Ask Slashdot: Best Choice of Linux Laptops For Elementary School?

An anonymous reader writes "I work in the tech department of an elementary school and I am trying to show the tech director the world of Linux. I will be installing edubuntu but I am not sure which laptop to get. I know there are companies like System76 that sell laptops with Linux already installed but I wanted to ask you for your thoughts. We want something small and light weight for the kids. We do not need much horsepower as the main use will be internet/email/word processing and whatever other apps come with edubuntu. Basically, what we really want is something MacBook Air-like but not nearly as expensive. Thoughts?"

Comments

Re:Are you fcking Crazy ?

[BroadbandBradley]

so much easier to support than winblows. the only issue you ever run into is training, and kids will figure stuff out on their own. I replaced various versions of Windows at my company 5 years ago and that's the last time I had to dick around with spyware and virus scans and reloading OS's, Ubuntu just works and users don't break it. go back to redmond where you work and stay there.

I remember when . . .

[drsmack1]

. . . kids went to school and learned critical thinking skills and 'how to learn'. Teaching computers or with computers in k-12 is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the american education system.

Teach someone how to think and they'll be able to pick up any necessary skills they haven't gotten from their own (outside of school).

And before one of you autistic fucks start your little knee-jerk arguments about "preparing little Susie for the internet age", do this:

* First, go fuck yourself

* Then go find some random 18 year olds (and I mean RANDOM, not your own little autistic fucks) and start asking them things that a graduate of HS should know. They won't know any of it.

And I know that there are a few of you who are silently nodding along and think that they agree with me. Sorry you autistic fucks, I'm not talking about teaching creationism or whatever BS that you are using for political advantage. I'm talking about the wholesale churning out of kids who can't write complete sentences.

Queue the downvotes by those who like the system just the way it is - a production line producing "adults" that are not capable of self-government. Look at a fucking map sometime of who votes democrat in this country. If you ever found yourself driving somewhere where you feel compelled to roll up your windows and lock your doors - guess what? I betcha you are in a blue spot on the map...

And yes, I understand that on average those living in the red areas aren't real technically inclined and all that - because you know, that is what makes people functional adults, capable of being happy and helping others to be happy; right? For all your sputtering arrogance; are you happy? Do you make those around you happy?

Well, no worries, being able to memorize lengthy bits of pi is more important than being neurologically healthy; right?

Yeah champ; you keep telling yourself that.

There is one simple and unalterable fact: without the 90-99% rubber stamp vote by the most apathetic, lazy, ignorant, and easily propagandized groups of people in the USA, liberals/socialists/hucksters would be unable to win any sort of nationwide elections at all. Doesn't sound like they have any actual motivation to succeed in what they *say* they want to accomplish.

If Republicans are "for the rich" and "against the poor" - which group do they have a vested interest in growing? Who gives them their power?

If the Democrats are "for the poor" - which group do they have a vested interest in growing? Who gives them their power?

This is the sort of simple *human* understanding that separate the parse-everything-and-understand-nothing autistic fucks and the neurologically closer to normal people.

You want to know if you are one of the people that I am talking about (autistic fucks)? Look inside yourself and note how you are processing my little screed. If you find yourself looking for minor caveats and unimportant exceptions instead of thinking of a argument against the *idea* that I am putting forth - you are one of the people who are the problem.

And no, not every autistic spectrum person out there is a Einstein or Tesla. No. You see, for every nut like those two fine fellows that actually generated a net positive for the world, there are hundreds of thousand who have all of the deficits and none of the abilities of those two. And you fuckers DO NOT understand human nature, so you are soooo easily fooled by any bit of rubbish that is wrapped in some sort of pseudo-scientific bs.

And you greasy foreigners out there. You can read this, you can read that - but you have no fucking idea WHATSOEVER about what is going on in this country. None. Unless you can go back in time and really do a study on how institutions worked in the USA in the 1950's, you have no frame of reference and your opinions are simply not applicable. If the USA had blinked out of existence in 1900, the world would now be the same kind of cesspool of human bondage and misery that was the entirety of human h

Linux on the desktop is dead

[hairyfish]

When are you guys going to accept that Linux on desktop/laptop is dead? It went from nowhere to next to nowhere and is heading back that way quickly. If you hate Windows, go Apple, or if you hate Apple go Windows. Most kids are not interested in programming, You owe it to them to teach them something that they'll actually see and use out in the real world.