is a 3rd grade school teacher and even her kids install programs on the computers without her knowledge). I simply hope they spend much more money teaching the teachers how to use the computers.... But hey, now instead of getting people calling me about Blue Screens of Death, I get to answer questions about Kernel Panic!
NOWAY the bigboys will let that happen. Someone will say: -Do whatever you have to do to stop it.
It will be stopped, and you wont be reading about it.
So they'll be about 80F?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Microsoft anounces that it is going to give away 300,000 copies of Windows to Indiana schools.
There seems to be plenty of good, stable, free linux distributions available these days. Even SUSE is to be open sourced. And each school will need at least one person maintaing the computers no matter what they run. So, why would Indiana chose to pay for Linspire?
I'm really curious. Did I miss something?
Microsoft has had deals for years with IU, IUPUI, Purdue, Ball State, et al. for their products. Basically, you get all their products in a few different packs for $5 each. Everyone I know in Indianapolis got their XP from an IUPUI student. Viral marketing at its finest...heh.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
This is going to be a first encounter with Linux for anybody who uses this - students, teachers, etc. Why not use something that gives a favorable impression? Even if it entails paying somebody to customize Debian/Slackware for use in a school enviornment they could do much better than Linspire.
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
What will Dell and windows do? Give out Dell computers for about 300$. And windows might get on them for free or something? I know it sounds crazy but maybe they can make a loss to turn around the market. ( Investment for the future ). I don't know about Linspire but there has been great improvements in Linux desktops in the last couple of years. But for basic stuff it works, just wondering what will happen to all the apps the schools use to teach their students are there Linux ports or wine or vmware solutions that they are implementing ? One thing that will be great is that they will be able to manage these systems and have cleaner networks for there students. With the HALD and usb lot of students can bring in inexpensive memory sticks to save there work, web pages, documents etc ...
I wonder how all this work out, will the school departments hire coders to write applications which will teach these new students. Or use 100s of highschool geeks to write GPL'ed educational tools :). Lot of cool things are happening and let's see what happens.
-A
It sure does make a huge impact on their overall educations. They will suffer. Computers != solution for bad teachers. Now we have another babysitter along side of the TV.
Sure, they can be useful, but they are mostly a distraction and should only be used when neccessary. You know these people will want to use them all day long because of their "investment"
Has anyone thought about the increase in energy consumption and that added cost?
Will Linspire Netboot.
It is Linux, yes. See below.
If not they are going to have a lot of corrupt systems to fix every day. yikes!
As if the other OS would not? I think they are on the right track, make the PCs cheap and get an easy to load OS for when it happens recovery is cheap, simple and fast. If it is stolen, cheaper to replace.
BTW, booting Linux over the net is simple, start with a customized install CD, store a reference image on a server using cpio or tool of choice via NFS. Then with a Linux boot/install CD that simply partitions, downloads and cpio's the data bask to disk. Finally writing the MBR. With a moderate amout of shell scripting install for a school situation could be 100% automated except for putting the CD in the coffee cup holder.
For mail, pop3/imap/sendmail/spamasassin. OpenLDAP for entity management. NFS for file sharing.
If the above does not make sense, change incompetant or underskilled administrator. If an NT admin, send them back to McDonnalds. It is actually faster, easier and cheaper than Windows alternatives as the registry issues don't exist and the tools and protocols are tested.
Here in Wake county North Carolina we couldn't give 3 year old computers to the schools. Too old, too slow not sexy enough. The schools went instead to IBM down the road and got brand new Netvistas for either free or something close to free.
Anytime soon yes, but never? One day an "easy to use" version will come out with all the loving features of the other linux distros, then things might slightly change.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Who's distro runs the default user as root, lied about using some new technology to run all Windows software nativly, and ran the worst ad campain that consisted of pissing MS off whenever possible. They give Linux a bad name. Want something windows like with Wine compatibility? Try Xandros. They are also pushing for centralized management areas. Something that, I believe, only Sun and MS are doing, with MS the only real complete set of tools.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
This is awesome!
The story says: "... makes it possible for schools to afford computers for every student, something that makes a huge impact on their overall educations." I'd like some real evidence of that.
A little googling will turn up plenty of evidence that computers in the classroom aren't necessarily good. Mostly, the money spent on computers could be put to a better use. www.realworld.org/
This is not to say that I am anti-computer. You can do amazing things with computers. The trouble is that the teachers haven't been taught how to use the computers to any advantage. It takes more than a one day seminar to "get it" as far as computers are concerned.
In any event, there is precious little research that supports the contention that computers are a good teaching tool. What they are good for is drill. Students can do a lot of problems and get immediate feedback. (Of course, most modern educators think drill is for the birds.)
Remember when Netscape was crushed by Microsoft after the giant decided to give it away for free? Now witness the karma getting balanced out by Firefox.
Remember when Apple was crushed in the education market when Microsoft's settlement included giving away copies of Windows to schools? Now witness the karma getting balanced out by Linux.
It isn't the fact that Microsoft is losing marketshare--because any successful company with such a huge marketshare is bound to lose some over time. It is precisely how/why they are losing marketshare now that is somewhat amusing to witness.
Out of respect for everyone working at Microsoft, I hope they survive--but I hope they do so as a company that does more good than harm when it comes to fostering innovation in the computer industry.
If you have a modern SEER 16 A/C unit then you can typically 'produce' 16 times as much cool and the energy required.
So it'll increase you cooling costs a fraction of power budget of the computer systems.
this is excellent news - now microsoft will probably come out with some statement about the BSA and how piracy rates have risen in India.
Here's the Coral Cache of the article: http://www.pcmag.com.nyud.net:8090/article2/0,1895 ,1844695,00.asp
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Pardon to take the glamor and allure away from the TechBunnies (tm). This klutzy and "well-supported" Indiana Install will be one step away from the MS Monopoly, but in truth, a machine is a machine. How Big Brother Bill ever got his sticky fingers into every municipality, university, and home in the USA is a "real nice trick." Years ago I said, "See, you pay for the machine, you house/store the machine, but another entity actually owns it - but you pay." I can not stand Microsoft. I want them to burn in hell. Gates would be monopolising pineapples or automobile tires if he could. At this point, the man has zero to do with computing and everything to do with monopoly. He is probably the number one reason the USA is a pit of deep stupidity and numb fear and "follow" instinct. (Bill, You're the numbah one!) As a citizen, it is truly and deeply embarassing. Recently I introduced a local PC repair store to linux. They are agressive and intelligent. Now they have MEPIS installed on a machine and are talking the Linux talk. Just a note, this is what they say, "Linux has a huge media-player problem." When I brought my SuSE 9.3 Pro thinkpad over there we quickly discovered that, for example, CNN.com is rigged for Microsoft Media Player. Basically, someone in the USA needs a file a court case on proprietary file/media systems used on major public business websites. I do not have the time, money, or wits to do this but it is a rock-solid case. Have fun KIDS.
in my district, they're linuxphobic. mostly from ignorance, but also because M$ throws freebies to all the techs. it's disgusting really.
I wonder how much input the IT people had because most of them are probably MCSE's or whatever, and linux poses a real threat to them. and to be honest, schools don't care much, at least fro mwhat I've seen, about costs. Saving money sounds great, but see the problem is that if you don't spend it all, then you get less next year. and if you get alot of value, i.e. lots of computers for the same money, you have less "need" next year, and thus less "need" for money.
is it sick? absolutely. i have been trying to get linux into my district for ages. in fact, my school's tech coordinator is very pro-linux, but he keeps it quiet. we're setting up a small internal message forum I wrote with php/mysql, and it's running on fedora. he literally has to tell the district people it's running on win2k. they think linux=hacker, yet win2k is a hacker's wet dream.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
This is stupid!
This is redundant!
Nice to see lots of more linux users coming in. :)
I just cannot being thinking about all the goods if more schools will change to linux. It means more Linux software in form of games and general applications for end users. And let me espesially say this. I am sure that when companies who are developing software for students need to provide Linux versions for their applications. And we all know what that means.
There are lots of places in world who are thinking about the change to Gnu/Linux but they cannot do that because they need a somekind of software for it. Like timetable managers for printing and managing class schedles for students. Somekind of java based application for it could be run in both enviroments(windows and linux).
I am here with big and I mean BIG smile. Thinking also the thing that when U.S schools are changing it means a change for the world too.
Maybe now people will learn how apostrophes work.
But I'm not holding my breath.
While Apple did have a few big-name universities in their pocket, the largest segment of their educational market was always K-12. And yes, there were PLENTY of K-12 schools that were all Apple. About ten years ago, I was involved with the local Apple Users' Group, and almost everyone there was a teacher.
About the beginning computer classes teaching MS Office... what those classes are really teaching is basic computer skills. "This is a mouse, this is a pointer, this is a drop-down menu," etc., etc. The beauty of this Linspire deal is that it shows how ubiquitous computer skills have become, as well as how homogenous software has become. Aside from a few cosmetic differences, a word processing or spreadsheet program is going to be virtually the same on a Mac, PC or Linux distro.
Really, though, it's more important that kids understand the concepts of how these programs work, because by the time they graduate high school or college and get into the work force, the interface of MS Office will likely have changed again.
I prefer the Microsoft platform for application development, but it makes no difference what the students and teachers are using the access the applications, since they're all web-based. Be it curriculum delivery, school management systems (SMS) or even internal administration applications.
I say more power to the schools. They should be concentrating on educating our kids and saving more of our taxes.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
another reason why those who have had the Indiana State education system inflicted on them won't be able to compete in a real world employment.
But wouldn't they be better served by Windows boxes? (ducks). Seriously, odds are they will be using Windows in the "real world" once they graduate and move on to college and jobs. How well will the Linux skills translate?
Really? I thought it had been shown over and over again that computers do not contribute to the overall quality of education for children. And in some cases, relying on comptuters can actually reduce the quality because the basics get ignored.
Seriously, what IS the value of having computers in schools besides computer literacy? Sure, kids should have *a* computer class. Maybe a few computer labs for research. But why one computer per student? What is the value? So kids can skip lunch and IM their friends in another room?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
are they gonna be a patch behind, which causes the whole school's network to get pwned? back when i was in high school around 1998-2001, our school had a lot of problems regarding security. i do believe a stupid sysadmin forgot to password protect some shared disks on the network.
i hear they're running wifi there now.. i should get me some antennas, i bet they're running password-less.
lameness filter thwarted.
Divided by a couple million students, wow, it's a negligible cost! Taxes pay for the crap, it's still cheaper than a bunch of dell boxes loaded with windows. Welcome to the real world, things cost money.
One already did come out.
It's called Mac OS X
...but they rounded down to make things simpler.
I'm jaded by these PR stunts. Wake me up when they actually end up buying the Linux boxen! Till then, it is just a ploy to get super-steep discounts from Microshaft.
Your claim is thermodynamic nonsense. AC is not that efficient, especially at high capacity.
Wah, you lose your MSFT licenses. Hey, there has to be some disadvantage to being a loser.
Great. That's $500 x 300,000 of US taxpayer money.
Stupid idea.
Linux machines need a support staff. Windows machines can get by with phone support.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
It's interesting this is starting to be pushed by schools in the US. So far, the pursuit of low-cost computers for education and other markets, has primarily been a focus for developing countries like Brazil, India, China and other Asian countries. The holy grail continues to be the $100 PC, which is still difficult to attain. However Windows PCs have come down in price to about $500 for a desktop and about $700 for a notebook...low, but not low enough. More here: http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/07/s_9.html
Because they might want to get a distro that has a better possibility of being around for the long term maybe? Because at that cost they might get at least some sort of professional support instead of posting on some forum someplace and waiting for an answer? Or would you rather they just grabbed number #384 "free linux" off this weeks distrowatch list?
With that said,you can get linspire for free. I have a copy of 5.0 here that was downloaded and burnt and runs fine, direct from their servers. I don't run it all the time but I have one, it's as free as any other DL OS, they provide it, you can get it, or any of the disk clone sellers will ship you one for a few bucks.
If you want easy one click installs, you pop for access to click n run. It's about as simple as it gets and it works. Is it worth 15 cents a day or whatever? Maybe to some people. They coded it, tweaked it, their packages work on their system, that's what you pay for.. One of the tenets of linux, the base system is community driven, customization is where the biz model is. If you are comfortable knowing it's debian and don't mind adjusting your repository list, you can do the apt thing.
Linspire gives back code to the community, and is trying to create a useable-by-anyone desktop, something about everyone has agreed the past several years is needed. They are trying to make free software work as a business model. They pay their coders. They pay the bandwith. They don't beg for paypal,instead they just do a normal business transaction, at different levels of cost from free to (whatever it is, I forget, call it 100 bucks) still cheaper than windows or mac.
Really, short of you having a lot of free cash or pushing begware, there's not a lot of options with free software. If you can think of another option, then take your idea how to do that, build your own and distribute it in mass quantities to large government agencies and corporations and individuals, and provide support, just go for it. I'll even try it.
All the "free" (mainstream/larger) distros out there have to take donations to stay in business, or are supported from a parent company that totes the note, or charge up front, if you want support. That's IT, there's no other way to do it. Beg for money, be rich and do it as a hobby, or charge cash. Cash is still changing hands for distros to get out there, whether it's one, two or three steps away. Go ahead and try to think of any mainstream distro that is distributed where cash isn't used, I don't think it's possible but try it as an exercise. If they don't charge the user directly, it's because they are subsidised someplace else, whether it's a university pipe and server acting as a mirror, or free hosting someplace,etc, it still has to be paid for. So I think that's why some large orgs would rather pay a company that might be around for awhile, even if they theoiretically could do all the code tweaking themselves. Here's a big piece of reality-the entire world doesn't revolve around creating computer code. They *use* code and computers in their other work which is more important to them, in this case, running schools. At acme widgets, it's building widgets. At smiths bakery, they bake bread. they are NOT in the OS config and tweaking business. They don't want to fool around with tweaking, they just want a product from someplace that at least *looks* like a company. You just are NOT, repeat NOT, going to see large corporations or government agencies dealing with only a screen name and an email address for their critical software needs. They are not going to be using leetlinux from ozzboo98@offshore.com for aquiring their software, even if good ole ozzbo has the best stuff out there. They are going to go to someplace with an "Inc." after their name, and that is going to be connected to real humans with real names at real addresses with real phone numbers with real incorporation papers at real offices and lotsa other real etc., that at least makes it appear to be a business.
That is just how it currently works. I didn't design it, but I can look and see that is how things work.
My kids' school is not air conditioned, you insensitive clod!
the national average for killowatt hour costs last year was 8.7 cents per KW hour. but many places it's well over 10 cents/kw hour. It will be rising sharply since the new clean-coal laws were passed this year as well as the price of natural gas going up due to the war.
With AC the efficiency of the unit under ideal conditions is not the measure of how it performs under actual conditions. You are assuming that the cooling power needed is delivered in a perfect fashtion to where it is needed. Building ducts rarely function that way. Even on a room by room basis cooling power delivered will escape through windows and doors. The situation gets fundamentally worse is the units were sequester in one part of a larger room. But you do have a point that the cooling costs were over rated, but not by as much as you think.
your're right about the 300K->500K slip up, though the estimate is essentially correct given the stated inputs. You just want to use different inputs. side from a quibble over the AC its essentially correct.
But I think the point was basically not how much exactly but that its a whopping huge number that comes out to many teacher's salaries per day. If you could cut that by half or a quarter it's a lot.
I think mods should have to read the dictionary and get a fucking clue what 'insightful' really means.
'Insightful' does not mean a shallow, vapid comment by some simpleton fanboi with which your own fanboidom leads you to concur.
'Way to go', 'perlwolf' !!!
More adults on slashdot please, FFS!
dude,
20K/hour is a teacher's annual pay every hour and a half. Most school districts are concerned about losing even a single teacher. It's not negligble if there's a way to cut it in half or a quarter.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I Googled it, but it just said "Did you mean: lingerie?"
Unbeknownst to you MS software is NOT $5 at universities. The universities pay Microsoft the FULL price for the student edition usually $100 and then sell to students for $5. So it's $5 to you but it's really full price. You pay for it anyway in other student costs, so get it while you can because you are paying for it with tuition whether you buy it or not.
1. Produce free (beer) software
2. Produce free (beer) distribution (Debian)
3,4,5. Insert Linspire's marketing and sales here
6. Profit!
Also note from Stallman's Gnu Manifesto:
"You have to charge for the program to pay for providing the support."
If people would rather pay for GNU plus service than get GNU free without service, a company to provide just service to people who have obtained GNU free ought to be profitable.(3)
"Linspire, via it's Education Program has a straight $500-per-school (not per-seat) cost, providing an incredibly-alluring price incentive for this to happen."
I dont think there are 300,000 schools in Indiana.
Standard PCs have a lot of flexibility that thin client solutions lack.
While it's true that a full GUI boot of Knoppix won't happen in < 96 MB, and isn't particularly happy in less than ~128 MB, your comment promulgates several fallacies:
Knoppix and kin offer the analytics necessary to profile a system, what they lack are the heuristics to make a sane statement of what improvements would be useful for a system. The idea of a bootable distro which simply runs an analyzer and produces a report (to be saved to file, printed, etc.) is reasonably straightforward.
Yes, you can run Knoppix entirely in RAM (800+ MB are recommended), and yes, performance of a bootable CD isn't what you'd see from a HD install (in part because of the overhead of reading from CD and performing the on-the-fly decompression). But tests of system speed (memory, CPU, hdparm) should give a pretty good sense of performance characteristics.
There are also floppy-based distros which run entirely in RAM (eg: Tom's Root Boot, Trinux), but they have pretty minimal system requirements.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
When your installation is this large, then in-house support becomes the cheaper solution.
Indiana has over a million students. If we figure there are over 2000 schools, then the Linspire solution costs over $1 million per year.
For less money, Indiana could choose Fedora or Debian, and hire their own department of people to support Linux, as well as customize it to exactly what they want in their schools.
Also, by going with a client-server approach, they could save even more money, in both initial cost, and ongoing support costs.
Either Indian has money to burn, or Linspire has great sales people, or somebody has connections.
Finally, let's not forget that Linspire is a Qt-based desktop (Qt running on top of Linux, like the Mac desktop runs on top of BSD). That's okay if Indiana schools stick to using only GPL'd software. But if Indiana chooses to run any proprietary Qt-based software, then it must be based on Trolltech's proprietary-licensed version of Qt, which means that Indiana will then be stuck with a single supplier (Trolltech) for their Linux desktops. Experience has taught us that that's not a good situation to be in.
Great. It figures that when the schools decide to switch to Linux they would choose the worst distribution available.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Anything's better than having to force security with Windows. Took me only a few weeks to crack the programs my high school used. Got a week's suspension for that 'cause someone ratted me out. Hopefully using a more secure O/S will prevent other kids from making that mistake.
Oh jeeze, just wait until the "intelligent design" knuckle draggers find out that the kids may be using evolution on these systems.
Aren't there ways to allow thin clients the ability to save things to local drives?
when the schools actually DO purchase 300,000 Linux installs, let us know THEN.
This is a pilot project.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Not necessarily because it's cheaper, but because just using it is both challenging and educational. How many computer classes are wasted today teaching kids how to use Windows and MS Office, things they are already learning at home or at the library? Learning to use Linux instead would give kids a more fundamental understanding of computers, and it would open the door for new job opportunities.
You have to keep in mind that Trolltech isn't an American company - the corporate culture and mindset is very different here in Norway.
Tell me, where may I find one of these new "300k Linux" computers so that I might purchase one myself?
Gits.
Indiana could have saved themselves a lot of money by just asking a few corporations in the state to donate their old computers and putting students to work installing Slackware on them. Of course, it isn't even clear what the average doofus high school teacher would do with a Linux box anyway.
Wouldn't it be better for them to develop their own distribution for such purposes? Spain has did it (SholeLinux or smth.) so it is the matter of only tweaking the distro to local needs (localizing is not the case, AFAIK the best/primary localization in Linux is english). They just could hire some consulting firm and they will build setup suitable for schools - it would be fair below $500 per machine (I think $200 would be easy).
"Microsoft offers deep discounts on Windows and Office to Indiana schools"
WOW, Indiana finally makes it to Slashdot. I guess I am not moving to California now. LOL. Anyway, I will let you guys know if we ever get those 300K computers.
Has it occured to anyone that you don't need a computer for every student. At the secondary level I can see it. But in elementary school they need to do more on paper, they learn some on computers but not so much they need one for every student. You don't need computers to teach reading and how to do basic math.
"(since it usually takes one watt of cooling to offset 1 watt of heat generation)"
I disagree with that.
I once calculated how much an air-conditioning system would need, using SEER numbers of recent minimal requirements, I found required cooling power to be 25-35% of the heat.
SEER numbers account for the whole AC system across whole range of use (time of day, etc).
Remember that airconditioners use heat pumps, making it need less than a watt per watt (...). If you don't know what I mean with that, look up the difference between resistor heating and heat pump heating for heating a house, and relizing that a heat pump is a reverse AC... Or just lookup what 'SEER' means, or simple compare BTU numbers with amps/wattages of AC units...
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
that was a stupid question
Looks like Indiana might have a lot of fun with 300,000 "student-customized" machines...
$500 is cheaper than free - you give me (a school administrator) something for free, I've got no comeback if something goes wrong. I might be left with a whole bunch of unusable machines. If I hand over a small amount of money, we'll probably exchange some sort of contract with some sort of support agreement. Something goes wrong and I can call you and get support, if I need to I can sue you for selling me unfit goods. I'm very likely to be assured of a better deal by putting $500 dollars on the table.
Linpire? Purhaps someone needs educating. Tisk.
Why UNIX?
you know, i love the fact that more and more people are making the transition over to linux, but i dont see how its really necessary to have a computer for every student at the school. when i was in high school sitting in multimedia class, we rarely paid any attention to the teacher. we were more worried about chatting over IM's and figuring out how we could set up quake over the classroom's lan. yay for linux, but nay for assimilation of the human race....
"It's a time machine Napoleon, I bought it online."
This could be an non-issue in time, if the Linux community made an effort to assist educators with free Linux based software. That way even if M$ did by half a dozen Linux distros, the educators could always opt for a free distribution to run their favorite software.
Educators need websites that organize knowledge, provide easy to use tutorials and short articles (like many but not all Wikipedia articles), and on-line mini courses that they can use to supplement their own materials. Admittedly, the No Child Left Behind Law forces teachers to teach for standardized tests rather than for education, but even with this impediment to learning, education can be directed at getting the kids to think for themselves, which is what learning, if not education is all about anyway.
At last, tentative first steps to looking at alternatives to Windows. Anyone who has heard of Linux has almost certainly heard that it is free, so it should be obvious that the potential Linspire contract is about *support* - paying them to hold their hand through a potentially messy change over.
Sure, their software needs would be better solved if they could somehow elicit a large investment in development, testing and IT infrastructure for Linux based solutions - but that won't happen until some positive trials have proved that benefits can be made.
Once a company willing to say It Can Be Done (Red Hat actually recommend Windows to non-Techies IIRC) exists, they should try it out. Then Linux distributing companies can fight it out in the proper competitive way most other industries do, improving the choice and quality for the customers.
Once people see that Linspire demonstrates some advantages over Windows, the floodgates will open to a proper Linux solution - but without support that costs money, it's too much of a risk to switch to Linux.
Teething/Linspire specific problems won't scare off Linux interest, it's come too far.
I said it before and I'll say it again: The IT training companies are rubbing their hands together will glee as all those students will need Windows training so they can work on PCs with applications that most companies are using. i.e. Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Servers.
This efficiency also ignores the cost of getting rid of the pumped heat and delivering the cool air. if the AC unit is outside then you have to deliver the cool air to the proper room--someting the building might not have been planned for. Likewise if the cooling is local you have to get rid of the hot air which means powerful fans to push it through the duct work. Ooops but wait, now that exiting air is causing a vaccum in the room and pulling in hot outside air. Oh darn Guess we have to cool that too. There goes the efficiency.
It's probably an over estimate to say 1 watt per watt, and certainly that is true in properly desinged computer room. But in any retrofitted ordinary building its not so efficient. Certainly if you assume it will be a lot less than 1 watt per watt you are going to have a problem. But your right is an over estimate, just not as much as you think.
I don't know about the rest of your information, but you're certainly wrong about the software being the upgrade version. All Microsoft software sold at Purdue University is the full version. It not only has a label on the disk, but as you noted, the software doesn't check for previous versions. As for the license itself, yes, it does say that the license only applies if you graduate... but the software doesn't stop working, so in reality it means little.
Up until 2000 or so one could d/l just about any software that was available under this license agreement off of an IU website by providing your username/password. But then they decided to change the rules and make it so you had to pay $5/copy if you wanted an OS.
This is inaccurate. IU and IUPUI staff and students may login to http://iuware.iu.edu/ and download FOR FREE Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, and a bunch of other software titles for linux, osx, and winders platforms. Last I knew Red Hat AS4, WS4, and Desktop4 are OS's!
One may also "checkout" installation CD's from UITS with a valid student or employee ID card. So saying one "has" to pay $5 for an OS is Bullschit.
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
Anything's better than trying to force security with Windows. Took me only a few weeks to hack my school's security system (they used Fortres on Win98 for most of the school). It'd be way harder with Linux.