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22,000 Indiana Students Using Linux Desktops

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the open-school dept.

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."

10 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. One or two Linux "flavors" are not enough? by RuBLed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...)

    1. Re:One or two Linux "flavors" are not enough? by Denial93 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The various flavors aren't that different from each other, especially in the areas that (should) matter to students. As long as they all run OOo and Firefox, are free of spyware and WoW clients, and can talk to each other, little more will be required. A heterogenous Linux environment isn't the end of the world, nor an administration nightmare. This has the same reason as the switch in the first place: the OS matters less and less. (Of course it'd be all different with proprietary business software or groupware, but these aren't needed here.)

      --
      blow your mind already
    2. Re:One or two Linux "flavors" are not enough? by sbrown123 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A good quote in the article states that they don't bring up Linux or open source with the students but keep the focus on the cirriculum. Thats good, and makes Microsofts job really, really hard when they want to undo this. As for the different distros you will notice that they point out that these are being implemented at a school by school basis. But why should that matter? They are using the OS to just be an OS and thats about all. They probably just want it to run a web browser and Open Office. I live in Indiana, and have several friends who teach in the school system, so I know from talking to them that the hardware is dated and just keeping Microsoft Windows running is a fulltime job on its own (patching, removing kids "tweaks", spyware removal, etc).

    3. Re:One or two Linux "flavors" are not enough? by Chaffar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      Err, no. The "biodiversity" of Linux is one of its strong points, and one that is frequently brought up by supporters of OSS. If we start "standardizing", then all we are doing is replacing Windoze by 2 (or 3) different Linux distros. Better, but not the optimal solution.

      Of all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with new OSes (or distros) as they arise, to build fundamental computer skills instead of learning through the click here to do this approach.

    4. Re:One or two Linux "flavors" are not enough? by clifyt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Err, no. The "biodiversity" of Linux is one of its strong points, and one that is frequently brought up by supporters of OSS."

      It is until you have to support it.

      I helped write / support a few packages that will be distributed for these students over the last few years. In the past, I could design a single install that worked for 99% of all the students. Now I have to worry about several installs. And whats on each? And will my software work on all of them?

      Case in point, a friend called me in to help her with a DOE application that was running under Java. Worked on Redhat, but not Linspire. Worked on Mac and PC. Didn't work under any of the other linux desktops. Just figuring out where the fonts are stored on each of these was a pain (we needed specialized math symbols installed...next version I've told her to just use bitmaps instead). And then all the other crap involved in writing up instructions for folks to run this stuff. Some desktops required admin access to get it in...others could run perfectly as an ordinary user (as all Unix apps should).

      Biodiversity is nice. Compatibility is another thing. Their is NO reason for a modern unix to decide I WANT THIS STUFF HERE BECAUSE I HAVE A PERSONAL PREFERENCE. I thought that was the idea of the whole Linux Standard Distribution -- or whatever they were calling it.

      All in all, until the Linux Desktop companies get their eff'n heads out of their asses, biodiversity is not a good thing. I don't care if they decide to tweak things differently or have different versions of installed software or different desktop management schemes so long as the applications work the same and an administrator that is reasonably trained on one can install software on another machine.

      "Of all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with new OSes (or distros) as they arise, to build fundamental computer skills instead of learning through the click here to do this approach."

      I'm all fine with this -- just don't make it hard on the guys on the back end.

      Thats my rant for today...

  2. Stigma by treak007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  3. fitter, happier, more productive by elmartinos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  4. Solution by joshier · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem that has been with linux always has been the popularity.

    The more users, the more development, the more programs, the more users, the more .. you get the picture.

    I'm very happy with this, and I don't mind what distribution they use.

  5. Standard installers == Bullshit! by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

  6. Re:In indiana... by StormReaver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "There is no standardize API's or installers."

    The core standard API is POSIX.
    The standard 3D graphics API is OpenGL.
    The standard 3D audio API is OpenAL.
    The standard 2D graphics API is SDL (which is a shame, because Allegro is much easier).
    The standard 2D GUI API is XLib (with higher level GUIs made from it).
    The standard packaging format is RPM.

    He's got a point on installers. While there are several installers, there is no common installer/uninstaller. This is where I think that all major distributions are failing horribly. It doesn't matter if the installer is apt, urpmi, up2date, or yum. All the major distributions need to pull their heads out of the asses, and get together to agree on a single installer.

    It didn't matter to me what package format was chosen as the standard, but RPM format (actually an RPM format subset) was chosen. All those Debian distributions are doing more harm than good by not adopting it. There are areas where diversity is good, such as the back-end implementation), and areas where diversity is not good (the presentation layer).

    The installer falls squarely in the presentation layer, with the package format arguably having a foot in both places: users will be looking for a specific type of distributable, so they should have to look for only one type. They shouldn't have to care about the container format (RPM or Deb).