Slashdot Mirror
Linux vs. Windows for Schools?
Fiachra06 writes "I am involved in helping to maintain the computer systems in the local school (200 ~ 250 pupils) in my home village. The children range in age from 4 to 12. The 14 PC's are running either Windows 95, Windows 98, and XP Home Edition and I find this rather abhorrent. The licensing fees to upgrade all the capable machines to XP pro is unreasonable for such a small school. What would the esteemed Slashdot readers think of shifting all these machines to a Linux distro (probably Ubuntu). I have no doubt the children will have no problem adapting to the new OS (although the teachers might), the main concerns are the availability of educational software for them to use, and practicality of maintenance for people who are new to the OS given that I am not there regularly enough to be a full time sys admin. Preferably I wouldn't like to running too much through Wine but it is still an option."
Edubuntu?
Edubuntu may be the way to go.
Edubuntu FAQ
Looking at the Edubuntu Tour, some of the programs seem to be for a younger age, around kindergarten and up, but the SchoolTool calendar for teachers looks interesting.
OpenOffice is included (of course). You don't mention what applications the kids may need - if it's just for internet browsing and research, and maybe some of the other educational things already included (Typing, etc), Edubuntu may fit your needs.
The upcoming 6.04 release of Ubuntu's Dapper Drake may fit you better, as it will have a formal support cycle. (I want to say 3 years).
You clearly don't have kids. A thousand dollars is a lot to many public schools. I'll try more constructive responses unlike the totally useless criticisms expressed above.
You'll need to find out if there are other teachers, parents or students (depending on the kids' ages) who can support Linux before seriously considering this. You'll also need to train the local support staff to do basic administration. You'll need to understand which applications they need to run and if replacements are available for Linux. Linux has great educational software. Realize that even if everything is in your favor - i.e. you have support, the apps exist etc. you'll still may need to sell the idea via demos, the history of Open Source etc. Even then it may not work but at least if you go in with eyes open you'll be prepared for the work that needs to be done to make the change in O/S and teacher/administrator mentality.
Intelligence is no guarantee of wisdom
Close, but not quite. You're forgetting that you're not using the software for the software's sake; you're using it to acheive something. That is to say, the software isn't the be-all and end-all, it's just a means to an end.
More than likely, the OP needed "A spreadsheet" but chose the actual application based on a variety of factors, one of which was probably the OS he was running at the time. He doesn't need to run spreadsheet Brand X, that's just his current choice; if spreadsheet Brand Y can fulfil the needs as well, but works solely on Linux, that's fine. It's certainly not the vicious cycle of "I chose X because I run Windows, and I need to run Windows because I use X".
Admittedly there are retraining/migration costs, which would come under the cons of changing product (and are sometimes really large, e.g. incompatible data files). But don't make the mistake of thinking that because you can't get a specific app on Linux, it's not worth switching. People really use computers as a tool, to acheive certain goals, and people using and developing for Linux have similar goals to those using Windows. If you can do it in Windows, you can probably do it some way in Linux; don't get too hooked on the details.
My, that was a yummy potato!
Sure you get a peachy keen deal...oh but did you buy Office? *ka-ching* Did you get the educational software you needed? *ka-ching* Did you buy the support contracts? *ka-ching* Did you buy the anti-virus software? *ka-ching* Oh and did you figure up how much a compromise would cost? *ka-ching*
Not saying Windows is the worst solution, but you oversimplify the issue grossly.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Sure the handful of crapfully crafted games he had for Windows wouldn't run, but within the first week he didn't care. The distro comes loaded with educational games and exercises. His 1st grade class has 3-4 ancient iMacs (the ones that came in different colors). My impression was that they don't use the computers to construct or teach lessen plans, but its there to get them accustomed to using computers on a daily basis. For some edu-games, some heavily restricted internet, and education exercises I HIGHLY recommend edubuntu for younger kids.
An experiment for you:
Take a fully functional Windows (95/98/Me/2K/XP) system. Remove the drive and put it in another system with different hardware. At least 50% of the time the sound card will quit working, and in a really bizarre way. It will be functional in device manager, but there will be no sound devices in the sound control panel. Sometimes you'll get a BSOD on boot with "Unmountable Boot Volume" errors. (Although this only happens on the NT-based variants. Strangely, Windows 9x is much more stable in this regard.....) Plenty of unnecessary drivers will be loaded (based on the old hardware) which can cause conflicts with new devices, causing them not to work, or even to crash the system entirely.
Now, try the same thing with a fully functional Linux system. You will very occasionally get a kernel panic, which is the equivalent of the unmountable boot volume errors on Windows, but that depends on how the kernel is set up to begin with. It's possible that no errors would ever come up, if all hard drive controller drivers are compiled into the kernel. All your hardware will be detected and work properly, and you won't have any stupid errors that are only fixed by a reinstall.
Now, which of these two systems is truly plug and play?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Here's one example with what MS did in Portland, Oregon schools:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,101601,You can find many other cases where M$ went after schools. Did they sue? Maybe / maybe not. Did they threaten? youbetcha
Don't go on about "MS hate". It's called experience or brand recognition.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
The K Desktop Environment (KDE) has an education suite focused on creating high-quality educational software for children ages 3 to 18. They've also developed specialized programs to aid teachers in planning lessons. Here are some of the specific programs and their targetted are of teaching:
KLatin, KVerbos, and Kiten to teach Latin, Spanish, and Japanese respectively.
KMPlot to plot mathematical functions and Kig to explore geometric constructions.
Kalzium to teach Chemistry KStars to teach astronomy.
KGeograhy to teach gegraphy KTouch to teach typing.
I would encourage you to install Kubuntu or SUSE instead, since these distros have good support for KDE.