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Refurbishing PCs For Charity?
Used PC Guy asks: "I'm trying to run a program to recycle PCs for charity to give to underprivileged kids. Trouble is, these kids have never seen a PC. What should I teach the kids if they're about 14-21? Should I teach Windows, Linux or both? What hardware should I be requesting, and what's the best way to test the influx of hardware that's coming in quickly, efficiently and reliably to make sure won't need servicing within another 6 months?"
Depending on the availability of software, I'd stick with Windows. As much as we'd like to think Linux is going to get big as a desktop OS , it isn't definate, and will probably be a long way down the road, especially in the US. Although if for some reason you don't have the copies of windows that came with these PCs (which is likely the case), and windows-like Linux distro would probably be best. At least that's my 2 cents (as a big Linux/UNIX user).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Use some sort of software that erases everything every time the computer reboots - like deepfreeze. Then instruct the users to save everything to a seperate partition. That way, you won't have to do as much security support work. If they really haven't used a computer before, they won't know what they're missing. This can increase the number of computers you can support a lot.
Simon's Rock College
The operating system doesn't matter that much. Teach them how to use the internet in a responsible way, avoinding obviously dangerous websites, how to write e-mails in a matter people will appreciate, etc.
Learn them how to use the mostly used things: word processor (a typing course would help as well), spreadsheet, even the stupid slideshow creation :) Any office suite will do, it's not that much of a difference when they got the main points.
Learn them how to install software! How to deal with all the popups you get when installing this, it really is something you should get a hang of, and you'll need it often later on.
Learn them to use html, make a website, get to understand the stuff that's behind it.
And the coolest would be: learn them to program a bit! I played with LOGO when I was a kid, it really helped me later on.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
I guess if these people never used a PC before, they shouldn't have a bug learning curve to adapt to Linux since they don't have a lot of pre-concived ideas of how things should work.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to get them working with Linux for much better performance on old hardware with a user-friendly distro like Ubuntu or Linspire. You would also be helping to get Linux on to the mainstream public, which I believe the $100 Laptop program from MIT will do.
Yes, this was annoying with Windows... but it scares me to think about how often I would have been called if I would have given them a Linux machine.
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I spent about 2 years trying to teach computer skills to kids and adults in a developing nation, and I learned a few things about this kind of work.
If licensing is available (or doesn't concern you), you may as well start by teaching Windows, at least for basic mouse and keyboarding skills. You'll probably have inconsistant hardware in your systems, but as much as I hate to admit it, Windows makes it easier to present a consistant interface.
Once the kids learn a little about computer basics, you can start teaching them some more advanced skills. This is where you can turn your problems on their side... You'll probably quickly accumulate piles of unusable components, but these can be valuable teaching materials, since you can use them to show the kids what's inside the computer. As they learn more, you can get the kids to help you test, assemble, and repair more systems.
If you can teach the kids to do your work (requesting donations, testing, building, repairing, and teaching), then your project will be successful and sustainable.
I wasn't able to teach all the students how to build computers (we didn't have enough 'junk' components to try that), but I did get them to go from no computer experience to making simple webpages (using only notepad) and useful spreadsheets.
A few more tips:
1) Observe what the kids do and adjust what you teach accordingly, especially to avoid time sinks (Word, with all its clipart, wordart, and fonts proved to be a big waste of time).
2) Try to find innovative ways to teach file management. This is not intuitively obvious to most kids, but it is important, and can get to be a problem when they start producing hundreds of documents
3) Internet / WWW are probably more trouble than they're worth.
4) Ban floppy disks
5) If you don't have a LAN, a USB Flash drive and some simple scripts can be good for quickly copying materials to each machine.
...if you want to help economically disadvantaged people--be they in Appalachia, Detroit, central Africa, or the West Bank--is to give them the tools they need to integrate into wider society.
With that in mind, and assuming you're targeting first two of the above: I'd give them Windows. Make sure they know how to word process in Wordpad, and, crucially, how to use email and IM. The rest will come on its own. Kids are naturally curious, and don't usually need much encouragement to explore the internet and start creating profiles on MySpace or what have you. Indulge them.
(Incidentally, that's also why a $100 cellphone would be a much better use of resources than MIT's $100 laptop, but I digress.)
These kids have never seen a computer, then it's best to get them familiar with what 90% of the planet uses, regardless of your own viewpoint. That way you're giving them a headstart on the way to getting useable computer knowledge that will enable them to at least get a job using a PC with Windows and Word on it...
Linux and Macs have to be decision that's made on a personal level, because they are in the minority. If one of these kids turns round and says to you "you taught us in Linux, why the hell didn't you teach us to use the most common OS - Windows?", you're screwed. That'll just look like you forcing your views on them, and that never goes down well with anyone, ever.
That might sound harsh, but I guarantee that very few of us are using Linux because it was the first OS we landed on. Most probably used Windows and had to look for something better - look at it from that angle, and use that as a basis. The high fliers will instantly want mroe than you give them.
These are going to be underpowered PCs, potentially used for years.
This means a few things:
0. Are they powerful enough to run XP / 2K?
If not, then how well do you think 98 will fare over time (when is it EOL'd?)
1. What are the people going to use them for? Web-surfing, e-mail, IM, office, etc.
2. As the parent brought up, owning the software is going to be a requirement. That might turn out to be the most expensive aspect of the project.
3. Is the Original Poster going to be available (via email, in person, etc.) for the next year? If so, and they have the time to do any additional modifications, then Linux isn't that bad of an option. How many people are going to screw up their computers (through whatever means) if Linux xor Windows is installed?
Personally, I give a LiveCD and email scripts (to a webmail account with space) to people after servicing their computers. On top of that I tell them exactly how to execute the main one (that executes the rest). So even in a worse case scenario where they FUBAR their OS, they'll still be able to do the basics. This is something I recommend to the original poster no matter what.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Those kids won't ever use the machine unless there's internet... fact is for most people the PC is nothing but an internet appliance, not that it's bad... lot of info on the internet.
also... you will be surprised to find that most of these kids have probably used a computer at the library or school.. so don't assume they know nothing about them...
Something you might consider doing is donating a few hours a week to go and teach them how to build the PC themselves, with donated parts... give a man fish, you know the rest... and they'll have a lot more fun and a lot more respect for the machines when they've put them together themselves.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Remember that charities and non-profit groups have the same needs as any other business.
Consequently don't waste their time trying to give them ancient or underpowered computers, and don't consider anything but Windows.
Most charities that accept donations of computer equipment are accustomed to saying "no" to well meaning people that try to unload stuff that would be better used as boat anchors.
Ten years ago it made sense for groups to source used PCs, and many groups offered that kind of service. When new PCs cost thousands of dollars you could dramatically lower your costs. These days a new system can be had for under $500, so a used system with lower specs is less attractive.
When you consider the increased likelihood of component failure, and the irritations associated with older hardware's inability to run current software, it often doesn't make sense to accept second hand systems.
I'm not sure where you're finding these kids that have "never seen a PC". I've worked with teenagers in inner cities, and in Appalachia specifically, and PCs are pretty much ubiquitous in the US. Every library and school has PCs, and kids these days are more than comfortable with technology.
Is it possible that you're assuming a condition that doesn't exist? Have you talked to the target group to assess what they can use?
Three Squirrels
Well, tinkering and tweaking may teach you to be a better geek, but for someone who's just trying to do something creative in a non-geek area of expression, being forced to tinker and tweak can be really frustrating. What got my goat was that the original poster pointed to this as a benefit: "Frustration builds character!"
My feeling is that we geeks will always find things to tinker with--some kids with donated PCs will undoubtedly download a Linux distro and start hacking away. Other kids might want to write the next great American novel, or even just read it on the internet. Erecting roadblocks to these aims, even in the name of computer literacy, won't help anyone.
Show them that instead of Firefox, they have IE, or they can download Firefox for Windows. Show them they have Paintbrush instead of Gimp, but they can download Gimp for Windows or buy Photoshop. Show them they have Outlook instead of Thunderbird, but etc... Show them they have Notepad or Word instead of the 50-some editors in Linux. Show them they have freecell-hearts-minesweeper-solitaire instead of the 50-some games on Linux. Be sure to point out that they can no longer switch to alternate virtual desktops, have their pick of ten different window managers, or have all the software they want for it free. Teach them the new keyboard combination "Ctrl-Alt-Del", and remind them that they have to pay attention to virus reports now, because they apply to them.
Of course with my kids, nobody did this with them. They just saw and learned Linux at home, saw and learned Windows at school, and took it to be the natural order of things. Young minds are open; let's not spoil it. They'll be old and mean and dumb just like we grownups soon enough.
The worst possible answer.
These kids have had all the "learning experiences" they can stand. If Windows is everywhere in their lives but on these donor PCs, you are headed for trouble.
The lone iMac donated to our village library is mounted low and is perfectly placed by the children's section, where it simply gathers dust.
The kids bee-line to the big black Dells "just like" the ones they use at home. That users of every age are welcomed in the Reading Room is surely part of its appeal.
Well, I don't know if I would go that far. I think there is some truthfulness in your parody, but what I really wanted to say is that linux may encourage people to learn more about computers not because they will get frustrated, but because there are more tools at their disposal. Windows has great tools for it too, but they're not all sitting on the machine, just waiting to be discovered. If I were a child, had I discovered Windows had a C compiler waiting for me, I would have been jumping for joy. All I had to bring with me to Windows was a BASIC interpreter from an older system (DOS). A fun tool, and great for children, but dead by the time I was learning it.
Granted, not all kids are interested in computers themselves. linux is great for people with "computer interest." However, you talk about it like it's actually a hindrance to other things, which was not what I believe or intended to say. linux has great word processing capability (better than what I had as a kid), and its fair share of friendly paint tools (invoking GIMP here is a bit of a straw man). Really, linux enables you to do a lot of great things that aren't directly related to computing.
What I'd like to stress most about my point is computer systems as a social phenomenon. linux users are quite often natural tinkerers, and the community reflects this. Encouraging children to join a culture like that helps them to learn new things (at least about linux), and also to develop a particular perspective on computer software. They may not fully appreciate the merit or value of Free software or even know what it is, but those who are curious will learn. Most people in the world don't even know what Free software is, and distributing linux helps spread awareness. Even if they end up not liking it, they'll have some experience to back up their opinions with.
I would also like to stress that people who find linux totally frustrating and inconvenient will switch to Windows very rapidly. That's not a problem, so we're not exactly forcing anything upon them. If we didn't show them linux, though, they wouldn't even know what it is. If they end up switching to Windows, they'll now have both linux and Windows in their vocabulary; if we just gave them Windows, they'd only have one.
Also, kids who at least are familiar with linux may grow up to find that they have an edge over many of their peers. Maybe it'll help them get a job, or maybe one day they will have to sit down in front of a *nix terminal and not be totally lost. It could happen! So let's expand their worlds a little.
But your daughter also has a parent knowledgable about Linux that can help her out when something new comes along. While these kids could certainly be taught to use Linux, I don't think any such charity wants to get dragged into "Tech Support" when no one ELSE knows how to fix problems that crop up, especially on a scale where potentially hundreds of people might be getting these PCs. On Windows, there may be more problems, but the number of people able to potentially assist in fixing a problem sky-rockets astronomically.
I don't know about you, but I got over 10 years worth of hardcore computer experience, some of it paid, some of it educational, and some of it gaming - on machines that didn't have 233MHz in TOTAL - two machines at 1MHz apiece, a 4.77MHz machine that I only had part time access to, a 16MHz machine of my own that I loved, and a 40MHz machine that I later upgraded to 133MHz. Got a four year degree in software engineering at a university in the process, as well as working my first real paid job as a newbie software engineer and newbie network admin. I learned to program in like six different languages (Pascal, C, Basic, Assembler, pseudo SQL (dBase / Foxpro) dabbled a bit with Fortran, COBOL, Ada), learned to network computers via ARCnet, Ethernet for Novell Netware (several versions), learned the concepts of structured programming, several software design methodologies, concepts behind computer graphics, audio, user interface design, and played about 5000 hours of games - all on machines that didn't have 233MHz or 64M of RAM if you added up the processor speeds and memory of every machine I had through that entire decade, and all on machines with 640x480 or less of resolution (most of them had much less) - and no Windows 2000.
If the intent is to provide kids an opportunity to play the latest games and run the latest software, then a 233MHz box with 64M of RAM isn't going to cut it.
If the intent is to provide kids an opportunity to experience and learn 'computer science' aka operating systems, networking, database, programming languages and software development theory, then 233MHz with 64M and an 8M video card and 14" SVGA CRT is ~plenty~ of horsepower. And probably free, too. Computer science isn't all surfing the web, Instant Messenger, MP3z and Doom III. I'd wager that about 80% of all the software engineering knowledge on the planet could be learned and used on a monochrome (amber or green) display. There is a world of difference between keeping a kid busy on a Windows XP machine with multimedia and the Internet, and teaching him the fundamentals of computer science.
Approach it from this perspective and the actual OS is a lot less important, all things considered.
Load "*",8,1
I agree with you on the hassle of broken hardware though - maybe what they need to do is have the kids amass like a ton of machines, go through each one and break it down into components (video cards, hard drives, sound cards, memory, keep the case/ps/mobo/cpu as complete units, etc), catalog it, build a few test boxes to pop the different components into to sort the working parts from the broken parts. Actually, the nice thing about older hardware is that the points of failure are real easy to identify : dead hard drives don't respond, power supplies that don't power up a box, CPUs with dead fans - anything else would probably be ok (most of the time) and have them build their own boxes from the parts boxes, hand picking parts. That way, they learn how to trouble shoot their own machine and will be able to identify issues in the future and fix them, not be intimidated and be comfortable going in to fix (or upgrade) their box in the future. Walk them through installing the OS a few times with different OS's and a wipe/reinstall won't intimidate them either.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I know this because I was raised with Windows and came away from it with almost nothing.
I don't think it was the computer's fault you ended up with nothing. There's a lot of ugly internals to the Windows OS, and if you came away with nothing, that's completely because you weren't trying hard enough. People don't learn "much of anything" because they are uninterested. This will happen whether you give them Windows, Linux, MacOS or OS/360: users will learn what they need to in order to do what they want to and that's it. Those who think the computer should do more than is obvious that it can do will take the time to really learn things, and they will take something away from the experience.
That said, I'd agree with the linux route for a different reason. There's so much software for linux that you can just apt-get, emerge, yum, etc. Sure, there's a lot of free software to get most things done on windows, too, but only if you know how to use google already. Esp with Ubuntu and the like: just click the boxes in aptitude, etc and software is downloaded and installed, all in one step. Linspire's Click-n-Run is super cool, too. Sure beats the Search on google, download the file, find the file, run the file, click next on all of the dialog boxes process that's required on windows.
If you preinstall an OS with Web browser, Office Products, some games, etc. you're fine. They're charity computers right? With the money you save on windows licenses you can get even more computers. That's the greater good, IMHO, even if some of the recipients are less than happy with the OS.
But really, all of what they're doing now is prep for real-world computer usage--they're not doing anything earthshaking now, but they're gaining computer skills, and as much as we may or may not like it, they'll be best served in the world (especially since they haven't yet been exposed to much tech and it's thus likely will not pursue IT) by Windows skills, not Linux ones.
And so the Monopoly perpetuates and another generation grows up in ignorance.
Give them a proper OS like Linux and let them learn how a real computer works. Open their minds. Then, they will have a superior education and will be able to adapt down to Windows in the future if the need arises.
A Free OS is important because it contains no mysteries. Windows is all about hiding everything from the user and keeping him ignorant such that he is helpless and dependent on the mercy of Bill to cast the magic spells to enable new features and to fix bugs and security holes as and when His Majesty decrees.
Stick Men