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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."
... 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.
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.
Because if it was free, they wouldn't want it.