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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?"
The Lenovo laptops always work well with Linux. The S110 (mini) may be good for elementary school. I am using one daily running Fedora 16.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Do elementary-school students really need laptops?
You don't want an Air. That's basically taking the parts from a full power, full featured laptop and using heavy integration to cram it into an extra thin case.
Doing that for cheaper is basically the definition of "Ultrabook".
But you're looking for less powerful and less expensive. That's square on what Netbooks were created for. Pick your favorite 12" model.
If you want something with more midrange performance, look at the Thinkpad X130 series. It's not a real Thinkpad, but more of a premium-grade netbook.
What "educational opportunites"?
Computing is about gettting stuff done. It's not about using particular branded products. Even if you do choose to fixate on a particular brand, it's rather likely that the brand won't be recognizable by "later in their careers".
Schools should be teaching concepts not products.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What can a child do with an iPad at that age?
If it's just "reading books" and "playing games", then you should consider cheaper alternatives since obviously your child could also use books and games. The even more pressing issue is of course that tablets don't give tactile feedback. Playing with bricks, for example, gives that feedback. They need to learn how strongly they need to grip such a block and they practice that since they want to learn how to use the blocks. That's an experience a tablet cannot give them.
Don't confuse the latest fad rich people have with something which will benefit your child.
First, my recommendations:
Acer - I have seen minimal compatibility issues. Build quality ranges from pretty good to ok. Modifiable. Aesthetically respectable.
Asus - Generally of pretty good build quality. Aesthetically above average. Usually quite compatible. Modifiable from my experience. Has made some unfriendly decisions regarding Linux lately. I am partial to Asus, at least until they push too far with Linux hostilities. They also make motherboards, which is a good skill to have in a manufacturer.
MSI - Pretty good.
Gateway - Pretty good from a few years back, though I am not sure now.
Build Your Own - There are websites out there that will allow you to build your own laptop to your desired specs. More expensive, but you get what you truly desire.
Now for the crap:
HP - Sometimes they look great, they usually perform very well in Windows and Linux, of generally acceptable build quality. But they do something that really, REALLY pisses me off; they poison the BIOS to prevent hardware modification. I once tried to change my Broadcom wifi chip to an Atheros, both identical half-mini PCI, and the computer would refuse to boot, providing only an error message of "Unsupported Hardware Detected". I despise HP. I could go on too.
Sony - (insert profanity here)
Lenovo - Often pretty to look at, good performance on Win/Lin, but like HP they are hostile to customer hardware modifications and often poison the BIOS. You might also note that flashing the BIOS does not correct the problem easily. They sure aren't IBM anymore. But I think IBM may have also shared this authoritarianism.
Mac - Beautiful little bastards. But I'll leave it at that.
You know what would educate kids better than some flavor of laptop?
Teachers.
Work Safe Porn
Call Dell, Call IBM
Calling IBM won't help. Unless you want an IBM BladeCenter . . . every kid gets his own blade. Or why not virtualize and consolidate everything to one 24/7 zSeries. The server will have a better attendance record than the school kids.
IBM doesn't sell PCs. But they will sell you a cloud of them, so that would be easier for the school kids to carry, because clouds are lightweight. Hey, no need to worry about theft! How do you steal a kid's cloud like his lunch money? And since the cloud is nowhere and everywhere, the kids can use it at school and at home.
Of course, the ultimate solution would be to buy an IBM Watson system. It is so smart, that you can get rid of those damn kids in your school altogether.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!