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Setting up Linux in an Inner City Public School?
Richard Finney asks: "I have a friend who is retired. He was the chief scientist on the Landsat program. Instead of just belting down scotch and cashing social security checks, he is volunteering at Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School #122, in Baltimore. He's trying to set up some old donated computers from the Windows 95 era. Rather than fight with Windows, he's decided to install Linux. How would you set up these systems for these little kids to use and learn about computers using Linux?"
If he is looking at donated computers truly of the Windows 95 era, he may not be doing the students, nor linux any service. Consider the standard requirements for a Windows 95 "era" machine: (from the Microsoft knowledge base article)
System requirements for installing Windows 95:
Not saying it can't be done with Linux, but this person is choosing Linux to avoid the hassles of Windows? With machines as lean as these, and today's Linux, he may be getting more hassle with Linux than the old Windows.
Even by Linux (assuming 2.4 or higher kernel, with associated standard Gnu distro packages) standards, these are pretty stripped down machines, and would be likely to be balky even running Linux. There may be some instructional "stuff" you could do with Linux and these machines, but I'd be inclined to steer clear... there's a reason a lot of these machines are donated.
An alternative would be to look for some kind of community "donation", or a grant, where half decent computers could be drummed up -- a decent computer today can be obtained for much less than before -- why not order a bunch of components from Newegg, or somewhere similar, and build computers as part of the education exercise?
make the kids install Linux. When they ask a question yell, "RTFM!" /.! bonus!
that'll teach 'em about Linux AND
certified elipsis abuser
I'd check out the Linux Terminal Server Project
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Freeduc Live CD for primary schools
You might want to bring a bulletproof vest. They're free (as in speech) for the most part. You can take them apart, learn how they work, etc.
*ducks*
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I've tried pushing Linux in inner-city schools. It's hard to get support for anything new or different, even with the price advantage. If you've gotten past that hurdle, I'd suggest trying to make a good first impression. Choose a very friendly distro (Ubuntu perhaps) and configure it as trasparently as possible. Ensure that the basics (web, email, productivity, multimedia) just work and ensure that getting help is not a task in itself. While we would all like to seee opendocument being used, it's probably best to set openoffice to default to the M$ formats to easy compatibility.
The trick is not so much teaching Linux as ensuring a good first impression. The OS is there for those who want to learn, don't force it on the others or you'll risk rejection and difficult times in the future.
Let us know who it works out too.
-Tim Louden
In a classroom environment you need to have clearly outlined objectives for the students to learn so that you can determine if your hardware/software will meet those needs. I would develop these objectives and determine where in these objectives these machines will fit in (perhaps hardware or even electro-static discharge training). Then the next thing to do is find some adaquate hardware, perhaps you could solicit donations from some of the larger companies in your area, larger companies are generally on some sort of hardware replacement schedule. So you may be able to get some fairly new hardware. Then once you have all of the hardware you need involve the kids from day one (even if it is on an after school basis).
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
"How would you set up these systems for these little kids to use and learn about computers using Linux?""
Make them "bulletproof", and "fireproof", and "vandelproof"...
Then get a few newer boxes and run Discoverstation or look at the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) which basically pulls off the same thing. But I really don't think that's what this guy was asking. I think he was probably more concerned about how the workstations were going to be used with students. How do you interest them? That part is hard. The ones who would be interested won't know it until they try it. The ones who just want to play games, and surf for multimedia will probably lose interest quickly. In my opinion, the best use is to just offer them as Wordprocessing/Spreadsheet/Presentation tools with "light" web browsing (meaning that there isn't as much access to multimedia) and e-mail. So they are more utilitarian tools than boxes to have a lot of fun with.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
...He was the chief scientist on the Landsat program. Instead of just belting down scotch and cashing social security checks, he is volunteering at Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School...
Old guys like this are like Zombies.. they just dont die or go away... arrrggghh bring me a 486 arrhhhhahh. lets make old crap work again.. arrrhhhhhhahh. this was high tech in my day..arrahhhhahhahhh
These machines (from Windows 95 era) are far too weak to run decent desktop Linux. In fact they will run windowing system and graphical mode fine, but when it comes down to applications it will be *VERY* painly to run Firefox or OpenOffice.org on them.
:)
Instead you can turn the old machines into thin clients. So they will serve only as an display and input to applications that will be run on more powerfull server. You need to set up a fairly capable server (the ammount of RAM matters) - dual P3 with 1GB RAM and decent big disks will do for a handful of clients. The clients can boot of minidistribution installed on them locally, from live CD or via network (netboot). Network option will be probably best but not all systems (meaning PCs) will support it.
This way all the old machines will do is connect to that server and display appliations run on the server. When one such thin client breaks (the old machines *WILL* break often) you just replace it with another one and it is basically it. Also management of such system is much simpler than managing network of Windows 95 - all apps and all user data is on the server, so you have only one place to look after, only one place to manage software, only one place to backup etc.
There are various Linux distributions build for education. F.e. I would take Edubuntu for a spin (for starters):
http://www.edubuntu.org/
http://www.edubuntu.org/Screenshots (these speak for themselves)
Thera are also few ways for managing terminal server/client network, one most well known solution is the Linux Terminal Server Project - have a look at their documentation, it is fairly complete:
http://www.ltsp.org/
http://www.ltsp.org/documentation/index.php
Also if you are looking for help seek your local Linux community. Linux servers are extremely easy to manage remotely so you can probably find some kind admins/gurus that will want to help you pro bono.
Good Luck.
INNER CITY KIDS DON'T USE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
Because you can't steal it.
I jacked a motherfucking Emacs from a motherfucker, but I couldn't C-X C-c the fuck out fast enuff, so my black nigger ass got busted by the StallMan.
They don't need you crackers getting them embroiled in a bunch of white boy gang wars! Sheesh. Next thing you know you'll be making them choose between emacs and vi.
That is all.
Having helped install some of the new fiber/CAT-5E networks in schools like Lombard Middle in Baltimore, I have to question the goal here. We built a basically state of the art network and there isn't ANYTHING in the building really worth hooking up to it, including the administrative machines.
What is the point of using PCs for grade school kids? I don't understand the reasoning.
Unless the classes are about computers, the platform doesn't matter, its the apps that really count. So what applications are desired?
"How would you set up these systems for these little kids to use and learn about computers using Linux?"
That question doesn't even make sense -- it's like three unrelated questions in one. How do you install Linux? Follow the onscreen instructions. Refer to the documentation, How-Tos, or forums if you get stuck.
What software do you install afterwards? Probably whatever the teacher requests. Is he going to be teaching the kids as well? Because it doesn't really matter what he puts on the computers if the teacher doesn't know what the hell it is.
How do you get little kids to learn? You just explain stuff to them and they absorb it like sponges. Then you get them to explain it back to you, and correct the parts they didn't quite get right. Probably start with something basic like the different parts of the computer, different types of media, the concept of directories as folders, etc.
I still have no idea what you're asking though, but it sounds like "Help us develop a cirriculum for some elementary school. BTW Linux!!!11!!!," to me.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
is the easiest and cheapest way...
http://www.k12ltsp.org/
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Adorable urchins in inner city schools do not need computers, and they do not need Linux. They need TIME. Time from adults who care, time from adults who can mentor, be debate team coaches, chaperone kids on field trips to the Aquarium, etc. Frankly, some engineer who worked on Landsat has about nothing in common with these kids, and it shows:
Impoverished children with no family life and no school supplies? Why, I'll install some trendy Linux distro, walk away, feel smug, and leave the PCs to ultimately rot!
Those schools are resource starved, not Intarweb starved. Give them books before you give them shitty old PCs.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
...and I certainly don't believe that now. The kit that you ACTUALLY needed to run Windows 95 (without going to make a cup of tea after trying to launch an application) was considerably more than this. I've just re-inherited a 9-year old W95 machine from a family member who's finally replaced it with an XP box. It's had nothing added over the years, not even any extra memory.
By the standards of 9 years ago, it was a reasonable spec machine (although by no means top of the range). It runs Debian Stable (2.4 kernel) fine - slow, but still usable.
But I have a question. In the long term (say, a few years - maybe between 1 to 3), considering the average electric bill, does it pay off to use such old machines? Wouldn't it be cheaper to use modern thin clients or shared machines?
That would actually be Insightful (mabye Funny) if the title wasn't caps.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I've installed linux on several machines that are much older than what most people have around. ~133 mhz and 16mb of ram is what I'm used to working with in many cases. The fastest way to get such a machine up and running is Damn Small Linux, via the text-mode installer on the disc. However, I've never attempted that on less than 16 megs of ram. Slackware has a 4meg kernel appropriate for machines with 8mb of ram, which I was planning to test on an old packard bell fitting the descritption of a 'true' windows 95 era machine outlined near the start of the comments. However, it seems my family has gotten rid of the machine since I last used it, so I cannot test the performance of the 4meg slackware route. I will say this, anything with 8 megs of ram is going to extremely slow if at all using any sort of desktop enironment. Damn Small Linux is a great examle of how fluxbox or jwm can be used to set up a fairly friendly interface without driving yourself mad in the process.
In short, if the systems can handel it, DSL is the fastest way to set something up, but otherwise I'd suggest slackware for an old machine.
Of course, the name Damn Small Linux isn't too elementary-school friendly... I've never used it, but puppy linux is similar to DSL in many ways from what I've read, and might be a more child-friendly alternative. But if you've got the time, I personally think slackware is the way to go on an old machine. X Windows On A Floppy would be of some interest if we weren't talking about something for children to work on.
That is, unless you want to try the a thin terminal, but that's going to cost a little money.
There is a process that allows you to share the processing tasks to other computers while your computer is in use(Using idle processing power to power another).
I forgot what the name of this Process / Protocol / Method was.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I write from experience. In our education center, we run 18 stations. Already more than half are LTSP terminals. Also, we have more LTSP around the building for staff.
Recently, we got over 30 Pentium III computers from our local utilities company. Also, our cable company is getting rid of 500 units, so look around town for businesses that are upgrading.
If I had the time and skill to install and maintain Linux, I'd do that. It'd be worth a lot more than me trying to be, say, a debate team coach. Which isn't to say that it's an either-or choice, but don't be a luddite just because there are other needs.
Oh, and the Intarweb is a hell of a book. Give them Google before you give them books.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Whatever you use, you're going to have to if you want it to be reasonably fast. It depends on just how old these machines are, but I'm hearing a lot of people imagining Firefox in 8 megs of RAM.
Don't. If you just need Internet, links2 is damn small and supports enough graphics and form controls to get by. It's clumsy, but it's better than nothing, and it'll even do the graphics on a framebuffer -- no X to worry about. You can try to teach them to use mutt for email, or just use webmail.
The list goes on. Selecting a lightweight WM is only the first step, and that's assuming you give them a GUI.
On the other hand, don't over-optimize. If Firefox will run acceptably, and you can get the machines booted to whatever app you need in 5-10 mins, then go for it. You'll probably want AbiWord, but again, if OpenOffice works, use that. In other words, make the switch if you're saving a hugely significant amount of boot time, and RAM usage to avoid thrashing when you switch applications. You don't want it to feel slower than Win95 did (OpenOffice is still a bit fatter than Office), but you don't want to make them feel like they're in the bad old DOS days -- it should "feel" modern.
And finally, considering the way apps tend to bloat today, your first upgrade, if you do upgrade, will probably be RAM.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
For the old machines that don't have the oomph to run Linux on their own, load them up with Terminal servers software and have them do most of their work from the central servers. -- then hook yourself up with a 100Megabit network and let fly. The connection to the central server could be a gigabit link with a 100Megabit fan out to get the most of your network bandwith.
Remember that -- for most of the stuff that students do, the vast majority of their time the computer is going to be doing make-work on their screen while waiting for them to type. All you really need is enough RAM that a student's active processes don't get swapped out to disk. That city government in Florida is a pretty good case study on this kind of setup.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I've been in that situation (trying to get something modern on Win98-era computers). It's not worth the effort. Most modern distros will run pretty awful on it. You could strip it down and run IceWM, but just don't expect to be able to do anything else (and users will hate it). Firefox? Will crawl. Opera? Will crawl. OpenOffice? Unbearably slow. Abiword? Crawls but usable, but it's formatting is terrible so it's not worth bothering with.
If you absolutely cannot get somewhat reasonable computers like Athlon's and Pentium III's above 550 MHz (avoid k6-2s and especially Celerons), don't waste the effort (450's (p2) run somewhat decently). Find out the maximum memory those systems can handle and put that in. Ubuntu seems to run the fastest on lower-end machines, but you have to the remove the large amount of services it starts up by default and boost the system memory. Don't even try running with less than 256 if you want usable apps to run.
If you really have to use those Win95-era machines, you're best off with Win95 on them. Same with older Win98 machines. Both use much less ram and can still run somewhat modern apps. The other option would be to install a old version of Linux there, but that's not an attractive option (wtf will run on that? No decent browsers (Netscape 4, eww, rather use 'telnet 80'), word processors, etc).
Working well on lower-end systems should really become a focus. There are so many computers out there that could be useful, but software bloat turns them into garbage.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
and be making greenness maps from AVHRR data received on ham radio equipment put together in the science lab.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
So, he's not belting down scotch? I suppose, then, that he did not work on Landsat 6.
How about Edubuntu?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
The great thing about kit like this is you can teach them how to dismantle and rebuild them safely without risking anything valuable. Guarantee you'll have the interest of most of them if you dismantle it, and explain the parts, especially if you make them help, or do it themselves. For kids dismantling things that are "expensive" is forbidden fruit.
;)
PC technology has barely changed internally from a visual perspective, apart from SATA replacing the ISA bus, and the amount of fans and pins on the CPUs.
It won't teach them anything useful for when they leave school on specific hardware, but in the mean time they'll be able to repair their own (and parents) kit, learn how not to get electrocuted, how not to wipe out sensitive electronics with static, they can learn about why complex things are made from components, the importance of standards, what a transformer is, what fuses are for, what is in a computer. One can even bring in the topic of mass production, and why such complex devices can be produced so cheaply.
Who knows, if you have some decent kit, they might even learn what a Faraday cage is. Okay scrub that one
Finally they can learn about recycling, environmentally sensitive disposable, landfill, leaching of heavy metals, etc.
Do watch out for sharp edges -- but hey that is a lesson in itself, and they'll learn it quickly enough.
An older post mentioned that students need to spend time with caring adults who set good models. Why not use the kids' curiosity to pull apart the machines, put them back together, and install linux? All can be done under the watchful eye of the adult and kids get to spend time with a good role model and they may learn a thing or two about computers. Putting together a script of commands/syntax (with a WOW! LOOK WHAT WE DID! at the end) can be a great lesson in following directions, reading, typing, etc... once the computers are up and running.
branezzzz!
that was some funny stff, man, good visual. Zombie Geezer Gurus who have to eat BRANEZZ!
"Probably" isn't good enough.
What happens after this guy snd his buddies fade out of the picture?
The first question I would ask is what are the chances the school board will support a duct-taped Linux solution for this one school?
I've been trying to make a linux music lab happen in my Baltimore K-8 school.
Give me a call over at school #66, I'd be happy to help out if I can.
Try these for more hardware:
The Pheonix Foundation
The Lazarus Foundation (www.lazarus.org)
Best Buy - has grants to improve existing tech program
For your P100's, 133's, 233's: Use Damn Small Linux. Not much else will work and keep
you sane at the same time. Add what you can from there. I like Openbox for a fast WM.
-Kyle-
Give the little f- angels what they want... blinding speed with Gentoo! Using the optimisations to get a boost from the extra 2.3 bits in the 386DX's register THAT YOU NEVER KNEW WERE THERE, you can totally get like, a .003 percent increase, but only if you compile Reader Rabbit from source, and you use USE -everything. Then, in the two weeks while you've got that quality edutainment compiling, crack open that liquor cabinet and pop us all out some scotch, because by the time that next school year comes along, you'll be getting speed you've never thought possible! OK, it might not SEEM like it's there, but "... To me, an extra 0.1% performance increase, even if I am only imagining it to be faster, is certainly worth one day a week recompiling all of the latest packages from source code...". Oh, but don't forget, "its -O3 the letter, not -03 the number".
1) Try to work with the district IT people, but if they aren't responsive then continue to go it alone - WITH the support of the principal which hopefully he's already gotten. Having BEEN the red tape wielding corporate goon, don't necessarily expect a lot of help and possible some resistance. But you never know. In particular he needs to be aware of significant liability if the computers are connected to the Internet. He *MUST* provide filtering, or blocking of "unwholesome" sites otherwise it risks the school's federal funding. Typically he should be able to get Internet access either through the district or other routes including the filtering for close to free.
2) There are quite a few charitable groups that should be able to supply solid computers of better vintage, and possibly some support. At the very least check with the National Cristina foundation (www.cristina.org) Machines in the 300Mhz-800Mhz range are pretty readily available. 5 year old servers can also be gotten via charity and these days are monsters like dual 1Ghz XEON's with 2-4GB of RAM and frequently several hundred MB of SCSI RAID - more than enough for the server for this.
3) I'll second the recommendation for the k12 linux terminal server project. Also check out edubuntu (www.edubuntu.org) as it comes pre-packaged with a LOT of good stuff, but he'll need machines like those mentioned above. edubuntu site has some good getting started and how to do this type of guides.
4) Check with www.eduforge.org - there are a lot of experienced people there in the discussion sections to help out.
5) Forget about "teaching about computers". At the K-5 level it is more about using the computers as learning tool for other more practical subjects. Any learning about computers should be distinctly secondary as a result of the computers being used. Kids will pick up basic keyboarding, mouse and other skills as the use the software that helps them with other projects. No need to "teach about Linux" or any other technology as such. You want kids to be able to read, write, figure, and think, not turn out 9 year old Linux sysadmins. The national (and state and I'm sure local) standards for kids need to know about technology are a joke. If the kids are useing the computers a couple hours a week from 2nd though 5th grade, they'll meet the standards, or at least as much of them as make sense.
6) Target two specific types of activities for different purposes:
a) Drill and kill. I hate to say it, but this works for things like basic phonics, letter and word recognition, and arithmetic skills. Doing it on a computer isn't any more effective than work sheets in the classroom, in fact some studies indicate it is less effective for time spent. BUT, doing it on the computers gets the kids excited so they actually do the drills. These kinds of drills are particularly important for the children likely to be in these schools since they are starting off "behind" and typically don't get the necessary reinforcement at home. Not the most popular way to use computers, but you have to deal with reality.
b) Constructivist activities. Using a word processor to write a "paper" (typically 2 sentences qualifies in 2nd grade) and illustrating it with a basic drawing program (e.g. tuxpaint) is well within the capabilities of the machines and students. They will pick up those computer skills as they use these programs for class related activities.
7) Programs like tuxtype not only teach touch typing - something they don't really need until middle school, but help a lot with letter and word recognition. Therefore they can be used even in lower elementary grades effectively, just don't worry about typing speed.
8) Finally if for some reason you absolutely positively have to teach "computers"; Again, forget about teach "linux". Instead starting in the 4th or 5th grade look at one of the great Logo implementations (e.g. education.mit.edu/open
I do some part-time work at an urban (not "inner city" though) school. There are a lot of donated PCs in the classrooms and computer lab (mainly Celerons w/256 MB of RAM, etc), and we have loaded Edubuntu on them. The kids (grades 4-8) are getting along with it fine; they only have basic needs to do some word processing, research online, and playing some educational games. Windows licenses (of any version) would have been too expensive for the school; fortunately, the administration was all for trying out Edubuntu and it's going pretty well so far.
I agree with the earlier poster though; if the school is really in that bad a situation, computers may not be the magic solution. But if they decide they want some and are willing to give Linux a try, check out Edubuntu for your distro.
The Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher (MAR) program is great- $5 Windows 2000 licenses. My organization is a member and we install Windows on all our recycled machines that get put in school and non-profits. Half the point is that the kids get to use computers/gain skills they can use in real life work situations, which will most likely be Windows. Not to mention teachers are familiar with Windows, and applications the school uses all run on it.
Last school year we started using Ubuntu Linux (Tied in with our AD structure) in a computer lab. The number of machines grew from 30 to 45 when we added the library and just yesterday we added another ten to the list out of a teacher's classroom (she volunteered). For those that can't count, that's 55 machines converted to Linux (voluntarily) since the end of April 2006 (Subtract 3 months for summer and we have a conversion to 55 machines in 2 1/2 months. Not too shabby for a bunch of people who didn't know what linux was nine months ago).
All of the machines in question ran Windows 98 or Windows 2000. Our slowest machine we are willing to run on is an 800Mhz Pentium III with 256 Megs of ram and a 40 gig drive. You can probably fudge the processor speed down to about 400 Mhz IF you have at least the 256 megs of ram.
We have found that this machine, while not the fastest on the planet, does very well with Ubuntu.
Naturally, you could use a stripped down version of Ubuntu or a less intensive flavor of linux (Say Slackware with xfce), but if you have never worked with linux, Ubuntu makes it very easy for "converts" to get used to the system.
Someone mentioned that if the machines can't hack a decent flavor of linux, then it could do a disservice to the entire process.
(By the way, we host our own internal mirror of the Ubuntu archives and do all of our installations via TFTP)
That's really not funny, or insightful.
Like those above have said, check out the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) or a derivative like k12ltsp or Skolelinux. You can then keep using those old machines till they drop and then phase them out as they die. Many distros, like Ubuntu for example, already have LTSP client support.
EdTechLive has some excellent interviews on LTSP with staff that have rolled it out at their schools or, in some cases, districts. The sound quality in some of them is not so good, but the material is worth straining your ears for.
The schools in Portland, Oregon have been thriving on LTSP for some years now.Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Yes, actually it is.
Edubuntu has LTSP built in. The only requirement would be the ability to boot over the net via PXE by the client PCs. The server should be a newer system with RAM sized to support the client load. Last week I installed Edubuntu on an old Dell 4100 P3 933 MHz with 512 RAM. I then set the BIOS of a few identical Dell systems to use PXE to boot over the net. They booted off of the first system with no problem. I was able to log into them and run apps with no significant latency versus the initial system. I'm delivering seven of these PCs to our church later this week to be used in their children's ministries.
1) For meeting exactly what student needs do we suspect a computer would be the tool of choice? 2)What do we want to happen when a student is sitting in front of that screen? 3) How will we determine whether what is happening in front of the screen is beneficial to students?
Once those questions are resolved, tools can be selected.
I've got quite a bit of experience with kids on computers in multiple environments (OSX, Linux, Windows) and it is actually /TOTALLY/ immaterial which OS is in use.
As soon as they have mastered using a mouse and become curious about what other apps reside on the machine they will pretty much dive in and work it out, and they do that as early as 6 years old as long as you control the distraction called the Internet (they're too young at that stage to fully comprehend the risks so you keep an eye on them there).
As a matter of fact, I'd avoid Windows in this context because even a local installation of Linux from scratch takes less time to prepare and maintain than Windows, and you don't have all the license and AV hassle to deal with (your $5 is only a cheap ticket to a very expensive fairground, and MS knows that all too well). For that final bill (AV, apps, cost of licence management and patch maintenance) I can get an extra PC per installed system using Linux.
The argument "use Windows like other lemmings" is invalid, especially if you really want to TEACH the kids - I prefer them to use all platforms, even including command lines if they get really curious. Let's not constrain their young and open minds, there will be plenty of politicians trying to do that later.
Insert
You don't want them to get lung damage from all the dust that can collect on the inside, and a good demo on 'dirty computing' is to turn any keyboard upside down and watch what falls out.
:-).
You won't have any trouble getting them to wash their hands after that
But yes, it's great for kids to see the guts of a machine, because especially when they're young they tend to be more interested in the physical, practical side of things.
I especially bought a Roland plotter off eBay for teaching as a pen moving in X/Y coordinates is more fun than a picture coming out of a jet printer - it's great for getting them to see what a 'program' actually does, working out coordinates of a little house and then writing the lines to make the pen(s) move.
Insert
If the goal is to teach them how to program, write HTML, write basic documents, and so forth then yes, Linux can be used. With a single machine of today's standards you can build a base binary install of a Gentoo w/o all the newer heavy libs. Vim, emacs, Python, perl, nxclient, fluxbox/blackbox/iceWM for window management, By running NXServer on the modern machine and NXclient on the older machines you can provide access to more modern (larger) programs such as Abiword and Gnumeric to introduce these types of tools.
A 386 was considered a "minimum system requirement" the "standard" machine of the time was a 486 or a Pentium-133. I ran Abiword and IceWM on a 133 w/o problems. I even ran two X sessions with only a slight hiccup with a 2MB video card. If you can get a relatively recent PCI graphics card for the machines they'll do video better than they used to.
Once you get into C coding you can use vim/emacs and use distcc for compiling across the systems including the master system. For introductory C these machines would do fine.
It isn't "today's Linux", it is "today's common distributions".
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Inner city kids don't give 2 shits about computers or linux.
They are all too busy training to win the gold medal in swimming... If Jamaicans can bobsled, anything can happen.... though that was a weed-induced mixup with them thinking it was some kind of tribute to Marley!
this presents a problem that I faced putting Linux onto a Server ( yess..... its a server that anybody can get to.) It was ... 12 years old last spring... and it Worked with KDE 3.2 and a few other things. here's the specs:
399 Mhz Solaris/tru64 processer
3 gig drive
ATI Radeon pro (8 Mb vid mem) @ XVGA
mouse / kb
ether ( 10/100 EtherLink XL )
it ran ooo in 48 secs.
{If the world was as simple as a computer, we would think in rational databases.}
Why don't SLASHDOT mod racist comments!!! As an active reader of SLASHDOT, I'm very offended by those comments. Shame on the anonymous guy who posted the comments and shame on SLASHDOT for not deleted this racist comment.
I jacked a motherfucking Emacs from a motherfucker, but I couldn't C-X C-c the fuck out fast enuff, so my white honkey ass got busted by the cops.
I'll forgo the personal attacks - that's just sad as you have nil idea who you're actually dealing with. But hey, it's Slashdot.
/criminal/ offence, not something you argue with.
/Windows/? IMHO there aren't /any/, repeat, /any/, apart from maybe getting rid of Clippy.
In the UK, edu were sold bargain basement priced copies of Windows too, until they were all dependent on it at which point the price went up rather savagely. And you haven't seen the devastation that a FAST visit can wreak on a little company that thought it had all systems licensed because of the copy of Windows that comes with the box, but then found that using a build requires a separate license (neat way to flog two licenses for one machine). Such a violation is AFAIK a
Don't tell me about "decent corporations" - I have personally witnessed how they sell to Government here and it stinks to high heaven. My problem is not with MS per se, but with the way they sell. I think they've done good stuff for usability, but they're now undoing that as 'featuritus' needs to drive sales, and their behaviour on the whole ODF affair was rather plain to see.
And, btw, I've seen it done in the military field too. The problem I have with that is that it is apparently convenient to ignore that failure in that case can mean that people die. I prefer to draw a line much before that.
Isn't MS the company with multiple court convictions?
However, going back to my original point - can you identify which specific skills absolutely require
As for Ubuntu, you may want to invest some time in finding out why Mark Shuttleworth is doing what he is doing. I think part of this debate is because you don't see beyond the box. See what was possible in the (poor) Extremadura region of Spain because of Linux (a club the Ubuntu team talks to), and tell me how that could have happened with Windows. I don't blame MS for that - they generate money in a different way but maybe, just maybe, that model is limping a bit.
Insert
I Belive that you could have got your point across with out all of that there was no need.
Life is good then we code some more then life is better. !#/usr/bash exec=sco
This is a very good Idea but I would ask my self some very import question before I thought about which way to go. The IDEA and Goals 1. What are you trying to do and what does the Teacher or Teachers Expect or would like to see as the outcome. in to other words what kind of lessons or teaching will they be trying to achive on the system. 2. How much space is in the Class Room or Lab where these computer are going to be going. 3. Will have have an active internet Connection or not? Do the Old Win95 machines have Nic cards in them? 4. What do they have in place already. A good standerd is always a good thing. not saying that the standerd is the right choice but at lease there all the same. 5. Will the be required to print of the system if so where and how do they print? 6. who will be using the PC students teachers staff ? Just one thought to mention as well. Not everyone knows how to use linux so what ever you put in place it must be easy for who ever to keep up in the event of something happing other wize it will be more of a headache than it's work or in the end they will have a bunch of old computer that they cant use. I like Linux and think it's a great OS but I also know users.
Life is good then we code some more then life is better. !#/usr/bash exec=sco
Good points made about teasing apart the problem. But as an ex-school librarian now working in academic side of learning, I'd humbly suggest kids aren't sponges, learning theory has moved beyond the model of children being empty vessels that can be filled up with wisdom. A little more complex than that alas. I sat in the same French language lessons as my friend Karim when we were 12 but he came top of the class and I came dismally bottom. We clearly didn't learn the same amount. As another poster has noted, learning methodology is very important; as you note, address the kids needs, make it relevant, accept that different kids have different abilities and different motivations. It's not like the kids are sitting round all day with nothing to do, they already have a full curriculum, you'll need to work out how to fit into that curriculum and maybe justify why you are asking the school to cut 30 minutes of Maths, or English, or Geography, to fit in your computer class.
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