Slashdot Mirror
22,000 Indiana Students Using Linux Desktops
Anonymous writes "Indiana's Department of Education has moved 22,000 students onto Linux desktops, and it's looking like that's only going to accelerate with SLED 10, Linspire, and other distributions getting better."
Now there is truly more than corn in Indiana!
Hey, wait a second, isnt that the number of "terrorist targets" they claim to have?
What's a sig? Pete Brubaker
but does it run...
oh wait, i guess it does.
When I RTFA, I noticed that yes, they are using one flavor of Linux now but what worries me is that they're "planning" to use more flavors in the future, ranging from Ubuntu to Freespire. I don't have anything against it but if it is under the state grant program, it should try to standarize on one or two flavors of Linux. I think they're getting too excited on this and not thinking of the small consequences when 22000+ students are divided into 10 or more Linux flavors. Although they said those are "future" plans, I really would like to see them standarize. (or it is just me that wants them to use Ubuntu, hehe...)
Using Linux in colleges provides two benefits. First, colleges can provide very powerful applications such as blender, bluefish, etc to college students without the cost involved. Secondly, if these students, after using Linux in college, begin to realize the stigmas about Linux are wrong, they are more likely to use the distributions on their own, if at least to run the software they are used to using, thus expanding the OSS community.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
i read it as 22,000 indian students. its wrong by a 10 fold or more then.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Fortunately, each of these students will now get to conceive their own linux distro as part of the curriculum.
Funnypics
22,000 is a nice number, i wonder how many instances of the OS that really is...
serenity now!
Can someone please explain to me the relevance of all these "Switch" stories. Maybe back a few years it would have been news but nowadays people are switching every day. Newsforge had a story a while back on why switching isn't news anymore. Maybe /. should take a hint from its sister site.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
After growing up and going to high school in Indiana, this is a surprise to me because our school was VERY outdated =S... of course this was a few years ago and it was in a town of about 7k people.
This is very cool. That would be a schooll I consider going to. :)
But i do think either letting the students pick their flavor or standardizing two flavors would be nice.
All that to say that 22,000 students using Linux probably translates into ~150 Linux desktops in the better funded schools.
But maybe Indiana has a better public school system than California. Wouldn't be surprised.
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
./configure && make && make install
When I switched to Linux I have noticed an instant productivity gain. Not because it is better, more secure, faster or anything, but because of the lack of Counterstrike et al. This effect should not be underestimated, especially in schools.
Open Source Alternatives
The problem that has been with linux always has been the popularity.
.. you get the picture.
The more users, the more development, the more programs, the more users, the more
I'm very happy with this, and I don't mind what distribution they use.
Can I make a Beowulf cluster of these students ?
22,000 is a good start.
Especially these are students that will work later at companies. The Linux knowledge (using a Linux desktop != not server admin) is a plus!
It's the same viral marketing that MS has used for ages: Let students work with our products later in their working life they want to use the same software tools they are familiar with.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
When I switched to Linux I have noticed an instant productivity gain. Not because it is better, more secure, faster or anything, but because of the lack of Counterstrike et al. This effect should not be underestimated, especially in schools.
Unfortunately this effect only lasts until your Linux users discover Cedega.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I have been running SUSE on my desktop at work since v8 and just tried the latest.
Luckily I installed another harddisk in my pc before trying to install.
It looked great but I ran into some installation problems very unlike other SUSE installs I have tried. Even on my notebook it has worked perfect, even WiFi and Bluetooth.
Although the install itself ran fine. Getting the right drivers for my nVidia (6200) card failed. I got a trial key and went on to install the drivers in hope of running XGL. But it failed to make use of the card so I ended up installing my own drivers and forced XGL to enable. I did get that to run but then I had another problem, which was a show stopper.
I was happy to see the Citrix client included, but it seems to have problems with multiple desktops on this SLED 10. When I change to another desktop, all the Citrix applications vanishes. I can see in the process list that they still are there, I just can't see them. That worked great on the others.
So now I am installing it again from scratch, with KDE instead of Gnome, without XGL to see if it works then. Interesting to see what happens when I try to register the same license again. I hope that it was just XGL that broke Citrix.
This all boils down to fear. Fear of making a change in the infrastructure. In every sector of the government, it's up to the IT dept. what system is used. Not the administration or central regulations. They trust the IT dept. with this decision. As long as it "works". If all IT depts. were competent and fearless like those pioneers running Indiana Schools, all would probably move away from Microsoft products. Arguments like "but we need Microsoft products to run program x", is just plain fear. It should be "but you (developers) need to make this program run on x".
"I think within five years, we'll see a huge market shift," Huffman said. "But the Linux community really has to come together. They do have to have a common API; they've got to have a common installer. If those things don't exist, it will not be a competitive market again. If they do exist, I think it will."
Like libc? I mean, seriously, I want some of the stuff that guy's smoking. First they go to great length explaining how they diversify on Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu and (sigh) Linspire and then he asks for a common API and installer? Like one kid stated when asked which system it preferres, either Linux or Windows the reply was:"Who cares?" Same thing here: who cares for a "common installer" (technically impossible) or a "common API" (it's there: libc, GTK, Qt, etc.). As a user you either see a Gnome or a KDE desktop anyway.
"Mike Huffman, special assistant for technology at the Indiana Department of Education", gimme a break!
In a small Indiana public school, our Middle School "Computer Lab" consisted of 6 Commodore PETs, While I used an Amiga at home. In High School we didn't even have a Lab... typing classes actualy used typewriters!
Anyway I'm glad to see this so maybe my child will get to use a real computer with a real OS other than at gome.
"The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine."
Finally someone in the school system with a clue.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...there are no kangaroos in Austria.
Nothing useful [...] using Linux only damages its reputation.
You know, there are people on this planet, who think knowing only the other os and nothing else is what damages your reputation. And also, FYI, people are capable to learn and use not just only one os, and there are plenty of tasks that can be done with plenty of tools, not just one and nothing else. If I'd hire someone who said that can do word processing, then I'd expect him/her to know word processing, not using a one and only word processor application to compose some documents. Oh well, whatever.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I'd call that a bonus.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
using compiz, multiple rotating desktops ... argh!
In 12 months macromedia will be releasing flash9 for linux.
Does it go on forever?
And in a flash 22000 Indiana students can't use websites using Flash.
Of course they can see Flash animations. Personally, I find more than 95% of Flash animations on websites to be a waste of time and bandwidth, and currently disable Flash, but there are several Flash plugins for Linux, including one from Adobe.
My school district's still mad at me for SSH tunneling! (I'm so proud of myself, they've got a new acceptable use policy this year and it's all my fault... :-) Anyway, here's hoping my own school district will hear about this and take a hint, I say this is important stuff...
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
This is the difference between a multi-year college education and a simple vocational school. The vocational schools will teach you how to use a simple tool, without the underlieing theorys. The college is suppose to teach you how to think and give an understanding of the theorys. Once you know how a tool works (say gimp, blender, etc) rather than what button to push when, then you can easily jump to a new tool (say photoshop).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Parent AC was just pointing out one of the many ways in which this benefits students (and ultimately everyone, unless there is general consensus to make the web proprietry?).
If your distro's set up right, then double clicking on the firefox install .exe will install it using WINE... you just need to change the command for firefox on your normal shortcut/menu whatever to point to the windows firefox after it's installed... (oh and wrap the path in quotes as well...)
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Thirty years ago Bavaria (southern part of Germany) was a somewhat backwards, conservative, agricultural state of Germany, whereas the northers states were highly industrialized and rich. Then the Bavarians started high tech business and have passed the north by far in the mean time.
... we'll see what comes out of that.
Now the smart and educated come to Bavaria to find a decent job...
From what you tell Indiana tries exactly the same
There are published books for all major distributions, and generic Linux books as weel in case yours is not covered.
There is also plenty of material in the Internet.
All my Linux problems have been solved so far by research on the Internet (I have been using Linux for more than 10 years professionally).
I can't say the same for Windows, on ocassions you just hit a brick wall and that is the end of that.
In regards to hardware one just have to stick to supportd one. That is the way it is with an OS that is not yet as popular as it will be. But this has always been the case. I have hardware that did not work anymore once a machine was installed with a most recent version of WIndows. ANd very often there is no resource against this because the hardware company has gone bust or can't be bothered to support a device that is slightly old but fully functioning....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What's funny is me calling for dell support in India and trying to figure out something under windows and the other guy trying to help under linux, now how funny that would like.
India guy--- DO ll to see the list of directory
--Guy on Microsoft-- Hum! it gives me unkown command
India Guy---One of your daemon is faulty
--Guy on Microsoft-- I have no demons at all, what the hell are you saying
India Guy-- You O.S is defective
so on and so on, forever
I call bullshit on all this fud from people decrying the "need" for standard installers.
1. Try an installer from any of the major distros. They're ALL easier than Windows.
2. You only install the installer once, then you image the drive and copy the image to the other N computers in the sale.
3. The end user will NOT be the one installing any of these.
So everyone, who gives a shit about a common installer? Let the installers proliferate, and we'll continue to have competition for the BEST installer, which will change from year to year, rather than those lame ones we see with the bitch from Redmond that can barely install an OS, never mind 10 gigs of software in one shot (that 10 gigs figure is what I got from installing the latest opensuse distro, fwiw).
If we hope that Linux will ever have the hardware and software support it needs, the only way will be to sing its praises.
As long as Linux is not in 20% or 30% of desktop machine (at least) it is worth building a body of evidence showing why Linux is a valid alternative.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This is a great chance to see the distributions "fight it out". Without administrative interferrence, the best distribution gradually will predominate.
Or will it?
I'm sure many will be watching to see what type of "ecology" evolves. Will a distribution eventually predominate? Or will an alternative to the "winner take all" market theory emerge? Who knows...
This is the the best news I've heard in years.
Once people start to learn to work with an OS that actually.... works .... then there will be a rising tide against Windows. People will see Microsoft Windows for what it really is: an over-priced, bloated, unreliable, electronic carrier of cyber-diseases. A sucker of people's time. A constant headache. A threat to society.
After all, it has to be pretty darn bad for an operating system to merit an official announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that it posed a threat ... yet that happened last week to Windows.
Hoo Haa. Hoooo Haaaa.
... who long for the days of Word Perfect!
Some of them made the transition to MS Word. Just maybe they could handle open office.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
When they interviewed that student about being on a Linux desktop vs. Windows, and the answer was "Who cares?".
If that response from a student aka future consumer hasn't got Ballmer looking for clean shorts, the guy deserves to be thrown to the curb at once (not that he doesn't deserve that already). Any businessman who's let their primary product become a who-cares to the next round of buyers has failed miserably.
It isn't specific on how much MS related software they'll still be using but if the main reason for switching to linux is cost cutting then it's possible they won't have office, photoshop etc. running under WINE. Yes there are alternatives to all these programs but employers when looking at your CV, are looking specifically for Excel, access, photoshop experience. While having Open office and GIMP experience may still interest employers looking for office experience, lots won't see it as relevant (I also have to wonder how many CV's have been binned by HR people who have never heard of GIMP...)
Ultimately : Linux experience - good, potentially leaving students unprepared for the workplace by not teaching the most common applications - bad.
Some may wish to reference or contribute to this draft IBM Redbook due for publication on 2006-08-30.
g 246380.html
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/s
- a non-eMouse
I'm not sure why so many people think they need to standardize on one or a few Linux distros. The IT staff of each school district is already managaging their own systems and images, why not let them choose? I would find it absurd for the state to come up with "official" distros to use, even more so if they're supplying the images. In my district IT is completely underfunded, so any mandates on technology are incredibly draining of the staff. Leave the choices to them!
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Who cares about linux? Apparently, not students. From TFA:
<i>Huffman said he's eager to get a read on student acceptance of Linux. In surveying one classroom last year, he asked a student what he thought of using a Linux desktop vs. a Windows desktop, and the student responded, "Who cares?"</i>
I've been arguing for years most end users, in general, don't give a sh*t about what OS they use, and most end users don't even understand what an OS is, and how it is different than "the internets" and "microsoft". It is all "just a computer.
But you know who does care? Bureaucrats and Business People! Why? From TFA:
<i>....open source is so attractive [because w]e can cut those costs down to $5 [on each computer] per year."
Who knew...linux is about the bottom line!
So, why do most people not care about linux and opensource? They don't understand how much money it can save them and how useful it can be in their lives. But what hinders its adoption? Its percieved complexity. Lack of education. Lack of a strong brand. Lack of polish. Lack of hardcore popular games. Easy breakability. Lack of consistant features between distrobutions.
Props to my old friend Lance Woods who has been working towards this in Indiana for years.
To me the most interesting angle wasn't mixing distros or the cost savings, it was this quote:
In surveying one classroom last year, he asked a student what he thought of using a Linux desktop vs. a Windows desktop, and the student responded, "Who cares?"
MSFT cares and that answer should shake them to the core of their bloated, over-priced, insecure, EULA hell, license holdup, employee moral dampening corporate soul. That quote speaks volumes about the OS brand loyalty most PC users have. Who does care? If the alternative works and costs less, people will use it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I don't know how many people have noticed this, but the only people who complain about incompatibilities (e.g. library versions, paths, etc.) between distros (and/or support the LSB) are the ones who want to sell closed-source software.
If they'd just make a GNU Autoconf script and let the sysadmin/user install the program himself as the parent just described, there would be no problem!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Actually, the timeline was *when* Flash is coming is not known, specifically. Could be 2007, 2008 or...
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
MSI
Your point #1 (lack of documentation) is valid in the Real World, but not for kids at school. If anything, the most important computer-related thing schools teach is how to do research. Considering what you said, Linux is perfect for that! ; )
Besides, both points are irrelevant anyway because these computers are going to be administered by the school system's IT department, not the students. Presumably, they (a) know what they're doing, and (b) will buy compatible hardware.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've lived in Indiana most of my life and I can tell you that, under our current governor, this is all about money. Most of our public schools are terribly underfunded. The motivation to save money anywhere possible is what is driving the Linux migration. Anyone want to lease a tollroad?
Indiana has been making steady progress in transforming itself into a center of technology innovation. Some of the largest companies in the world are based in Indiana and the military technology sector in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne is unbelieveable. Pharma, Def-Tech, Orthopedics, etc. Indiana is a leader in all these fields.
Yes, we do grow corn here and a lot of it!
BTW, we've been trying to give the Gary region near Chicago to Illinois for years but, they won't take it. So it's currently available for anyone wanting to take over the payments....
Just ask the good Jedi how they feel about "Balance" now...
Brings up an interesting point there as well. Why does there need to be a common installer? There's no common installer in Windows.
Ahh, but a single installer executable can easily run on most all Windows versions. The same cannot be said of a single installer for all Linux distros. Secondly, installation on Windows is a mess. Part of the reason for moving away from Windows is because they have not fixed problems like these. To make Linux a really good desktop, it should be a lot better than Windows so that when people have a choice of platforms, they choose Linux.
I don't think anyone does installation perfectly. What I'd like to see is all platforms standardize on a GNUStep-like package format combined with a package manager that integrates licensing, updates, and the like for all software available to a machine, including on network drives, removable media, and for different users. No one has done it completely right yet, that I have seen. I want the drag and drop installation functionality of OS X, including the ability to IM a functional program to someone or plug in a thumb drive and have my preferences from two years ago when I last had access to that program on a network drive to be saved. I want all the dependancies included in the package with versioning and dynamic linking so getting a new library with some program I download can fix bugs in other programs I'm running. I want easy access to the resources of the program like movies, images, and sounds, just by navigating into the folder-is-the-program directory. Similarly I want easy access to fat binaries for multiple processors and even OS's. I want the integrated option to build from the included source instead of using a pre-compiled binary. Disk space is not that expensive anymore. I want a management application built into the OS that knows when I run a new application for the first time, handles registration over the internet or by keys through an official service. I want to be able to manage inherited preferences for the whole machine and for individual users from this manager and handle uninstalls and automated updates.
Right now Apple has half the solution and Linux has about a third. Sadly GNUStep on Linux seems to have lost momentum since most people who care about Linux as a convenient workstation jumped ship and went to OS X.
Maybe this is too much to ask, but I really don't think so. The real problem is not even building this system, it is standardizing it and getting all the major players, including Apple and Sun to get onboard.
1,000,000 machines / 22,000 students = 45.45 machines per student.
Hmmm, perhaps they should teach maths instead of computers in Indiana!
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
People keep talking about this, but I have not seen any evidence on the Dell website that I can select Linux as an OS when I'm buying a computer. I haven't checked in the past few days or anything, but I did play around a few months ago and the only options under "OS" for their consumer machines was "Windows XP Home Edition" and "Windows XP Professional."
It'll be a big step forward when Linux is available there as well, just because--even if people don't order it--the fact that it's on the list right next to Windows makes it seem more 'official.'
The only place I've seen Linux as an option for a preinstalled OS from a major vendor is HP's "Workstation" line (which are really nice computers, and certainly better than the shit they foist on consumers, but not something average people are likely to see). I keep hearing that Dell offers Linux as some sort of option: can anyone explain where it's offered, or what the secret is?
Of course there are the small companies that offer preinstalled Linux systems, but sadly they seem to be charging a price premium that's really the wrong direction to be going in. Looking only at them versus at Windows boxes, you'd assume that the "Linux tax" is a few hundred dollars more than the Redmond one.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Macs for the rich, Linux for the poor, and Windows for everybody else.
My school here in Toronto had 70,000 student accounts on a Suse Linux rollout 5 years ago... Not to mention countless other universities around the world...OLD NEWS...
The debian/ubuntu/etc distros might switch to RPM when it starts to WORK. As long as it isn't possible to maintain the same high level repositories with as little problems, anything else would be a HUGE downgrade. Some people don't believe this until they try it, but please do.
There's DLL hell on Windows, and there's plenty of RPM hell on Linux, but never any DEB hell, and there are reasons for this. RPM is ill thought out, handles dependencies poorly, generally breaks down and then we haven't even gotten to the TOOLS yet... where the poster boy Yum, for instance is slow as glued molasses.
Some may argue that choosing RPM was a good idea because it is a common format, but that is a logical fallcy; if so, maybe a reimplementation of MSI would have been in order... We are using Linux because, for whatever reason, we think it is a better choice. We do not compromise when it comes to that choice. I see no reason to compromise when it comes ot installers either. The choice of RPM as "standard" was bullied and lobbied through without any more reasoning that "we have to choose something fast". Doesn't make it one bit more right.
If the RPM distros *fixes* their format (probably can't be done), we might consider it. But we won't take an inferior experience just because some asshats made a poor descision. So there's two real ways this could go now, either they adopt debs too, or they will dwindle slowly as Ubuntu and Debian takes over most of the main market, solving the problem in quite another way. Ubuntu, btw, does not participate in Linux Standards Base, because all they do is slowing everyone down to no use.
In the meantime, one can usually use alien. Not that one should feed the seagulls like that...
How about "$sudo yum -y install package-name.rpm" on rpm based distros (Fedora for example) ?? This one line command can do all you want (installation and resolving all the dependencies). To fulfil needs of an average user, which is the issue of all this discussion, the aforementioned line can do all the things. For advance users, dependencies are not a problem at all. Along with this, just think of home much freedon linux provides. I have seen people without having any idea to get rid of some too strange and unexpected problems associated with windows....and these shits strike on worst time. They have no other way but to pray to god. My girlfrined often complains that her friend list is blank in her MSN messenger....and would you believe, her syster is using MSN-4.0 because it is very sheldom that she could manage to log into MSN-7.5 or MSN-live successfully. Dont blame internet speed...speed is not a problem at all in Japan. One of my Korean friends need to check his computation status everyday because his computer reboots autometically (running windows XP). I have run programs on the same computer (FC-4, dual boot) continuously for a month non-stop without any automatic reboot. At last, if you haven't yet, I recommend u that try FC-5 (re-spin relese).
You presume that the Windows Installer actually works.
... XP". Fresh install of Windows 98: it installs, but complains about missing DLLs (won't run). Windows XP? Installs, runs. Doesn't work -- but that's probably another issue.
/opt, or /usr/local/bin -- or somewhere else. I may want extra fonts isolated from the X server, or even shared with XFS.
/usr and /opt should not be needed to boot the system (Redhat 9 breaks this rule with the "kudzu" stuff -- this can be disabled). / /bin /sbin /etc should not be written (certainly not by an application). Logging should go through standard facilities. Binary applications should be statically linked (especially if written in C++), or the libraries used should be distributed WITH the application -- only the standard C library can be relied on. The application should accomodate automount and GUI remoting (automount means that a directory need not exist until it is requested, which means keyboard entry must be allowed in file open dialogs). Assume that LD_PRELOAD overriding of API entry points is being done. Maybe some more considerations...
Not true.
I purchased a program called "123 DVD Copy" to make copies of some (legal - I own the copyright) DVDs.
The box said "Works on Windows 98
There are approaches to installing software "universally" on Linux. Choice #1: statically linked software. This is actually a pretty good one. Choice #2: target common distributions. Again, not bad, just not as universal. Choice #3: GNU Autoconf. My preferred choice for individual workstations.
Graphic installer? Sure, why not: but please give me the choice of WHERE the software goes. Unix/Linux is not a "one size fits all". I may want it in
Fixing Windows applications is such a pain that no-one really does it (there are ways, but it is a "black art"). Generally, the solution is "let it install where it wants to be". With Unix/Linux I (as administrator) want the control.
Some examples: SUN java installation is not bad -- it doesn't install stuff in the tree outside of its designated spot. nVidias driver? Sticks stuff (the control panel) where IT wants. Why? To make it "simpler" I guess. Makes it annoying, though. Thank god the driver works... And there are different rules for the distribution itself. Redhat Linux 9 (and RHEL) is contained, Fedora Core 5 isn't (and is arguably worse from an administration standpoint).
There are some basic rules for Unix (Linux):
If followed, the binary will be "portable" across multiple distributions (at least on the same processor and major OS version). The "installer" can the be trivial -- and can simply be a self-run shell script.
Basically, "Linux Installers" are trying to solve problems that don't really exist.
YMMV
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
The application is the desktop icon? Or a link?
/opt/firefox/bin/firefox would not EXIST in your reference space unless you actually referenced it. Now, how is the icon to exist? There is a disconnect between the "desktop metaphor" and a physical file implementation.
How would OS X know if a link is removed? Short of maintaining a database of file reference counts (and if its softlinks, it would be a database of file references, paralleling the directory structure). It doesn't. And the desktop icon is simply representative of the application. It isn't the application. Now, OS X has an approach to icons and launchers. Different approach for other systems. As an example, assume that the file system itself is "virtual" in a sense -- things are NOT present unless called for by name (automount - remember I mentioned that?).
That is,
Even at home, I have a terrabyte online. I don't want to drill down hundreds of thousands of files, nor do I want the "desktop manager" traversing this data. There needs to be a separation between these for any modern (large, possibly distributed) file system. This approach may have worked with Mac OS 9, but it doesn't play now.
Gnome handles this via XML files for menus. The desktop itself? Still follows the file system (although it is getting away from that). How do we add a desktop icon? Yes, the application can be on the desktop, or in a folder, and it can be launched. Doesn't really help when trying to generate the proper menu descriptor or launcher (with tool-tip help, and integration into Gnome itself).
Or, lets say your new OS X application can handle files of type "video/mp4v-es" (just choosing a real mime type at random). You want your web browser to create a window, and pass that window handle and the file stream to this application when the data type appears in a web page. Ok, how does THAT work? PS. No pre-launching of the application allowed here (just to make my point as to what an INSTALLER should be doing). What browser is it, anyway? You want to "launch" an existing file (which is why you just copied the application to your computer, after all) and have it come up in "edit" mode.
These issues are either (1) taken care of by assuming the existence of a single and standard stack, or (2) by assuming the existence of a "registry" or (3) by using the services of an installer, which isolates the program author from these issues.
(or a combination of these things, and note that the registry can be dynamic -- take Palm OS as an example).
How do you want it?
YMMV
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
22,000 students just have the option of recieving a state granted machine running linux. Anyone who brings their own machine won't be requesting them... At most there might be a few hundred students getting this computers.
couldnt resist
I conducted an hour-long audio interview last week with Mike Huffman and Laura Taylor from Indiana as part of a series of interviews on Free and Open Source software in K-12 schools. It's available to listen to from the web at www.k12opensource.com/interviews, or for download at http://www.educationbridges.net/k12opensource/wp-c ontent/uploads/HuffmanTaylor.mp3 or http://www.educationbridges.net/k12opensource/wp-c ontent/uploads/HuffmanTaylor.ogg.