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."

Comments

Re:Can someone explain to me the Relevance

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a state sponsored switch (in a very conservative state at that).

Indiana is quietly attempting to become a leader in the Tech Industry in small steps taken by the government (instead of the populace).

Our telecommunications bill was a step in the right direction.
Bayh actively supports Net Neutrality (with Dick Lugar seeming to favor it, as well).
State-sponsored research into improving the conditions for tech companies here in Indiana (and taking necessary steps to accomplish this).
Governer Daniels voicing his desire for Indiana to move from manufacturing to tech; and expressing his wish to stop the 'brain drain'
This recent OSS adoption

Not all of it will pan out, of course. But, I applaud my state knowing that it is trying to move toward these goals. Amazing, considering how 'red' we are.

Maybe it would be great, if it were true

[njdj]

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.

Re:Can someone explain to me the Relevance

[LDoggg_]

How much are they going to save in licensing costs, does anyone know? (not just over Windows, but Office, Photoshop, etc.)

A HUGE amount. Microsoft's "educational" discounts are laugable. I don't know the exact numbers for Indiana, but I have experience in setting up a large linux network for a school and the money we saved on software allowed us to purchase much better hardware. All of our workstations are now equiped with flat panel monitors.

I remember MS claiming the TCO total cost of ownership is lower for Windows than for linux because of training...

MS's claims are just marketing garbage.

The school that I volunteer for has 2 ltsp servers and 60 thin clients. Since the thin clients have no hard drives, I never have to fix them. If there is a need for a new software package to be installed or account maintenance, I just remote into the server.
Much easier solution for me personally than servicing 60 windows XP computers, regardless of how locked down they are.

As far as training goes.. well, the first year I just made the system look like windows : screenshot
As the year went on, I noticed that neither students(k-8) nor teachers had any problems using the web browser or open office in linux. I can't imagine spending much money on training, becuase the system was more than intuitive enough.
As far as training for any new network administrators goes, sure. However in this day and age it would be silly for a network administrator to not put some effort into learning linux.