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Linux Desktops Catching On In Education
digihome writes to point us to an appreciation of the state of Indiana's project of moving students from Windows desktops to Linux. In about a year, 22,000 students have made the switch, using a variety of Linux distributions. The crn.com writer tried switching his own two children to Linux laptops. From the article: "'So Dad,' [the 10-year-old son] asked. 'What is the difference between Linux and Windows?' I tried to explain but it was a waste of breath. 'What difference do you see?' I asked back. 'Nothing, really.'"
Well, since there's no difference, I might as well stick with Windows.
that can be changed very quickly...
Firefox Power http://firefoxpower.blogspot.com/
'What difference do you see?' I asked back. 'Nothing, really.' What a detailed, well thought-out response. Kid must have spent a whole 3 seconds coming up with that one.
Reminds me of the time I loaned a thinkpad running ubuntu to a roomate of mine, who I would say was a garden variety computer user. She had no idea what linux or ubuntu was. I showed her how to launch firefox and openoffice. She was working on term papers that same day, no need for me to do anything at all. That said, I still think even ubuntu has some ground to cover when it comes to interoperability with windows and I do think that ground will have to be covered in the desktop arena by linux rather then MS (who won't/can't do it). Still, it seem that for about 95% or so of the things the average home users does with a computer, the differences between linux and windows seem to be fading fast.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
...for training?
I work at a school district. I'm the most Linux-saavy of the four IT employees, and I'm still very much a novice. For us to make a transition to Linux, we'd need training and good support. It's been talked about, but sticking with MS has (at least on paper) come out being cheaper for the time being. And that's not even addressing the problem of teachers who are scared enough of Windows, IE, and MS Office; it's pulling teeth to get them to use StarOffice.
So how about it? What's a good way for us to make the leap into Linux without dropping a load of cash?
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I'm pretty sure they'll be exposed to enough technology (including Windows PC's) that this will only increase their understanding.
Quack, quack.
Bad idea reason number 2: Puberty, is already greasy enough.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I'm surprised the author didn't go with the ol' "Microsoft Windows kills kittens. You don't want your OS to kill kittens... do you Timmy?"
Hmmm. I'd rather teach a Linux user to use Windows, than a Windows user to use Linux. But that's just me... and I don't know Linux that well. I don't think that going from Linux to Windows would be that bad. If they can get Linux, why couldn't they use XP?
Dad: "The difference is, Son, that it didn't come pre-installed."
Son: "What does installed mean?"
Dad: "GO TO YOUR ROOM!"
Son: (mumbles) "I wanted a PS3 not stupid leaf-nuts...."
I don't see how exposing them to another operating system isn't going to help prepare them for the real world. The more OS's they are exposed to early on, the better. Windows is everywhere, so why not give them the opportunity to use something that may not be as mainstream (in homes) now, but could be in the future? I use a windows laptop at work, help with the Linux servers, and have a Mac at home. In my opinion, the more you know, the better off you will be.
They probably won't notice the difference until all their friends are talking about how awesome the latest crytek game is, and dear old dad has to say "sorry kids, that won't run on our computer. Here, we have eleventy billion Tetris clones, though...and do you know what a Grue is?
CAPTCHA: limited
No difference between Linux and Windows? Just wait until they use their shell scripts, customizations, and self-written software with Windows.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I am going to be taking on a new project/job. I am a Windows Network Admin in the States. I've been asked to maintain seven orginizations that will be using some form of an Open Source OS. I'm fine with this as I also use a Mac and run most of my servers using BSD.
They are going OSS because of the cost of licenses. This is a near 3rd world country and money doesn't come free. Even though I'm taking a 95% paycut, I plan on learning as much as I can and using what ever else is "free".
*IF* the applications work, people are fine with the OS they are running on. Most people generate emails and documents which can be done nicely on every system.
``Way to set them up for computer litterate jobs in the real world. :rolleyes:''
You mean like system administration, web development, software development, high performance computing, physics simulation, embedded systems development, etc. etc.?
I and others seem to have no problems getting and performing these jobs with our *nix experience.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
These kind of articles are just dumb. Of course, you're not going to see issues in the first half-hour, if people are just using a browser. The issue comes when the kids wants to load on some Windows software that all their friends are using, then suddenly the operating system matters dramatically. "I put in the CD that came with my iPod, but the computer isn't working." "I got this cool game for my birthday, but it's not working."
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
This is a great idea, but the school system is still required to buy the computers, regardless of if they have Linux or Windows. My wife teaches in Dearborn County, IN, which is in the southeastern corner of the state. To this day, they don't have a single one of these systems, nor do they have anything else instead. The teachers at her school don't have their own working computers, much less the students, as the state of Indiana doesn't push a technology agenda like the rest of the real world.
Over this entire school year, she's actually had email working on her desk MAYBE 2 days. Each Windows PC in the school is so full of CometCursors and SmileyCentrals that they don't run worth a darn. Their tech support uses the famous "in the private sector" excuse. If you work for the government, you know that this means "in the private sector, people aren't as overworked." (HA!)
Not that a Pentium II Windows 95 machine logging into the Netware network is going to be that great to begin with. That being said, their gymnasium at the high school is shiny and nice.
Let me get this straight: He claims Linux is equal to Windows by using web-based email, web-based chat clients, web-based music stations, and web-based text processing.
I fail to see how this article has anything to do with the pro's and cons of a Linux desktop, since you can do any of those same things on any platform with a web connection and browser with a flash plugin (for pandora).
Let's see what his 10 year old has to say about it when he wants to play the latest PC games, copy music to his iPod using iTMS, and/or run software his friends are running.
I'm sorry, I AM a K-12 admin for a fairly large school system (10,000 desktops) and we use Windows for several non-linux bashing reasons: Exchange, AD, compatibility with other districts, and price/support to staying the course as opposed to rebuilding everything.
My sysadmin desktop of choice? I use FreeBSD and Ubuntu with remote desktop. Just because I can handle it, doesn't mean everyone here can, especially when they use Windows at home. One thing about teachers, you don't rock their boat. Let their classroom be about them and their students and all is well.
If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
What the hell is IDC smoking?
http://saveie6.com/
Yes, Windows is pretty bad.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Yep, because after growing up with Commodores and Apples in school, I found it completely impossible to work on anything else. It's a good thing companies still use WFW 3.11, because how would I ever transfer that knowledge to later versions of Windows with their radical innovations? On a similar token, we should stop teaching foreign languages, since it is a waste of time to speak those less useful languages. It's not like broadening your educational horizon helps in picking up other things, right?
P.S. It's literate, not litterate.
It appears that most of the /. community doesn't really remember desktop computing before, say about Windows95?
/. such things would be important... guess not
All the derisive comments about Linux used to apply to Windows... for a very long time. One of the good things
about that problem is that it taught many of us to work with computers, rather than simply use applications.
Learning to use Excel or Word is not learning to use a computer. Figuring out how to run Doom on a pc is not
learning about computers.
Linux is a GOOD way to learn about computers... Things like network configurations and why you need them, what
is HAL anyway? What are all those programs in the 'running processes' list? Why do I need to block ports?
I would have thought that here on
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Here in my university in Brazil, they moved all the computers to linux (fedora) and guess what, it is destroying our capacity. We're a journalism and film school, now, how can our students be eligible to internships if they don't have Adobe Pagemaker, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro to learn? I really like the GIMP, OO and other F/OSS initiatives, I have linux at home in one of my machines but no way the students will be able to do state-of-the-art desktop publishing and film editing using linux, that was a bad idea from the start and it's reflecting now, the last film festival promoted by our city (actually by our university) had not a single movie made by us!!! Linux simply killed our capacity to produce here...
I'd exchange it anytime for Mac OS or Windows for doing DTP and film.
-- Por mais que eu ande no vale das trevas e da morte, meu PowerMac G4 Não Travará!!!
1. Make a good login. Kerberos auth to a LDAP ...and..
2. Keep windows- and linux-passes synced to LDAP.
3. Home folders must be auto-mounted. Same folder as in Windows.
4. Be sure to keep the home folders fast in linux. Try DFS or similar on Windows servers to share them (Windows 2003 R2 DFS works great).
5. Be sure to set somebody that actually know how to repackage RPM's to distribute them. You want to configure everything so it works the best way for your educational needs (plugins, settings etc).
6. Try using the same installation procedure for both Windows and Linux, so you can change OS fast on a classroom. PXE, boot a Win-PE or similar. Symantec Ghost can be used for installing both small windows images or linux images. After imaging, be sure that the OS can configure itself automatically without any user input (e.g. get computer name from DNS etc).
7. Do not select nerds that mostly don't like Windows to do this!
- Move as many of your applications as possible to the web
- Replace IE with Firefox
- Replace Windows with Linux
You can still keep a few Windows/Mac machines around for the odd application that won't work on the web. But 90% of your student computers could easily switch to Linux this way, with no more user training than you are currently have with Windows.Using Linux with a bloated window manager is as easy or easier than a Windows machine. The difference is that they will click on a "K" rather than "start" and they won't be able to mess with the core system or install their own software.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
That has been the same from day one.
Spectrum vs C64,
Atari ST vs Amiga
PC vs Mac
new PC vs old pc
Windows 3.1 vs W95
etc etc etc
You are right about the limited amount of Linux specific games at the moment, we need a resolution that does not involve simply running PC games.
Would kids care if they had to reboot their PC to play the best game in existance?
What benefit would you have booting from CD and running a cut down linux kernel for the game?
Secure access, you know the system is as sent out and you know the chances of cheaters is less.
All that just for treating the PC like a console.
liqbase
"'So Dad,' [the 10-year-old son] asked. 'What is the difference between Linux and Windows?'
Well son the big difference is that all your friends will be playing games and posting nude videos of themselves and you'll be loading kernels and learning the intricacies of Sokoban but hey, no viruses in Pine!
This
Looking at the software my family uses (mom, dad, grandparents, brother, inlaws) all of them could probably switch to linux except for my brother (games). Most of the software they need seem to be:
1) Browser (covered by linux)
2) Email (variety of options on linux)
3) Office (open office or something similar)
4) IM client (is there a good linux IM client that interacts with windows messenger?)
5) Greeting card software (anything good on the linux end?)
6) Family tree software (same question)
I work in the real world, and I use Linux all day.
I bought my wife a Toshiba, which came with WinXP (despite my protestations). I thought I'd just let her use XP (non-administrator) until it got too messed up, then reformat using Linux. To my surprise, she complained the first day. She hated all of the preinstalled software asking her to buy this and that. She didn't even know what McAfee was, let alone want to deal with the SUBSCRIBE NOW!! popups.
I told her I could fix it, and put Ubuntu Edgy (pre-release, even!) on there. She's perfectly happy with it now. I asked her if she likes it better or worse than the other (XP), and she replied that it was exactly the same, but without the annoying popups.
As an aside, my 6-year-old is a whiz with XUbuntu on his Dell 700MHz machine.
I think we Linux geeks have "failure to launch" syndrome. We worry about every little detail and think that everyone's going to hate our product, find it buggy/insufficient/unfamiliar, yadda yadda. The fact of the matter is that your average person probably won't notice much of a difference in most cases, and will usually just cope with the ones they do, just like they've always done with Windows.
Windows isn't better or bug free. It's just a different set of annoyances and insufficiencies that people have learned to ignore and work around. If people are going to learn to ignore bugs, maybe they can ignore ones that will be fixed quicker. If they're going to work around inadequacies, maybe they can work around ones that they have the potential to implement themselves, given the aptitude.
Education is a great stage to get kids acquainted with Linux. By the time these kids are teens and adults, Linux will have progressed immensely, and they probably WILL be using Linux on corporate desktops. You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally, Marty!
I am totally inept at Windows yet I have a highly technical computer oriented job. My success can be partially attributed to the use of AIX and Linux at my highschool. (this was over 10 years ago)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Not me. I've been using the same Apple
][+ for almost 30 years! Only thing is
that reading Slashdot in 40 columns is
REALLY rough. Maybe I should've sprung
for an OrangeMicro 80-column card, huh?
My blog
So what your saying is that there are probably 22K new linux desktop environments running god knows what distro and probably full of known expliots and missing infinite number of kernel patches? No windows update to bail it out. I also can't wait until they get hit with a redhat license audit.
Buy the kid a game console. even if they have a PC you'll probably end up getting them a game console or two anyways.
some of my favorite games run on Linux, but a person of your unrefined tastes would probably not enjoy them.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
'What difference do you see?' I asked back. 'Nothing, really.'
Microsoft has already released their new modded version of SUSE?
Maybe this is a sign that 2007 will be the year of the Linux desktop. Right?
What does "litterate" mean? To fill up with litter?
Usually, I'm not a grammar or spelling nazi, but, of all the words you could misspell, you had to choose exactly this one...
"Hey Dad, my games don't work on this."
Welcome to the world of Linux...
Way to set them up for computer litterate jobs in the real world. :rolleyes:
You have an excellent point. After all, no one uses Linux in their computer literate real world jobs. Certainly not me...
...oh, wait. My whole livelihood comes from working with Linux. Never mind, you're a dumbfuck.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Hmm.. thought 80 columns was available by default on the ][+ ... maybe it was a later revision...
Ahh... Wolfenstien and Wizardry, did it get any better?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
There's a bunch of children's software available for Linux and I think it's pretty easy to lock down which makes it, IMO, pretty good as a platform for children. For teenagers, however, you need two things and you need to do them well: Games and Media. I'm two years into using Linux and I still don't have a good, reliable flash plugin. That should work out of the box. The games situation is even worse. There are legions of Windows users out there that would switch over if it meant they didn't have to wait two years for a port of a game they can get immediately on XP/Vista.
Make your distro work out of the box like Windows users are expecting it should (insert Windows flamebait joke here) and you've got them. It's not about switching at that point, it's about Windows making a case for you to stay or come back.
The enemy of my enemy is quite possibly also my enemy. I've made a lot of enemies.
This troll totally got you guys.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
you obviously haven't used Linux or a while. Well, that or the only thing you've seen is WM, Black Box something equally as easy on the resources. At home, I'm running Sabayon Linux with Gnome, XFCE and KDE, all enhanced with AIGLX. Quite frankly, my desktop blows away anything with the Windows label, including Vista, in performance and appearance, both while doing stuff (minimizing, closing, moving windows and so on), and while sitting still.
If you're looking for a beauty contest, Linux wins hands down as long as you are using something newer than Redhat 3!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I don't think any Apple had 80 columns standard until the last Apple II (not counting the IIgs.) Apple III is included AFAIK. I'm pretty sure that the Apple ][+ that I borrowed when I was a kid had an 80 column card. Disclaimer: I am not an apple guru.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Untrue. It is quite common for users to have personal scripts and programs.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
First, please prove that there will be measurable detriment. You have until comments are closed on this story to make some shit up. Thank you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...or install their own software.
Untrue. It is quite common for users to have personal scripts and programs.
You are correct. Maybe I should have said "install the software (read: adware) that they downloaded last night that puts the pretty kittens all over their desktop and changes their screensaver" And I probably should have clarified that, in the rare even that these kids are writing their own apps at home, without root access, it won't matter what they run or install because they can't dick up the system, just their home directories.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The only differences my son notices between Windows and Linux are:
1. Those internet Shockwave games only run on Windows.
2. He can't play the Shockwave games because Windows keeps crashing.
Really??? I was introduced to computing on a CBM 8032 in high school. I then saved up money to purchase a Commodore 64 and used that exclusively for several years. Now I'm familiar with many scripting languages, programming languages, Linux, Unix, Windows, Excel, Word, Open Office, LaTeX. I have also built my own computers and networks, and configured a firewall using iptables. How is all this possible from such humble origins??? Can you say "zealot"?
AWESOME troll for Troll Tuesday!!! I especially like the misspelling of literate. Nice touch there! :) Let me add a little fule to the fyre as it were...
Top ten differences between Windows and Linux for high schoolers:
1. You can't buy software for Linux in stores!!! (Sure it's free online, but since you don't pay for it, you don't feel like you've done your virtuous duty of paying for software like you do with Windows. Oh wait... piracy? Yeah, but that's illegal!)
2. How am I gonna keep up with all the Windows virii (hehehe I LOVE that one) that turn my PC into a spambot!!? The last time I checked the Wine Software Compatibility DB, I noticed they STILL haven't ported a lot of the older virii over yet!
3. DVDs won't play on Linux!!! (Never mind that you can watch them with Xine, Mplayer and a host of other players based on the related libraries as well) But worse! If I DO get them to play, I won't have the Digital Rights Management feature!
4. You have to think too much to use Linux. At least in Windows I don't have to think about anything since it does everything for me automatically!!! (Including the installation of malware and infection with virii and the coming deletion of data if I use pirated software. OOOOPS!!!)
5. Linux looks ugly compared to Windows. It has too many visual options that make it look like a two bit whore on Sunset Boulevard. At least in Windows the UI is always grey.
6. The Linux OS is missing a vital part of the OS: MS Office!!! (Never mind that Windows doesn't CUM with Office, only Ballmer does!!!)
7. If I hear one more word about Ubuntu I'm gonna kill!!! Ubuntu is to Windows as your mom is to Jenna Jameson. She might be nice and all, but you wouldn't bed down with her over Jenna Jameson unless you're from West Virginia!!!!
8. Using Linux makes you smell bad, grow suspenders and have to wear a beard and get fat. At least Windows only makes you pudgy, gives you a chin butt and makes you act like the dad from "The Family Guy".
9. Linux can't make the internet any faster!!! At least with Windows, as soon as everyone in the world puts their Windows boxes behind a hardware firewall, worldwide bandwidth will increase 2000 fold.
10. Linux is based on a 30+ year old OS which means it's OLD!!! Windows is based on NT (New technology)!!! If it's new it's GOT to be better unless "new" is spelled GNU in which case it's old an farty smelling!!!!
This has been a reality check for the Slashdot community. We now return you to your regularly schedule idiot ranting...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
And this isn't even touching on the more technical things such as driver support, application support, cost of ownership, etc.
As the Technology Admin for a small charter school, I'm faced with a tiny budget. Our school has a 2:1 workstation to student ratio...how? Donated legacy boxes and http://www.k12ltsp.org/K12LTSP>! All the productivity, none of the bells and whistles (once properly implemented) none of the hassles. Try it, You'll like it!
OMG Do all the people that replied to this guy think he was serious? He did it to get you all going and you all took the bait big time. I think this is great and it should be standard for all schools. It never hurt anyone to learn more than they needed. The worst thing that comes out of this is a good size influx to /., these kids may go geek how horrible!(sarcasm in case anyone missed it)
WTF?
> The issue comes when the kids wants to load on some Windows software that all their friends are using, then
> suddenly the operating system matters dramatically. "I put in the CD that came with my iPod, but the computer
> isn't working." "I got this cool game for my birthday, but it's not working."
Yea numbnuts, you have to make sure the software is compatible with your computer. Guess what, you can't stick a Gamecube disc into a PS3 either, so what? You can't play Doom3 on that old 1999 vintage Win98 box either. We all know that if you want everything to 'just work' you can buy a top of the line Dell every 12-18 months and every new console that ships. And if you are rich and stupid I guess that is a viable option.
Meanwhile the rest of us learn to read the box or in the case of us Penguin nuts we check online for supported options before buying anything. And yes you can even make the stupid iPod work if we get one as a gift or something, but if you have a clue you don't buy one in the first place, instead buying something that works better and costs less. Something that lets you just drag and drop files on it as a drive and they play without any special secret DRM magic.
Democrat delenda est
if somebody in the know has spent enough time to customize their own install image for linux, using openoffice, evolution, firefox, GNOME, etc... you can make it very windows-like. however, potentially, aside from the time spent configuring that install image, (which if you do things proper you would have spent working up a ghost image with windows anyway) the difference is about $300. that custom ubuntu image you worked up (or whatever distro you based it on) cost nothing but time. that windows license however, costs money. if you are in a position where you want to provide only basic desktop computing, but cash is tight (in many areas, education is a perfect example of this), for the user, making the jump to linux should be pretty easy.
more often, the factor making this difficult is the shortage of IT people with the linux skills to make this happen. windows admins are everywhere, microsoft certifies them by the dozens. finding real experienced unix/linux talent is another matter. since, in general, _demand_ for serious unix/linux talent is more scarce, so is that talent. in my company I am the only person with any significant unix or linux experience, yet, all our webservers and our email server run various flavors of linux. I'm not trying to say my co-workers cant do anything with the systems, but they only know how to use the webmin interface/shell scripts/etc I have set up for them to make it easier. If they actually had to sit down at a command prompt and figure something out, they would be pretty lost.
as far as i know, my situation is not uncommon.
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
"Xandros Professional 4 lists for $99, versus anticipated Windows Vista pricing of $199"
\n.\n
If they're an IT employee then I want them to have experience with multiple platforms or I'm not interested in them. I want to know that they have the kind of mind that drives them crazy until they figure things out. I want people who can't help but think about it when they're at home in the shower.
If they're any other kind of employee, I know that all [credible] operating systems basically do the same things and all of them behave more or less the same way, and they have basically the same things in them, just different places. So I'm trying to hire someone with a brain, as opposed to someone with experience in specific applications. A person who depends on that is not only useless if I switch applications, but may actually require major retraining if I just change versions of the application. I don't want someone who learned by rote, I want someone who figures things out.
Finally, most people clearly do not give a fuck if people have the computer skills the job description calls for. Oh sure, if it's an IT job, you can't get the job unless you have every single bullet point. I don't have any Veritas experience and that has really kicked my ass. But if it's anything else, they don't take the computer requirements seriously anyway. Practically every office job in existence today, including every teaching job for example (the classroom is an office of sorts as well) requires familiarity with Microsoft Office, yet when I have had IT jobs at various places, I have spent an inordinate amount of time explaining to people how to perform basic tasks in Office.
So, no, I do not think there is any significant detriment. And yes, I have thought about it. And no, I am not a Linux fanatic. Although I have used Linux on my primary system at various times (and in fact the only working computer I currently own and used on a regular basis is a laptop running ubuntu) at work I have two Windows XP systems and a Dual G5 on my desk. I could put Linux on a system, and use it; I could use vmware to run any recalcitrant windows programs. I don't because the software I need to use most often is Windows-only and it would make no fucking sense. I do support linux, because I think it has the best chance to give me what I want, at least out of the current list of mainline operating systems.
Application support is a real issue, although frankly 99% of the time there is a working FoSS alternative to whatever one is doing on Windows. There are some real exceptions, such as high-end content creation, but they are gradually going away as software with that functionality is introduced for Linux. Even video editing is finally coming into view.
Driver support, however, is a non-issue. When you purchase hardware for windows, you buy hardware that is windows certified. If you want to purchase hardware for Linux, you should do the same thing. Barring that, you must do your homework. All major computer vendors are happy to provide you systems with hardware known to work with linux, and typically it does not come at a cost premium. You simply must know what you're buying. Any substantially older hardware, as is common in schools and the like, is almost certainly supported already, with the possible exception of some wifi hardware.
TCO is a combination of all of these issues, but Linux requires less maintenance/attention than Windows does. I don't think that's even really an arguable point. Assuming that you have planned intelligently, Linux will pretty much ensure you a lower TCO. Planning is where most things fall down, frankly. Measure twice, cut once...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I can't use Windows anymore - there just too much missing in Windows. For example:
- virtual desktops - just LOVE them
- gnome-vfs - seemlessly edit files/watch vids/listen to music over ssh/ftp/smb/whatever
- powerful terminal for automated tasks - not much to explain
- software with clean interface - don't you just hate those vendor-specific apps on windows of which everyone looks as if it was from a different story?
- no bloatware out-of-box - when you buy laptop you usually get system preloaded with trials, demos, etc. and with 'rescue disk' which also rescues all the demo software. so either buy another copy of windows to get a clean desktop at the beginning or just spend a lotta time cleaning up the crap
- on linux, all my config files are stored in my home directory, and pretty much forces me to store all my data in one place - I know this can be set on windows, too, but it's extra effort
It took me a long time to switch from Windows to Linux and feel comfortable.
But it would take me _MUCH_ longer to switch back.
I disagree . Why would an employer find it less attractive when someone also knows Linux , aside from Windows . The more you know the better . to use only 1 OS , that would be fanatic . and could you clarify the part about 'they seem to be detached from the reality of the end-user' ? Linux works fine for most end-users .
Slipping shoelaces ?
Maybe we should begin touting Neko and xscreensaver as the great advantages of Linux... damn, we have learned nothing from the marketing people...
Ignore this signature. By order.
Parent understands Indiana High School Priorties - the gym/ basketball arena. I went to high school in Indiana and I can tell you that if for some reason basketball required Linux machines, they'd be installed and running tomorrow morning.
As always... wait until the kid discovers he can't play the same games as his friends (or he might can, but with a bit of work) on the PC. Of course, he could always get a console to cover console gaming.
My confidence in smooth Linux migrations for ordinary users took a pretty good hit over thanksgiving, when (for kicks mostly) I booted my mother's machine with Austrumi. My mother uses the computer *only for checking her hotmail and clicking the links she's sent by friends. I don't think she could do a google search without help. I set the firefox startup page to her hotmail account, and for good measure invited her to gmail. Well a day later I basically had a mutiny on my hands. My mother was very put off about having to find the "Compose" link in gmail. Incidentally, she's also kinda put off by the 2-3 dozen spam messages in her hotmail box every day. My brother insisted that i "put it back". Near as I can tell, he was looking at his fantasy football web pages and got a dialog about mismatched certificates, and concluded that I had broken the machine. What I'm saying is that there's a class of user for whom change == malfunction. Some of these people are CEOs, btw.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Do you think this linux revival in American schools has all to do with the funding (and lack thereof)? Because linux gives two advantages: Using old hardware longer and use cheaper (note: I'm not saying free) software. I don't see any other advantages.
----
How do you switch to linux? Simple: Start simple. Use it for word processing and surfing. Work from there to some more unfamiliar ground.
Oh please wise one, define those games that you play so the world can acknowledge your vast superiority in game choice.
And while you are at it? What defines refined taste in games? I think taste for games, music, beauty, is mostly subjective.
I think kids should be taught as many operating systems as possible. Sure I use Linux, Mac, and sometimes frit around with the BSD(free).
Some windows only games are good.
And sometimes, just sometimes, a net connection and windows will inspire someone to code, learn linux, and I would bet 80% of the newer users here started with windows.
Baby steps.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
....(When will "reading man files" not sound gay?)...
When you learn to say RTFM and mean it.
Well, part of the issue I have with this opinion is the dreaded concept of "computer literacy."
Years and years ago, I bumped into my old elementary school principal. He asked me to come back and talk to some of the teachers about using computers in their classrooms. Every teacher I spoke to said the same thing, "We have to teach kids not to be afraid of computers."
Now, I grew up using a computer--a multimillion dollar mainframe. I was never "afraid" of using it. As I mentioned to the principal, "These are kids who hang upside-down from steel jungle gyms. They aren't afraid of anything--least of all a hunk of plastic." It is adults who wasted time with the whole concept of "computer literacy" because they had to go back and relearn this stuff, so the kids obviously had to as well.
Where computers work in the classroom is the same way that they work in business: they enhance productivity. Whether that means they can assist in communicating concepts that the teacher is trying to communicate or they can remove some of drudgework of school (eg, writing a paper, drawing graphs) is unimportant. The computers are tools for the student, like pencils, pens, notebook paper, graph paper, etc. They are not a raison d'etre in of themselves.
If an entire generation of kids grows up using Linux, what do you think they will use later, on their jobs, when they have the power to decide what OS to use?
And even if it's not an entire generation but just the students of a couple of schools somewhere, maybe some small town... when those kids grow up, it's the same story, only locally. Those kids will still use Linux when they grow up. Suddenly the town businesses use Linux.
Oh and the kids that will benefit soon from the OLPC project, they will use Linux too. When they grow up their Linux skills will set them apart from the kids who only know how to use Windows.
I'm not saying they'll all be software developers or sysadmins. But stories like the ones we see now, about some town's government wanting to switch to Linux, will become more common, because instead of meeting resistance to change, some people will actually be eager to use Linux because they're more familiar with it than with windows.
Go hug some trees.
At my university one of the popular computer labs consists of about 30-40% Linux machines...but you see, no one uses them, except for CompSci people. The room can be packed, people will turn away and go to another computer lab just to use a Windows machine. This is actually frustrating, because my tuition went to that Linux machine that is just collecting dust. They could at least have a dual booting machine to avoid this scenario, I hope the Indiana high schools have dual booting systems instead of strictly Linux.
The benefit of only being allowed to run it on ATI or nVidia, but not both, because you'll probably never ever get the rights to distribute both types of binary driver on the same CD?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
While I am a Linux supporter and wish it the best of luck and patience in moving forward, is there really an absolute need to switch to that OS in an area such as education?
Let us compare what advantages Linux would have over Windows (in the area of education, mostly students and faculty and excluding IT since they are minor). So, Linux would definitely be more secure, as there are no viruses, spyware, or any malicious programs or scripts that could break the operating system. But with a correctly configured computer (antivirus and spy/malware protection on Windows), how much does this advantage really weigh? You can make something completely foolproof, but a better fool will find a way to break it. If a student really doesn't care about the status of his or her computer or laptop, then what makes one think that Linux will solve this?
Which brings me to my next point. While I believe that Linux is an operating system chock full of potential and capability, I sincerely do not think that it is ready for real desktop deployment. I hope nobody considers this flamebait of any sort, but I cannot fathom how it would be easier or manageable for a student to have to deal with the inconsistencies that run rampant in Linux. Heck, most typical students (or adults) freak when their wireless isn't working; I am sure that they will have a field day trying to set up NetworkManager for GNOME (and don't even get me started with wireless under KDE).
As a debater, I assume the most practical and extreme situations, so let us consider the possibility that these students are willing to put up with that. A typical Windows user can get the wireless working, but they might need that extra call to the Help Desk to learn how to properly configure the security settings. Putting Linux in an environment where IT is constantly plagued with calls and issues on Windows alone would possibly result in absolute chaos. I can see lots of the staff at IT constantly having to deal with ATI driver issues (because we all know that the instructions are consistent for every computer...).
At my college (which happens to be a technology institute, so roll out the stereotypes), the Help Desk gets flooded (literally) with help requests just for simple issues related to Windows and even Mac. And my school is a small school (10,000 students...
But that is just my opinion. I am not a systems manager.
I have some personal insight with the kids using Linux. We have four daughters ranging from 3 to 10. All of them want to be on the computer, and particularly the Internet. Well it certainly cuts into Dad's time grinding to a new level on WoW when they want to play dress up their Stardolls or feed their Neopets. (Okay, kidding there, sort of.) To solve the never ending fight for computer time I took some old, non-XP friendly computers and installed Kubuntu. All of our computers, Kubuntu or XP, have Firefox for browsing and OpenOffice for documents. Guess what? The kids could care less which computer they use and barely even noticed a difference until I pointed it out. Our eldest looked at me when I explained she was using Linux, got a puzzled look and said "So?" Enough said. My wife has had more trouble adapting and for the most part avoids the Linux boxes only because "its different" even though she admits she can still do all the things she normally does. Exposing the kids to a variety of systems only gets them more attuned to the underlying similarities so that they are less inclined to be intimidated by something new as much of the older generations are.
It's only literate if you're literate. If your litterate its litterate.
Try asking a kid a really important question or one that requires a lot of thought or evaluation, and you're just going to get the shortest, most non-commital answer. Is it because the kid is lazy? Not necessarily.
You come home to find your living room carpet on fire, and your 5 year old with a box of matches in his hand. After a lot of frantic screaming, yelling, and putting the fire out, you ask your child what he was thinking.
He will just sit there, look at you, shrug, and say "I don't know".
Does he know what he was thinking? Probably, but he would rather you just stop yelling at him. It's entirely possible that the same thing was happening here. The author said that he couldn't effectively explain to the kid what the difference was, so he probably got frustrated, and just blurted "What difference do you see?"
Same here. I've been using my Timex
Sinclair for just as long. Same problems
with column widths, but I'm okay with
it. One downside that does bother me
though is that running Linux on it
requires that you swap to tape *a lot*
and you have to constantly press "play"
and change tapes. XFCE takes *forever* to
start up. I've been considering
upgrading my memory but at one dollar
a kilobyte, I just can't afford it.
Do you know of any good suppliers?
Yes, and if you train them using Microsoft Office and Microsoft comes out with a version of Microsoft Office with a completely different user interface they will likely need to be retrained if you want to use the new version of MS Office. Whatever software you use to train the high school kids of today they'll probably have to learn something else when they get a real job. That's just the nature of the beast. In the meantime Linux thin clients running Firefox and OpenOffice.org are a heck of a lot less expensive, and far easier to maintain than Microsoft's offerings.
In fact, Linux thin clients are so much less expensive to obtain and maintain than Windows Desktops running MS Office that it is entirely possible that by the time little Johnny finishes school that's what software his employer will be using.
Schools are never likely to become good at guessing what kind of software people are going to be requiring three to four years in the future. So they should pick software the same way most businesses do. Most small businesses (and small businesses provide the bulk of jobs in the U.S.) choose the software that is "good enough" at the lowest possible price.
I replaced about 5 Windows machines with 8 Linux computers at an after school program (http://asianyouthservices.org/) and it is working quite well. I have half of them setup to dual boot in case they need it. The one computer that was booted into WIndows worked fine for about 6 months, but then it got really bogged down. The kids just tend to mess with all sorts of things on the machines and tend to mess things up after a while. I have found that Windows is harder to completely lock down than Linux. I have it setup for them and it resets all the settings back to the normal settings each night. It saves their documents and that is all. They can mess with anything during the day and the next day it will work. I've had several of these machines running for two years and have not needed to touch them since day one. Granted, they are pretty much only surfing the web and writing documents, but the Windows machines couldn't deal with that for more than 6 months.
I am not saying that it is impossible to set up the Windows machines to run the same way and have it reset all the settings each night. But, given that this is a non-profit organization, none of the software to enable this is cheap enough to justify. Everything I did was completely free. It did take a fair amount of my time to set up, but seeing as how I am a volunteer there, I feel good about it. I would much rather donate a few days of work time to get a solution that works than pay for the software that would have it work the same way. This may not be true of everyone, but in my case it was.
So, I agree, Linux can be set up to work just fine in a average person's environment if the person is not hard set in their ways and is willing to try something new. Will Linux work just like Windows? No, but then why should it - it's different, better in some ways and not as good in others, but perfectly able to be used for productive work.
"no way the students will be able to do state-of-the-art desktop publishing and film editing using linux" http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8589 much of the editing for the movies "Lord of the Rings" and "Spiderman" as well as tons of other movies used linux.
There is no better way to figure it out than just try it. Set up a few computers with Linux on it and see how easy/hard it is. I'd start with Ubuntu and add the Edubuntu software on to it - it's some educational games. Once you have them set up, try to get a few kids to try them out and see what they think.
The total cost of trying this on a few computers would probably be your time. Try it on a few older computers that aren't being used much. You could try it in any number of places, the computer lab, the server room, the classrooms (might be the last place to try), etc.
Once you have a few of them working exactly the way you want, you could expand and ghost those images to a few more computers until you have a sizeable chunk of computers running Linux. Then, the next time the budget is reviewed, you can say that the incremental cost to upgrade to Linux as opposed to Vista will be far less and you'll have access to a lot more software - Edubuntu games, OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. - which would cost a lot of money to buy outright.
Is there any way that you would retract that comment?
13. Any legal action is absolutly excluded. (Pi World Ranking List rules)
It appears that most of the /. community doesn't really remember desktop computing before, say about Windows95?
Things like network configurations and why you need them, what
is HAL anyway? What are all those programs in the 'running processes' list? Why do I need to block ports?
Why is it important that everybody learn these things? What's the point?
Well, I think the problem here is that you're not picking a target. Let me.
Are you worried about a *nix-raised child being unable to handle a Windows desktop because the office uses only Word/Excel/Powerpoint?
Maybe you mean that someone raised to administer a *nix machine/system wouldn't be capable of understanding how to use a sophisticated OS like Windows?
Maybe you are concerned that someone who is raised in a *nix environment will be incapable of writing software for the Windows platform?
I can't speak about the third---I don't write code---but sweet enola gay son those first two suggestions are obvious moose-kaka. I mean, are you really suggesting that someone who understands how to use Open Office couldn't figure out MS Word? (Or OMG they use firefox on BOTH platforms.) Or that someone who knows how to use the zsh shell will be incapable of getting up to speed with an ugly-ass GUI?
Do you not see how ridiculous that sounds? If the computer-illiterates around me can figure out Windows and get their work done (and they do!), then I'm pretty sure that someone who understands how to use *nix should be able to get up to speed.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
This statement strikes me as funny for two reasons: One it assumes that the student is going to be using the same OS for the duration of his career from say middle school to graduating from college, which is ridiculous. I had my first computer experience on a Commodore 64, then moved to Windows shortly thereafter, but it was an assortment of different flavors from Win95 to XP and several different flavors of Linux in between. IMHO, the main differences between OSes lies in how they operate underneath the UI interface, which most kids will not get into in middle school, and the applications which can be installed. Most of the apps used in school systems can easily be replaced with the equivalent apps that are found in most Linux distros and have similiar sequences of actions to activate an event. I don't think that switching from OpenOffice.Org to M$ Word will be all that traumatizing to a kid.
Secondly, it's assuming that the kids will only be interacting with computers at school, which for the general population is not the case. And for the general population. the OS of choice at home tends to be a flavor of the Windows OS.
In short, it seems like it would be a great idea to introduce Linux in the school system. If nothing else, it will show kids to not be afraid of switching to a different OS b/c they don't know where the button to do such-and-such is at (seriously, that is the only reason why I my roommate doesn't like Linux and makes me boot into Windows when he wants to surf the internet)I work at a school district. I'm the most Linux-saavy of the four IT employees, and I'm still very much a novice. For us to make a transition to Linux, we'd need training and good support. ... So how about it? What's a good way for us to make the leap into Linux without dropping a load of cash?
Just Google for the local LUG. Chances are they will know about a class like the one linked to in my URL. The cost of that class is .... zero.
You will have plenty of time to learn once you make the switch because Linux boxes just work. Instead of fooling around with defrag, anti-virus, reinstalls and all that, you can look into software that helps you teach, like KDE's education software.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Also for the kids who don't have computers at home using linux may offer them a certain aspect of computers they like, which if they were left to windows could have never flourished. Some people really get into computers when they get linux on a system. I know that happened for me. I got an extra computer and I did not have a copy of windows for it so I was searching around and found out what I could do with it and kinda stumbled across linux and found out I liked computers a lot more. I really do believe I would not be as into computers as I am now if I found Damn Small Linux.
hello
Pop in the cd, read the readme.txt, go online, read config files. It's a curve I admit but it's not too steep.
Have you considered downloading a live CD and trying it out? That way you can have a machine to experiment on without having to purchase any hardware (or deal with the headaches of setting up a dual boot machine). Your coworkers can play around with it as well, and you can reboot into Windows whenever you need the machine for something else. People can also take copies of the disk home to use there if they have little spare time.
On another note, it is my experience that local LUGs (Linux User Group) are more helpful to new users and more patient than large discussion boards like /. Try googling on LUG plus the name of your city.
It is worth noting that Linux runs well on hardware that would shock a Windows user. A machine purchased for Windows 95 can run a modern Linux distro. Unfortunately, it does take more than a beginner's knowledge to know what not to run (Java, mozilla, metacity) and what to run (twm, dillo). You may be able to find an unused computer (or get someone to donate one) which is out of date and useless for Windows, and get someone from the local LUG to set it up with a usable installation of a Linux distro for you.
Good luck.
Aha- your use of lowercase letters exposes your fraud. Mixed case wasn't available (without add-ons like the 80-column cards) until the IIe. Imposter!
Yeah... none of my Windows boxes work, and neither does my Mac. Whatever "work" means, because I sure as hell don't "reinstall" anything. And I love the "defrag" thing - considering I do it once every six or seven months at best. Antivirus? How about I just not run as administrator? Wow, I already do that. Scratch.
If you're going to give "advice" what's the point of getting the "I'm so better than everything else" punch line in at all?
If there's no difference between Linux and Windows, that is a great reason to switch --- to OS X.
Linux is perfectly fine for doing things such as spreadsheets/documents, web browsing, and email. It will do the job for the casual user or business that only needs those things. (Changing from Office to OpenOffice, IE to Firefox, Outlook to Thunderbird - shouldn't be much of a big deal.) Not to mention the money and time saved on licencing software or worrying about malware. I doubt such users would notice much of a difference other than the "Theme" or appearance of the desktop.
The problem is when you need to go beyond the basics. Theres only so much in the way of creative suite software available for Linux. Where are the Adobe Suite apps for Linux? (Sure there's GIMP in place of PhotoShop, but not much beyond that.) Then for some home users, the selection for entertainment software and device drivers puts a serious speed bump in Linux adoption. It's not likely that there is a Linux version of your favorite game. The problem also rears up when you find there's no Linux driver for your new printer, digital camera, or graphics card, etc.
If the 'nux community should push for anything, they need to get on the case of entertainment/creative software companies and hardware device manufacturers. If the blatant issues involving those things were taken care of, I believe Linux would become more mainstream in use.
I don't think that's really the case. It would be quite possible to round up a moron, train them to do something in OS X and then watch them fumble confused at Windows - this applies to any desktops, even moving from KDE to Gnome.
At the superficial, desktop level all operating systems are equally difficult, and all have idiosyncracies that require some learning ability to handle.
I'm rather glad my doctor can do it, but I certainly couldn't. Learning how to is not a rational use of my time. Teaching a fourth-grade English teacher what HAL is and why blocking port 25 on a residential internet connection then disabling open relays is key to stopping spam is like teaching me how to do a tracheotomy. Keep it to what she needs to actually do her job -- work the gradebook, discuss the latest trends in pedagogy online with her teacher buddies*, write emails home about little Johnny's progress, and write up assignments in Word.
* OK, so perhaps education would be better off without this. Oh well.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Give Windows another 5 years or so and it will be ready for the desktop.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Actually, even though you've been modded down, you bring up an excellent point and an interesting case study. In high school, the only computer available to me was an Apple IIe. I was absolutely fascinated with it. It had very little software for it but my curiosity eventually led me into BASIC programming. While a program was loaded, you could break out of it and actually see the code that ran it. I enrolled in a visual arts class so I could get more time working with it. Today, I program in Java, C, Perl, Shell and (years ago) Assembly. I also work with embedded Linux development on the ARM architecture. I am quite fluent in Linux and Solaris administration on the workstation and enterprise platforms as well. I have had two consulting companies and a Celluar phone company offer me positions this year (They came looking for me through mutual friends, I was not looking). My point is, this all started with a little bit of curiosity about how things work and a little bit of initiative to figure it out. If the Apple IIe would have come with everything already made for it, locked down with DRM and god knows what else, I would have already been beaten by the machine before even getting started. Having a somewhat open system allowed me the freedom to form theories and then prove them out. Linux still gives me that opportunity today. The opportunities of an open system are priceless.
*Ron - We smell poniez: http://www.techp.org/
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I didn't read the article but my response to the question, "What is the difference between Linux and Windows?"
is "Kids who learn to use the Linux system will be able to use both.
Kids who learn to use the Windows system will be able to use neither."
...as all three sell (or resell, in the case of IBM) commercial distributions including support. I know RedHat has an extensive training and certification program as well; haven't bothered to look into the other two I mentioned but I would be shocked if they didn't have some similar resources. These vendors also usually cut schools deep, deep discounts (I can't quote specific numbers but think campus-wide unlimited licenses for less than you might have currently spent for a 2003 server license and associated swarm of CALs). Just for grins, here's the link to RedHat's "landing page" targeted at the education market: http://www.redhat.com/solutions/education/
and here's the page for training and certification: https://www.redhat.com/training/.
Good luck as you explore linux. You may well find your first six months a "down the rabbit hole"/"not in Kansas anymore" experience, but I guarantee you that if you stick with it in a year or two you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. It's one hell of a great tool to have in your solutions toolbox.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Flash 9.
It works the same way it works in Windows- run the installer and it installs.
Care about privacy? Read this!
Actually, Orange Micro made a lowercase card for the II+, but guess what? It added support for 80 columns as well! Good catch! ;)
My blog
a journalism and film school wouldn't just try to train journalists and special effect people for large media companies as the other replies make note of, but mostly the students will be the behind the scenes people and work for small buisness people. Even a firm as large as Anheuser-Busch hires marketing and advertizing out to smaller companies which most definatly do use Windows and MacOS and some of the tools mentioned. There are very few companies that can justify a SGI rendering farm, but there are many thousands that can afford a Mac and Final Cut. In the end though, it's a school's job to train the students on what buisness is actualy using, ALL of it, including the Linux stuff. I'd never recomend a school teach only Linux and F/OSS apps, nor only MS apps or even only Apple. I would recomend teaching primarily the concepts, with some introduction to many apps (the mostly all work about the same anyway) and at some point even let the kids choose what they like.
and one last thing to note in general, whatever office apps we teach high schoolers now is not the app they will be using after they graduate from a university anyway. Think about it, 4 years ago many people were using MS Office 97 and Office 2000 was teh latest and greatest, and now Office 2007 is about to be released and it's VERY different! Teach many tools, and todays kids won't have a problem picking up the new versions or even completely new software later.
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
I think both the IIe and IIc had the 80-column card built into the motherboard. At least the later models.
Two words:
- Beryl
- Compiz
Both put Windows Vista's new eye candy to shame, AND performs better on older Chipsets. Suck on that, Microsoft!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
With great games like /bin/sh who needs anything else? ;)
Seriously though, Xplane is out for Linux, as are many of id software's offerings. Many Windows games will run on Linux via cedega, often with better performance than when running natively on Windows. What's the problem?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
That's like saying that taking algebra and trig in high school does not prepare one for day-to-day basic arithmatic in the real world.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Sounds like FUSE, except that FUSE does not need Gnome (or even X to run). I really love sshfs, which uses FUSE. And there are a hundred other FUSE-enabled filesystems out there that I didn't even try yet.
In my day-to-day working environment, we use Linux on diskless workstations. We can deliver either a Windows desktop or a Linux desktop to the user, simply changing one line in a file. (The Windows desktop is provided by using rdesktop to login into Windows Terminal Server. The Windows machine itself is a virtual server running on the free VMWARE server. The VMWARE server runs on top of Slackware Linux.)
I can see a scenario where a teacher can set up an entire classroom of diskless workstations simply by using a webform to select which environment she or he wants for the particular class. Since all configuration is done at the server, there is no need to go around to each individual workstation to install software/do upgrades etc. All software maintenance/configuration is done at the server.
The only maintenance is of the server and the network infrastructure, not the individual workstations. And a lot of the work is already done for you by the LTSP, which has a special interest in education. It's really amazing that teachers are not aware of the wonderful work which has been done in this area.
I remember being part of a group that got the LTSP project up and working without even reading the documentation one afternoon.
The thing is that Linux offers the ability to do so much more for much less cost. And yes, there is a cost in training but that is true of ALL software. And the training cost is offset by the reduced maintenance cost.
In addition, using a diskless workstation environment places control over the desktop in the hands of the system administrator, not in the hands of some virus writer.
If diskless workstations won't cut it, you can try LiveCDs which can be customised to suit the exact needs of the educator. Try SLAX which is easily modified. The great benefit of LiveCDs is that the educator can give them out to the students. Think of having the entire course on a LiveCD which the student can take home and use for homework.
I think people don't realise the incredible potential of Linux in education. Their previous experience with Windows, has them so shell-shocked that the mere idea of change is overwhelming. It's true that Linux has not yet been fine-tuned to meet all expectations. But with good will and elbow grease, that will change.
Here's the reasons your premise is completely wrong. 1. Most people older than 30 years old grew up on apple computers in the classroom. They don't seem to be adversely affected at all. 2. The overwhelming majority of businesses run on Windows not because it is better, but because they have been convinced that anything else is too difficult. I once suggested a technical manager that they try Linux on their desktop and they replied that they would like to but they didn't want to have to go back to an interface like DOS and have to memorize F-keys for word processing. 3. How much computer do kids learn in high school? On average they'll learn to use a spreadsheet, word processor, and maybe some presentation software. They may learn some programming, and there's nothing that allows you the ability to easily learn some of the principles of scripting and basic programming than shell scripting. It's far more useful than basic and they are learning a skill that they can use on Linux, Unix, BSD, etc. 4. This idea that everyone uses Windows so we should only teach Windows software is ridiculously short-sighted. I applaud Indiana schools for being visionary and exposing their students to something other than the dominant desktop OS if for no other reason than to learn that there is an alternative.
Isn't there enough script kiddies already?
The problem is most people are too lazy to bother spending much, much more time trying to get something to work on Linux when you can wack a CD in a drive and have a game going in 5-10 minutes, with no messing about with configurations or other silliness.
I'm sure you have already heard this, but are you aware that "puto" means something like "faggot" in spanish?
If there's no difference between Linux and Windows, that is a great reason to switch --- to OS X.
What about switching from Windows to both Linux and OSX? For almost ten years I've used mostly Windows but I recently got a new PC with Linux preinstalled and I hope ot order a MacBook Pro within a couple of weeks.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Ok, so I have only programmed in windows since 3.1. But I can tell you that this "SSL problem" is small potatoes. If I had to count the amount of time we spend upgrading systems because of MS changes in the development environment, OS and database... Well, the time would be in YEARS!
I'm sorry, your SSL problems do seem rather trivial. Heck, our poor VB programmers had it much rougher than this just changing to VB.net... That was a ROYAL PITA.
Yes, it is true that MS spends a lot of time on backward compatibility. But, they spend just as much time to ENSURE INCOMPATIBILITY with competitors.
But your right, just because the rest of us usually think of standards as a specification that a Standards Body approves of, shouldn't keep you from your view that MS is a standard unto itself. And just because MS has almost never written software that adheres to the MANY recognized standards in the industry, doesn't mean they have failed on that front! (Oh wait, yes it does.)
WalMart does [walmart.com] this [walmart.com]. They were, at one time, pushing a line of $199 PCs with Linspire on them.
They didn't sell that well and now the lowest priced Linux PC is the same price as the lowest priced Windows machine. They're generally similarly equipped, but the Linux machine has an AMD Sempron at 2.0 GHz while the Windows box has a 3.2 GHz Celeron D.
I don't know if Walmart stopped selling PCs with Linspire but Microcenter sales PCs with Linspire. The second one is $250, I got one a few weeks ago, but they also had a $50 mailin rebate.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Brewing software? Other than a logbook or recipies what brewing software? That is if you're not talking about brewing Java but are talking about Homebrew beer, mead, and wine.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Apple II+ required an add on card for 80 columns if I remember correctly and the same for the Apple III. I was privileged to use both but that's a LONG time ago. I'm 40 now and I think I was 14 or 15 then. I also had a Timex Sinclair and had friends with TRS-80 and Commodore. A little later another friend who's dad worked for IBM had a PC Jr. before it hit the consumer market.
I'm still amazed sometimes that we've progressed from cassette tape and 360k 5 1/4 floppy storage to where we are now. For you youngsters out there who take gigabytes of storage and the incredible graphics we have today for granted, try thinking about 16 colors and multiple 5 1/4 drives as being the cutting edge.
It may seem like "I walked to school in 6 feet of snow" to you but really the advances are nothing short of incredible. I'm waiting on pins and needles for the next really big innovations.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
And the whole argument about training the admins for the use of the new systems should really come down to the admins themselves, if you can't use the system that you are supposed to be supporting then you shouldn't have the job, I think it's as simple as that. How many of you came out of school and expected to be hired right away without training and expected to be trained on the job? As far as I'm concerned this is exactly the same. Training should be done in the admins time and at the cost of the admin. I mean how hard is it really to install Linux on a PC and play around with it for a few weeks? Also if the system is setup correctly then the admins should have all the fancy GUI's for all the admin tools and the OS deployment should be done by the push of a button. I mean lets face it if an admin doesn't know how to work their way around a GUI then they really shouldn't be an admin.
For us to make a transition to Linux, we'd need training and good support. It's been talked about, but sticking with MS has (at least on paper) come out being cheaper for the time being.
Yea it might be cheaper in the short term but what's the TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, of Windows PCs versus Linux PCs? Does the calculations on paper figure that in?
So how about it? What's a good way for us to make the leap into Linux without dropping a load of cash?
You don't have to drop a load of cash for PCs with Windows? The old PCs being replaced with new PCs needed to run Vista can be used to run Linux instead thus saving the cost of new PCs. I recently bought a new PC with Linux preinstalled and it cost half of what the cheapest PC with Windows cost, and I didn't have to think of or be concerned with Activation or WGA. After choosing the user account when I boot up, the desktop looks similar to Windows. There's "My Computer" and "My Documents" on the desktop, and the "Start" button with the shortcuts to programs. For all practical purposes it looks and acts like Windows.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The commercial Autodesk Maya was used by Weta Digital to create the Lord of the Rings triology. Maya is, as you can see, available for use under Linux.
For Desktop Publishing you can use the Free Scribus which I have used to produce very nice pamphlets and booklets.
Linux has come of age in recent months and the excuse that it is not suitable for ordinary folks to do ordinary computer jobs is simply not true any more.
I haven't seen any posts on here in regards to the negative effects this will have on the students.
I know this is Slashdot, so any Linux/OSS penetration is great news, but:
These students, when they graduate and get real jobs, will have a >95% chance of using Windows in their job. What sense does it make to train them on a platform they have a 20:1 chance of never encountering?
Are you hiring?
Seriously, it's amazing how many IT managers don't get this... sure I don't have 10 years experience with Peoplesoft... but I bet within a year I'll be ahead of 50% of of the current support staff just due to the diversity of my knowledge and my understanding of the way things work at a low level (thank you Linus!).
So it continues, they hire a guy who will keep doing things today the way they were done yesterday instead of hiring someone who can bring some perspective with them.
The old school adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is dead. To keep up in today's tech society, you need to plan to replace almost everything every 10 years or so... even your employees. This constant change brings new perspectives and new solutions, allowing you to keep up or ahead with the competition. Analog telephone technology ain't broken, but I think we can all agree that it needs fixing. The way people seem to be moving more and more to VOIP and wireless for voice and away from their telcos for data, I bet the most telcos out there wish they hadn't kept trying to leverage the old tech and started fixing what wasn't broken a long time ago.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
If you're talking about a non-programming or non-IT job, the HR person interviewing you might ask "what's a Linux? Some kind of car?"
For a lot of companies that use only Windows, Linux is a hobby with as much significance to their work as knitting or scuba diving.
and Neverwinter Nights runs native. It's more fun than WoW because you don't have to pay extra money and everyone can run their own servers and maps.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
some board games are good too. and card games. dominoes is nice if you can find enough people. that Pirates CCG is enjoyed by many.
:)
I think you get the point, you don't need Windows to enjoy games.
Our public education system doesn't have time to expose kids to music or art anymore, how will they expose them to a bunch of alternative OSes. have you tried Minix3, it's pretty slick. it has working USB support now, and with a little effort can run off a USB key. cram an OS, compiler and all the source in under 70MB.
(what's up with your crazy formatting)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Actually, IIRC there were some hardware hacks that would give you mixed case. On some of the earlier models you even had to do some scraping and soldering to get one of the square brackets, [ or ] if forget which.
One of the nice things about those Apple IIs and Apple II+'s was that they came with circuit diagrams so that you could add external controllers or make your own peripheral cards or devices. It also came not only with detailed operating system documentation and BASIC programming instructions, but also system documentation and the 6502 instruction set. As a result it was even possible to change some of the system. I rewrote part of the monitor and had a friend burn it to eprom.
Kids can't really do that with hardware anymore, but it is still possible with software and systems -- provided they are using one of the open source or Free Software options. Those that are curious can dig as deep as they want and learn from the code and documentation as much as they can or want to.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
... or your wife brings home a file that won't open correctlyWhich points out why so many have pointed out the need for document file formats for office software, such as the OpenDocument Format.
However, the specific scenario cited there, that of not being able to open a file, is more likely to happen using the officially annointed MS Office variants rather than more flexible tools like Koffice or OpenOffice.org. Why? Two reasons:
1) Even though the MS Office file formats are undocumented, despite court orders to do so, progress has been made in reverse engineering those format. It's to the point that you have a better chance of opening an old MS Office file with OpenOffice.org or Koffice than with MS Office. Also, it's becoming standard practice, even in MS only shops, to keep a copy of OpenOffice.org around to recover files when MS Office corrupts them and can't open them any more.
2) MS has used and still introduces minor incompatibilities into its undocumented file formats in order to leverage new sales. Just around 70% of MS Office sales come as the result of OEMs, which means that about 2/3 of new machines start spewing documents unreadable by everyone else. In the past, MS has been able to achieve a critical mass with the new formats. However, the latest round hasn't gotten more than 10% - 15% which is not enough, so the situation looks to be improving.
Use of open standards in office files is just a small part of the business case for open standards. It's your choice.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
For schools the better desktop operating system is no operating system at all. No Windows no Linux just thin clients. At the moment more people on this world use thin clients as Linux and Mac Os together. The schools providing thin clients can do without any endpoint issues. Thin client users do not have to care about security issues, installation issues, they can just use their devices to work. Easy secure and fast. This is the way to go. Roland Sassen
to quote the article:
Among other things, she wrote, "Thanks."
the other things were, "Help! Daddy, im a noob." and "how do i recompile the kernel? and will i need his 11 herbs and spices?"
Universities are teaching students software they know they cannot afford, relying entirely (expecting even) that they steal software to complete an education they have enrolled in and paid for.
If you're interested in encouraging change to suitable FOSS alternatives in your school, this - from experience - is an excellent card to play. Expose how the school's policy on expecting students to use proprietary software puts students in the uncomfortable situation of become software theives, downloading cracks from dubious sites and point out the hazardous situation this puts them in and the bad habits it produces. Get economic on them. Add up the software a given students is expected to own and point out the financial pressure this would put on that a student wanted to avoid "committing a crime". Use this as the basis for an argument that the school must research suitable replacements for costly proprietary applications and/or subsidising their software budget. Don't be black and white about it; be honest and explain that (for instance) the GIMP may not be able to replace all of the functionality of Photoshop CS, but in many cases it can replace enough, that Blender can do many things Maya/3DSMax/Rhino/Lightwave can't and vice versa, that Inkscape can replace much of Illustrator's functionality and that millions of kids come out of schools thinking through the same software and that their are real advantages to a diversity of experience in the employment 'marketplace'.
Moreso, don't yield to the unspoken argument that it is the strategy of Adobe, Alias etc to ensure their software remains easily crackable and therefore easily adoptable. This is often used as a prop when arguing for pushing costly proprietary software to students in the course of their education. Expose this assumption also if need be.
It's hard to see your comments as anything else other than flame bait, you already know how easy it is to work with different applications and environments.
For those of us who were kids in the early 80,s we already have changed platforms at least a couple of times and we know its not that big an issue. But I think we can also remember how it was to be able to be able to explore our old 8 and 16 bit systems.
To give a child of today windows, how does it engage their curiosity, encourage them to explore to learn. To get the tools they need to experiment and explore the capabilitys of thier computers one of the first things they are likely to do is download a cracked, hacked version of commercial closed source tools.
compare this to a linux system which is open generally freely downloadable, with source code available the possibilities are endless, compared with the closed source windows world its a new frontier. It is possible to get into 1000's of linux projects experiment and eventually contribute. No only is source available quite often the authors of that source are available and prepared to answer polite well thought out inquirys.
Children can learn good values from open source and the rewards of a free exchange of idea's
Perhaps it is the whole experience and environment that are the real prize
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
lameness filter.... argh!!!!!!!!!!
hdhsdgst tegs bshdh hejsklajsdkls
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
You say you have a need for desktop publishing and film editing, but then you refer to F/OSS programs that were not designed for either. Maybe an apples to apples comparison is more appropriate? For desktop publishing, Scribus seems to be the most acclaimed F/OSS program. http://www.scribus.net/ For Video editing, Cinellera seems to be more in line with Final Cut Pro. http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3
http://www.mhall119.com
> What defines refined taste in games?
Interactive Fiction springs immediately to mind... HTH.HAND.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
> Maybe you mean that someone raised to administer a *nix machine/system wouldn't
> be capable of understanding how to use a sophisticated OS like Windows?
The problem there is going to be willingness, not ability. The employer's going to sit them down in front of an OEM Windows install and they're going to spend half of the next three weeks discovering features that aren't included out of the box and tracking down and downloading and installing applications to do that stuff. A normal employee wouldn't notice the missing features due to lack of prior exposure, so they'd sit there doing their job, (or talking on the phone to their friends, or whatever it is they normally do at work).
Some employers won't notice this. Others won't mind, and still others will withhold judgement long enough that the new employee will reach the point where his workstation *has* software installed to provide a lot of the features he's accustomed to, and at that point it won't be a problem. (Indeed, he may well be more productive for not having to work around the missing features. I know I would be. I can get my job done a *lot* faster once I have a working CPAN.pm, my custom lisp stuff installed for Emacs, and the extensions and bookmark keywords I use regularly in my browser.)
But yes, there are probably also employers who would be less than impressed.
And there are a *few* employers whose IT departments will have the workstations so locked down that the new employee will be *unable* to install software to provide the missing features, and he'll be stuck with the official company Windows installation, in which case he'll quit or go out of his mind (assuming he's not permitted to bring in a personal laptop to get work done).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
To be completely fair, most of these are not really problems with Windows per say, in most cases:
I personally hate them, but there is an official powertoy for XP which will give you them if you want them.
This is really cool. Windows can do this over SMB (obviously) by default, but other virtual filesystems are not provided. Not sure how much use a non-expert user would have for it, but I'm sure I'd find some reason to use it.
Windows PowerShell isn't officially released, but it is available in a pretty-complete form. Also Cygwin provides all of the same tools in Windows. Not there by default, but these are of limited use to non-expert users anyway.
You can bet your bottom dollar that if Linux started being pre-loaded as a mainstream option, you'd get all the same (well, similar) bundled bollocks as you do with your Windows preinstallation. Unfortunate, but true.
It's not extra effort. Well-written Windows software should do this by default — the difference being that on Windows "My Documents" links to a subfolder of your home folder, whereas on *nix systems the config files live in the same place, only in hidden directories. Of course, a lot of software is not well-written, but on Vista this will pop up a big ugly security notice when saving outwith the user's home, so hopefully this'll become a thing of the past.
I like my Linux machine though. I just find that a lot of reasons that people tend to cite as "superior" about a Linux install are either limited to expert users or available already.
I am the technology director at a district in Indiana fortunate enough to have implemented Linux at our High School as a part of this initiative. I'd just like to touch on a couple of aspects that don't seem to have been fully understood-
Our students are not 'switching' to linux. They are simply adding it to their repertoire of learned operating systems and increasing their exposure to computing. These linux machines are not taking the place of general purpose and special purpose computer labs, teacher computers, or administrative computers in any Indiana schools that I know of. We are using linux to outfit english and social studies classrooms with a computer at every desk, specifically to: use the internet for research and other web based curriculum integration, compose-save-print documents and presentations, and access web based course management systems such as Moodle. SLED 10 allows us to achieve this goal, as would any other flavor of linux, at a fraction the cost of Windows. This early phase of the initiative is to build a framework for schools who want to implement computers at every desk, to report the successes and failures, and to collaborate with other districts on how to best expose students to technology and the Internet via curriculum integration. Over the coming years, we hope to become experts on using Linux in schools, finding solutions and driving development for the platform. We have to start somewhere! In the process, I can only imagine that we are exposing a whole generation and generations to come to MS alternatives and low-cost computing, which will no doubt impact the computing industry as these students move on to become college students, adult consumers, and likely some business leaders making decisions impacting IT at their workplace.
The realization of our vision of a computer at every desk starts here. To accomodate Indiana's 1,000,000 students in our vision, our schools simply cannot afford to purchase and license Windows machines. We are using inexpensive hardware (less than $300 per computer/monitor and inexpensive/free software.) Again, we still use higher end windows workstations for teachers, administrators, and special purpose labs (CAD/CG/Business Apps/Programming.) The goal with these "one-to-one" labs is to make available to the student a web portal and 'office' suite at each desk. The students don't care what OS they are using in these classroom labs. They know to get to the internet they click Firefox and to write a paper they click OpenOffice. Actually, most students are thrilled to be able to explore this mysterious new "SLED 10", breaking their computing monotony.
Implementing and supporting this new operating system has been a challenge, but not unlike any other challenge we encounter as part of our job in IT. Aren't the new challenges why we love technology? SLED 10 was amazingly easy to install, configure, and integrate with our network.
> Way to set them up for computer litterate...
At least the browser in my (linux powered) desktop has a built-in spellchecker.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
... I find people that are watching porn.
"What are you doing in there?"
"Nothing!"
'no flash'
ask them to release opensource version of micromedia flash and you'll see how fast people will fix this buggy piece of shit!
Anyway, version 9 is much better. But we still don't have control of it.
Which secretary should I hire?
The one that tells me she knows MS Office only or the one that tells me she is a fast learner and can use any word processor or spreadsheet?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Linux is perfectly usable on its own right.
If it is not the tool for your job, don't use it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you say to a person that is not coputer specialist to use MS Office or Star Office and by some weird act of nature they will all flow to MS Office naturally.
Riiigth.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is always very comendable when people go and learn things for themselves, but nowadays only companies behaving amateurishly will not ensure that their employees receive the proper training to perform their duties.
As a matter of fact, in many industries and countries that is a legal obligation.
As for support you are a liability, sorry, but your ass would be out of any serious company in less time I can say "phone support". YOu are lucky to get away without proper supported.
I have seen how support in small environments can make all the difference between 10 people being productive or 10 people drinking coffeee and filling crosswords. You wanna look for a shop that is not professional? ( out of 10 times they will not have any meaningful support arranged.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There are many people out there that have good advice and are willing to share it.
You can't paint a full group of people in a bad light just beacause some out ther are complete idiots.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You are educating this people, then do so properly.
Explain the differences between OSes, why you can't run all software and the alternatives if they exist.
It would not go amis to explain the philosophy behind FOSS and closed source software withouth being preachy but sticking to the cold facts as seen from each side of the debate (and from the middle, there are a lot of "pragmatists" out there).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
He did not say it is the user's fault.
If you are aducating people then you have to explain why the situation is like it is.
The matter of fact is that not all software runs in all computers and that in many cases there are alternatives. That is true for Windos, OSX, Linux or any other OS you care to mention.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Just curious.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.