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Most Useful OS For High-School Science Education?
Clayperion writes "I teach at a high school program for gifted students which emphasizes math, science, and technology. Currently we have two computer labs for the students: A new programming lab (all Dell PCs running XP, MS Visual C++, Eclipse, and SolidWorks for programming and CAD) and an old general-purpose lab (all Macs running OS X 10.3, with software ranging from some legacy OS 9 science applications to MathCad). Most of our students eventually pursue graduate degrees in science and engineering, and we would like them to have experience with the tools they will find out in industry. As we look to replace the old machines, there has been a push to switch to PCs with XP so that there is only a single platform to support. There are over 5000 machines on the district's network and the IT department is very small (fewer than 10 people), so the fewer hardware and software differences between the machines, the better. Without opening a flame war as to which one is 'better,' I'd like to know what those of you in the science and engineering fields actually use more in your labs (hardware, OS, software), so that we can decide which platform to support. It will most likely have to be either XP or OS 10.6, with very restricted permissions to students and teachers, as that is the comfort level of IT and administration, but I'll push for whatever would benefit the students the most."
I'm not sure I'm following the logic... Windows XP is getting close to EOL. Why wouldn't you use Windows 7? Certainly it and Windows Server 2008 has more features to make admin'ing easier.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You know those are meaningless unless we know what kind of science or engineering right? Civil engineering? Network engineering? Traffic engineering? Geneticist? PhD Researcher? Hell, Sexology??? What of donuts?! WHAT!?
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
IMHO, nothing but free software should be used in science and science education. Any research relying on results produced by close-sourced software is voodoo.
Most of our labs in college use a mix of Fedora and Ubuntu Linux, with some Solaris speckled around.
I'd probably go for Fedora, since a lot of students will likely be working on some Fedora derivative, and it is easier (in my opinion) than Ubuntu to administer. However, it's really up to you.
I've also heard that many of the co-op companies our college partners with use some form of Linux. Though, for obvious reasons, a few design oriented companies use Mac OS X, though that may change in the future.
Windows is a rarity, from what I've seen and heard.
I'm working on my master in math and Linux is a must. There is so much compiling, scripting and ssh'ing that it makes Linux the best choice.
MacOS as a second choice (I hate mac) however it still does lack in some places. Examples are software libs, sparse matrix solvers, r, sage, latex, root(physics) .
That being said you can install most of these on a mac but its a process vs a 'sudo apt-get install' in a debian type distro. Also at least in my experience there are alot
of people in these fields running linux which makes collaboration much easier do to similar software versions, ideally this shouldn't matter but not many program that cleanly.
While I'm a confessed Apple zealot I'd go with PCs running XP. It's the more common, more supported platform. A lot more of the "industry standard" type of applications will be running on PCs running either Windows or Linux. In the computer labs I support we're replacing all of the machines this summer, and I toyed with going Mac, but it just doesn't fit the educational needs of the students software-wise. Not to mention support for any sort of specialized hardware.
As far as the concerns from your network admins go - tell them to find a good hardware independent imaging solution. There are some great products out there that do this type of thing. I'm partial to Altiris (now Symantec) Deployment Solution. It can kill the hardware abstraction layer and then drops in replacement drivers based on the hardware it's imaging. It runs over the network and images via PXE boot and I've heard of a lot of places that use it in pretty spread out setups (thousands of machines in far-flung locations). It scales extremely well and in cases where you do need specialized drivers for things like video cards or other special equipment they do provide a way to install those drivers. Although if you're using Novell Netware it really causes problems - in which case you'd want to look at Zenworks but it's definitely not as easy to use as Deployment Solution (works great with Active Directory though). I've been using it since the beginning of this year and I love it. I've got 12 labs of varying sizes to maintain and I only have to keep up one base image. Each lab has a scripted OS install setup that installs any special software that's needed in the lab. It's also handy to be able to reimage the labs overnight and not have to wait for semester breaks to update software.
This space for rent...
Since they are going to spend most of their life justifying their budgets with PowerPoint, might as well get them used to windows ;-)
I work at NASA and have many university colleagues I work with as well. A recent IP survey I had IT do at GSFC in MD showed a Mac OSX installation base of about 30%. This is similar at my freind's universities... at least in the physics and engineering depts. We recently moved our 20 or so PC's over to Mac a few years ago and have been very happy. I was able to show I saved the government approximately $60K-$90K a year in gained productivity and reduced IT support, salary, etc.... So, while Windows is used mostly now by the Best Buy consumer level base, which is 80% of the "market", the professional technical use of OSX is much higher. I suggest having a mix of new machines if possible and taking your own data. Track how often the machines are used, under repair, software costs, and how the students take to them and make your own conclusions. Good luck.
So science, religion and porn have three things in common with your network. Neither of them are really going to play a huge role in the decision of the topology or specifics regarding your hosts.
What is important to consider are what are your requirements for the specific applications that apply to your curriculum today and in the near term. These things dictate what is necessary to support your environment. If you don't know what you should be using I would consult a similar audience rather then the general populace. In practice, I've generally found most educational institutes are staffed with at least some individuals who do thrive in the industry. (Hint, industry experience is a good thing).
In any event, this is a very long winded ask slashdot, but offers very few details. Even if someone said to change all of your systems to XYZ using ABC it wouldn't really matter. You can't base a purchasing decision on a few paragraphs. I certainly don't want to draw up a diagram of how your architecture should work and toss out a handful of applications.
The bottom line is that you should know at least some of these details. What are the pain points with whatever and certainly not detailed plans on the horizon.
Here is my two cents....
Come up with a consistent approach to your operating system selection and configuration. Ensure you have the capabilities to deliver a clean and automated of said services. With only 10 individuals it will really will become a painful support paradigm if you continue with some haphazard configuration.
As far as software selection.... because I know virtually nothing about what you currently use or specific fields this is in regards to... I want you to find the most expensive application that does a single 10th of what you want it to do. Buy lots of this software and pray they release the features you need in the next release.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
computer hardware is probably a pain to procure at a high school, so i recommend the relatively inexpensive Mac mini. we're planning on converting our XP lab to Mac Minis running Windows 7 in a virtual machine (Virtualbox) which means our computer hardware won't be a limiting factor when selecting the software we teach students in our lab. Mini's are as much power as you'll need, and this makes more sense than iMacs when you factor in the cost of 22" or 24" LCDs. and by running Virtualbox, you can even set up multiple vm's so you can test out new versions of software without having to perform complete rebuilds if some microsoft update hoses the system. hell, you can even add some linux to your environment should their be some cool engineering or programming tools that would otherwise be too costly on the microsoft or apple platforms.
yep, you can buy a pc cheaper and of course you can run Linux for free, but it will probably help your students the most if they get a little bit of experience with multiple operating systems since once they graduate from college, they'll probably be using OSX 10.7 or Windows 8. running XP is a nightmare because of the security holes AND because Microsoft has already started to eliminate XP, say 2 years ago when they first discontinued it.
having dealt with apple dealer to school sales since 1991, I think the choice [Mac or PC] is a false choice. And since there are no viruses or malware that run on OSX, the schools we support who run OSX spend a shitload less on support costs, which can quickly suck up your budget, your time, and your patience in a school environment should you be running XP and get zapped by malware. since running vm's is easy, it's become a preferred way to quickly switch a lab from one group of students to the next.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
macs are good for all kinds of tasks, not just art, electronic design, filmography, or music production. have you ever seen XCode? it's free with the OS and provides a fairly powerful IDE. don't knock it until you've tried it.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I work for a research lab in a university and we do a lot of scientific computing and webapp development. Here it is UNIX variants and only UNIX variants. We use Debian Linux on our clusters, Mac OS X or Debian Linux on my Mac Pro or Mac Mini desktops. Knowledge about C/C++ and scripting languages is very important. We are recently interviewing candidates for an opening, and it is very sad to see people who cannot code without IDE and who think building the binary is equivalent to clicking the little button on the toolbar. If education needs to do one thing, then that should be to give students a broader view instead of limiting them to some false impressions. In that sense, UNIX is a much better tool because of its rich history and active development.
High School seniors are between 4 and 8 years away from working in an engineering field. That's enough time for things to change considerably, and even if it weren't, the operating system really doesn't make that much difference. If you could give them some experience using the apps that will be relevant to them, that might be a little more useful, but that space is so broad that there's no way you could know what will be needed.
I'd make sure you pick a platform that runs the software the teachers want to use for classes. If that software is available on multiple platforms, then pick the one that is most cost-effective, considering acquisition and maintenance both.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
In our district Freshmen take Earth Science, Sophomores take Bio, Juniors Chemistry and Seniors take Physics. There's also some techy electives such as Intro to Programming, Computer Animation/CAD and an Intro to Computers (teaches the basics of how to use a computer, browsers, word processing, etc...)
Check out the applications that your those that set the curriculum want to use. Some software suites are available for one platform and not another. You can't just say, "We're using OS/2 and that's the way it will be!" As you'll have 10 department heads yelling at you that there aren't any XYZ applications available to it.
Also, who says you have to have 5k PCs each with it's own disk, OS load etc.. Why not look at Virtual Desktops (vmware view with dumb terminals/thin clients in the classrooms? The Unix folks have been doing this for years, but this solution is pretty slick. We've deployed it for all the staff as they only use a dozen or so standardized applications.
Btw, I'm an ex-mainframer and managing 1 mainframe and 5000 dumb 3270 terminals is much easier than 5000 desktops; and speaking from experience managing a couple of large X86 servers and a 100 thin clients is very similar.
It will depend heavily on what path your students pursue.
I've done a mixture of hardware design and firmware development for both storage peripheral companies and IC houses. What I mostly see is:
I have yet to see any significant use of Mac's, except as clients to log into Linux workstations. Almost all IC design and verification is done on some POSIX compliant OS because of the the requirements of the tools. IC houses I've worked for generally have large numbers of 32, 64, and 128 way multi-processor systems with huge amounts of RAM. Windows XP is simply not able to take full advantage of these large systems and the tools require this much horsepower to be effective. I also have noted that many IC designers generally seem to prefer the power of a good CLI over GUI point-in-click file managers. There is also a lot of scripting in these environments, mostly in Perl (although I've also need shell script and Python used). Linux and similar operating systems lend themselves more for this sort of work.
As for tools, I would suggest that you seriously look at trying to give your students at least a taste of such tools as MatLab, MathCAD, AutoCAD, and S. There are free equivalents for MatLab such as Scilab and Octave as well as Python packages such as SciPy, NumPy, and MatPlotLib (which I sometimes use for modeling). I know that languages such as S+ (or the free R language) are sometimes also used for statistical analysis. If you want to give your more advanced students a taste of chip design, consider the free offerings from Xilinx along with a few of their FPGA evaluation boards (available through DigiKey).
I hope this helps.
> Companies aren't going to write open software to control the $750K spectrometer they just sold you, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think I'd use software off of Sourceforge to control an investment of that type, anyway.
I'm not a chemist, but I think your investigation is not about controlling the spectrometer, but the resulting spectra. So I think it would very interesting and potentially productive if you have the source code of the software that transforms/filters/enhance/displays the output data.
BTW, I don't believe the people at CERN will rely on some close software for tracing their particle collisions.
. . .I would recommend Windows, Windows, and (not strongly) OSX.
There is no question in my mind that Windows is the way to go for chemistry software, as I've now spent almost ten years at three different universities working my way to a PhD (almost there!), and besides the occasional foray into Linux (control software for two different brands of NMR), it's been Windows all the way (and the NMR software was available for in a Windows client, also). I could post a list of all the instrumentation I've used, but trust me, it's long, probably around twenty-thirty instruments now.
From my undergrad experience:
I haven't used as much software earning my bio degree, but we mainly used statistical packages, and they all ran on Windows - the SEM (the only instrument I used in that department) ran on XP, too.
I only had a year of physics as required for the chem and bio degrees, but the physics department uses Macs for the computer labs and the classroom computers - supposedly there are a lot of interesting software packages available, which I never used. The instrumentation I had the opportunity to use (the Mossbauer spectrometer and the x-ray diffractometer) both ran on XP, though.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
IMHO, teaching programming without a computer is like trying to teach math without using numbers. I mean the arabic numbering system is basically a shorthand way of writing down polynomials where 'x' is always 10. The numbers have a reality quite apart from their representation and getting that is one of the most fundamental and important ideas in math.
But really, starting there is a bad idea.
People get excited and enthused by results. Nobody is going to be excited and enthused by a set of principles that don't have any connection to anything else they know. Getting people excited about learning is the biggest part of the battle.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I taught myself programming (and how to wire together an 8080) a good two years before I was able to use a real computer, from those things made out of dead trees. I can still find problems in assembly, C, Verilog, whatever, by reading the code much faster than many of my co-workers can by running simulators and debuggers.
A rigorous understanding of logic requires no hardware.
You're going to run into one of two problems.
1) By time the kids grow up everything in industry will have changed.
2) You can't afford what they use in industry with a HS budget, even the [college] student licenses.
I'm a mechanical engineer. I make my living using Matlab, Simulink, CANape and some internal company programs.
I went to HS with Windows ME (with MacOS 7/8 at home) I honestly don't ever even remember using them. Our "Physics Lab" was an Apple II running some highly custom software and hardware. (Running lasers to time ball bearings going down ramps and such). I learned the basics of programming with TI-Basic. In college I picked up Java, C, & Matlab/Simulink.
Now I run 10.6 at home and XP at work. Something no one could have predicted back in the day. Teach the kids the basics. If someone 'gets' how to program, it doesn't matter. If someone 'gets' chemistry, it doesn't matter if they're drawing them on paper or in some 3D model.
And I haven't priced a student's version of Matlab recently, but I know my seat at work runs 20k. Simulink doesn't make too much sense until you've had DiffEq. I haven't used Octave enough to know how compatible it is. CANape... well you'd need quite a bit of money for the stuff to run it on. There's a reason there are a half dozen solid modeling programs, because companies use different ones. And with my short time with most of them, they're completely different. AutoCAD, CATIA, ProE, SolidWorks, etc.
Python and Sqlite work pretty well.
The main problem with using PHP is that you'll need to have a server that supports it, or set up your own. And then there's the idiocy of MySQL (which usually comes with php), the lack of an interactive interpreter, and so on.
PHP is marginally useful for web development, but really, rather crap for anything else.
Don't quote me on this.
Amiga?
-- Linux user #369862
You say you want to choose the OS for your HIGH SCHOOL science lab based on what your engineer wanabe students may actually use when they make it to industry. Good Grief!
XP is already EOL and DISCON. They won't be using that in 6 years.
Win7 will have been replaced by at least 2 subsequent versions and will probably be DISCON.
OSX 10.6 will be replaced and DISCON, will be actively unsupported by Apple.
Whatever version of Linux you choose will have forked 600 times by the time they get out of college. Whichever one you pick now will be wrong.
The (wrong) choice you make today will have absolutely no impact on your students' preparedness for real-work in 6+ years.
SO:
Find the applications you want to use. Choose an OS that runs them all.
OR
Ask the IT guys where you work to choose. They have to support it, they know what they know how to support best.
OR
Load an old Slackware Distro and make the IT guys hate you. Make your students write the software they'll need. Then they'll really be prepared.
Protip: When you ask SLASHDOT what OS to use for ANYTHING, the consensus answer is going to be "well, you could use linux..."
I went to a private prestigious school in the 90s. We had a lab full of computers, but they were never fancy. Some were still DOS when I was a Freshman, but they all were Windows 95 by the time I graduated.
What was important, however, was that we were able to learn the core concepts that needed to be taught. We didn't need $3000 computers to learn data structures. We also brought in a FAST internet connection before anyone knew what broadband was.
It's my opinion that a reliable network is much more important then having the latest and greatest computers. A computer that's 2 years old can still get on the web, but a slow network will hold your students back. I would stay away from obscure things like any Unix, and even any Linux, unless you're planning on keeping some Windows computers around for "getting things done." If you are going Windows, make sure to go with Windows 7. It's been out long enough that it doesn't make sense to keep 15 year olds working with technology that's half their age.
No, I will not work for your startup
I use Unix/Linux command line stuff all the time for installations, deployment, management and so on, but I develop using a visual IDE because it is more productive for me. Since I began doing assembler on PDP-11 and 9900 processors, moved on to C, and am still actively involved in development, I think I'm in a position to say that command line snobbery is simply counterproductive. If some kind person has already configured Ant for me to run in an IDE, I accept what I am given and am grateful. Why do I want a programmer to spend all day on a script to automate something that the IDE can do in 9 seconds? The object program is exactly the same size and runs identically.
It's like stupid people who boast about using stick shifts as if this made them virtuous. I've used them for over 40 years alongside automatics. Current autos have computer controlled manual gearboxes that use less fuel and change more appropriately than human drivers, and I'm glad I bought one.
I want programmers who understand exception handling, corner cases, graceful recovery from external failures, automated database backups, data prevalidation, efficient algorithms and data structures, bloat avoidance, profiling, and debug. I really don't care if they drive an auto or a manual when it comes to compiling, so long as they don't thereby waste time getting from A to B.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I don't know if this can be modded up to a 7 or 8, but it is very insightful as well as interesting.
Fact is, schools have to deal with Realistic Budgets and any computers they purchase will certainly need to be multiple-use and not just for the teaching of programming. They'll need to be general use, as well.
I run a small business and I recently purchased a new computer. It's a workstation-class computer and needs to be because of what I do. And I bought on the kinda cheap side from a top-tier manufacturer. This one computer cost me $7,500 (and I need to add RAM). If you have a class of 20 students, all of whom need a separate CPU, you're looking at a cost outlay of $157,500. Heck, my daughter's school just bought whiteboards and it took them about four years to raise the funds.
First thing I would do is find out how much budget you can sink into your project. That will guide what you can buy. Second thing I would do is hit your local Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Kiwanas Club and so on and see if you can get local sponsorship for your project. Since you're a technology school, see if you can get a tech company to give you a grant as well. Target around a quarter million and you're looking at a first class lab that will begin to go obsolete as soon as you build it.
I realize I'm talking to a school teacher here. School teachers in high schools and elementary schools don't write grant proposals, because that's university stuff. But, by thinking in terms of raising funds, you suddenly place yourself on another playing field all together. And, with respect to computer purchases, bake sales just won't raise anywhere near sufficient funds. I know -- if it takes four years to get White Boards, your computing technology will be on life support by the time you can replace it.
Also if you develop the kinds of leads to get funding for this kind of a project, you will be set to upgrade and stay with current technology as you go forward. And if you have a tech company from your area that is supporting you, they will probably be able to offer you curriculum guidance for what they think they will need in the future as well.
As to platforms, the only computer that can run everything is made by Apple. You can install Windows, OS X, Linux, other Unix, emulators for iPhone and iPad, etc on a Mac. While workstations are really nice for schools, you might look at the Quad-Core processor iMac. The only downside I see to this computer is lack of hard disk space for multiple operating systems, so getting a server and having everything boot off a server might be the best solution for that problem. But the discussion of what hardware you should specify should take a serious back seat to funding.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
While you're right that NASA use of Mac OS X is much higher, it's not true industry wide. The *only* people with Macs are the NASA employees. Everyone else, working at conventional companies like Boeing and Northrop Grumman use PCs.
This is not good or bad, it just is. NASA gives their technical people significant freedom in choosing their computer and software. But it's atypical. Everyone else buys Wintel systems.
(I'm a Ph.D. working on a NASA project through a major subcontractor. I just spent the week at a joint meeting with NASA, ESA, and industry reps for a NASA project.)
ShoutingMan.com
From the last two physics and astrophysics conferences I've been to (last 2 years) it's been running around 80-90% Mac. I actually tried to keep a more or less random sampling from the sessions I went to and counted up to about 100 computers each time.
I am an admin in very large private high school, and ~90% of our network (~200 machines) are running OS X 10.6. We do have a small presence of XP machines floating around in the building, but they will be phased out this fall. Our tech staff is also under 10 people (4), and because we are using 10.6 we are able to manage our network just fine. We have yet to run into any problems involving malware, and Apple has one of the best ed channels out there. The representatives are very knowledgeable and always willing to help. To address software compatibility issues, because let's face it... it is a school and some people refuse to switch from their old and crumby PC software, we will occasionally run XP inside a VM for them. When I was in school, (1 year ago) obtaining my BS in Computer Science, I also used an Intel-based Mac, and it was a common trend amongst engineering students. The machines are extremely reliable, and IMHO the quality outweighs the cost.
In education, Macs dominate. Apple will give all kinds of discounts to you to get you to go Mac. Also, Mac is the only solution that permits ANY platform, virtually. On a Mac you can now virtualize OS X 10.6, any flavor/version of linux, BSD, or Windows. Legally, you can't virtualize OS X on linux or Windows. I realize it's a weak point, but the stronger point is that Macs allow more variety, even if all you have is Macs. Initially, the investment in Mac is slightly higher, but the hardware is also designed better, and it has been shown to last last longer (up until 2 weeks ago, my 2003 powerbook was my main machine, now it's my secondary), and remain useful longer, with less OS maintenance. You will likely never get a virus using OS X or linux (or, hell, FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD). You will very likely get lots of infiltrations if you use Windows. Windows is a fine OS, and has many strong suits, but the cost of maintaining an OS that is the biggest target for malware, viruses, and security infiltrations, vandalism and theft, far outweighs any benefit that might be gained from using it as opposed to another OS. Windows 7 is no better, as it will soon become the major target. It's an accident of fate, I think, and not entirely Microsoft's fault, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. If you choose Windows you will be wasting a considerable portion of all the proc cycles that hardware will ever put out on protecting yourself instead of doing science. Linux or Mac will likely not even have a hiccup in this regard.
So with Windows, you can effectively use Windows and Linux (virtually), but you will have many tasks associated with covering your ass, in regards to security. i.e. PITA that never goes away.
With linux, you can run linux and Windows (virtually), and probably mitigate any security issues with WIndows by using virtualization and intelligent practices.
And with Mac OS X you can use OS X, linux, and Windows, and your students will have the opportunity for a far more rounded computer education, and can say they learned UNIX, and all the other OS's, with the Macs at school.
The Admin and the Engineer
If you're standardizing on a single platform, make it Unix, like the rest of the world. That means you run anything but Microsoft software. That will also increase your security, and decrease your maintenance costs dramatically.
Unix is also dominant in science. Genentech is an all-Apple shop.
If you want to teach the kids something useful for the future, iPhone/iPad programming is probably a billion times more relevant than any kind of XP programming. The Apple tools are free and include simulators for both devices.
You have to be about 40 to think Windows is relevant today. I can't imagine a worse thing to do to high school kids than saddle them with Windows. Might as well get them a Selectric and an abacus.