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Creating a School Computer Lab With Ubuntu For $0
An anonymous reader writes "Here is an interesting story of a school in Oakland that used old computers running Ubuntu and OpenOffice.org to provide a school computer lab for students."
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An old idea in action is refreshingly inspirational. It humbly reminds us that newer is not always better, it's what you make of it that counts.
In my (thankfully limited) encounters with formal disposal rules, public and private, 'just flog the stuff on ebay' is frequently far more trouble than it ends up being worth.
One major factor is that a successful institution needs to be set up so as not to be easy meat for dishonest functionaries(at least before they've worked their way to the top). Common result? Low level cogs selling things, especially things with unclear value, is not encouraged. This goes double if the said low-level cog has some degree of purchasing authority. It's just too easy to use official funds to pay at the front door, then flog gear out the back door for direct personal profit and/or kickbacks of some flavor. This does cramp a lot of perfectly legitimate plans by honest people; but tends to remain in force because nobody has a better idea about how to discourage the entrepreneurial tendencies of the chronically dishonest.
Many teachers, union or otherwise, would gladly do it but they won't because they know that as soon as they volunteer the administration will make it a "voluntold" position that will simply be another duty that person is expected to work for no additional pay. Once that happens the altruistic nature goes out the window.
Some teachers are bad and some teachers are in unions. The overlap of these circles is unfortunate because bad teachers are defended from the administration by a union just like good teachers are. Unions are not about money. They are about job security. A teacher risks their job by going above and beyond like this. Suddenly an administrator sees 4 hours being worked for free and the situation becomes "if you can do A for free then why can't you do B for free?". When the union defends the teacher getting paid to do B the administration publicly paints the unions as money grubbing anachronisms that served their purpose and need to go away, when paradoxically the fact the the union needed to step in at all proves they are not yet done serving their purpose.
Teaching, much like police work, fire fighting, is a "share the burden" profession where workers help one another often times at personal expense, financial or otherwise, to achieve a common goal. The mindset of "help others" that these workers possess however is easily abused. Administrators seek to pay themselves as much as possible, because they're the chief executives of the district, while paying the "working class" as little as possible and often times asking for volunteer labor that could be paid labor if the administration paid itself less greedily.
I don't think the phrase "just as easily" means what you think it does. Furthermore, if you have hardware with a Windows license you have still not achieved the equivalent. In that case you have an OS and hardware, but you still need applications. Yes many applications are cross platform, but in the end you are far more limited with regard to what you can and cannot do with the Windows system without additional expenditures. With Windows there is no code repository. You have to manage updates for each application seperately, whereas with Linux you can use a cron job to automate updates to the OS and the vast majority of applications. You can use Open Source substitutes for pdf and flash support as well. The advantages go on, but the point is that Windows is more prevalent due solely to ignorance, and not due to any mis-perceived advantage it has over Linux.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
No, you couldn't. Or rather, this gentleman couldn't have, and it'd have been much more time consuming for anyone else to approach.
I installed Windows 7 on a new 128GB Crucial M4 SSD last night (in an i7 tower). Not latest-greatest, but by no means a slow machine! I suppose I should be more precise, in saying that I finished performing the task last night. I actually started several days ago. The process involved:
* The initial installation. This took maybe 30 minutes (as I wondered around the house getting other things done, waiting).
* Configuration of the machine. So far, it's pretty identical to a Linux install in what's done.
* First boot. I now spend an hour or two hunting for and downloading the appropriate drivers for things which aren't quiet working fully. This may or may not be similar with Linux, depending on hardware.
* Oops! Looks like there are updates to perform. Over the next two days, I ran updates, downloading everything that's been released as an update, rebooting, then re-downloading essentially the same fileset for the next update. This would've taken significantly longer if I hadn't been actively doing it. I think I went through over a dozen reboots, and obviously didn't use the computer for much during this time as a result.
* Antivirus, useful utilities, and applications - thankfully, there's Ninite, otherwise this would've taken much longer than it did, all told. Three or four hours, maybe? And I knew what I was doing.
* Oh, look. Now you've got a Windows machine with Administrator access - fine for me, but for an 8th grader? You're going to have to try to figure out how to get them to not break it.
I only spent $7 or so for the AV and had my Windows key already, and everything else was 'free software'. But between the bandwidth and monkey-like setup procedure, doing the same thing with a lab full of old Windows machines would have literally taken months. Many of the machines he was likely receiving wouldn't have even worked (presumably he had at least some with 512MB of RAM, and many with small drives). On those old systems, W7 took the better part of a full 'work day' to just get installed. If he used XP, just forget it.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Windows is NOT just as easy.
Issue One: License compliance. You have to make sure you each machine has a legit copy of windows. Making the assumption these systems have an OEM copy of Windows and knowing what it takes to pass a BSA audit they should have the following: A copy of the invoice for the hardware which shows what verion of Windows is on it. Not just "Windows XP", but "Windows XP SP2". Then they need the Original Windows install media. They should also have a bill of sale or something to document the donation. Plus the maching should have the Windows Licence Key Sticker on it. I know no one crosses all the T's and dots all the I's, but that is what it takes to be in compliance.
Issue Two: Software compliance. You have to make sure you are legit on the software on the computer. MS Office, WordPerfect, PhotoShop, etc. So now you have to do a software audit on the computer. Or you can skip ahead to Issue Three and just wipe the drive and reinsatll the OS.
Issue Three: Cleanly installing the OS to bring the computer back into compliance or to kill the spyware , Cant have a pirate copy of Windows 7 installed on there. If the machine came with XP S2, You have to install that from the original media. Many times people don't even bother to make a set of backeup media. If the system is old enough to use original media instaed of a backup set. then you need drivers for the computer. You may or may not have been given the driver CDs/DVDs. Even if you have, those drvivers are buggy. That means you need to get drivers. So off to to Dell. or HP, or whoever to get the drivers.
Issue Four: Installing the same software on all systems. And again, if any of this is nonfree software, pay attention to license compliance.
And I am not joking. Anyone can phone in and ask for a BSA audit. The school system can decide they don't want to sign on to another 3 years of "MS Software Advantage" at which point the friendly MS rep will remind them that they will be audited for compliance. This is serious stuff.
With Linux all they have to do is toss all the paperwork and CDs. Install from a CD and then check off a list of packages in Synaptic/Software Center. If they partner together with a local linux group/guru they can get an install image with everything already set up. They can even mass blast intalls over the network out to multiple machine. With widnows that takes you to
Issue Five: Purchasing additional licenses if you desire to reimage systems.
I am not saying Widnows is NOT the way to go. There is a lot of great commerceal educationl software. But the license compliance and routine audits are time consuming. You need to have written polices in place about installing and copying software. You need to pay for this software. You have to update a variety of programs with different updaters.
It is NOT as easy as Linux is. It you use a .deb based sytem and only install software from repos. You can image machines, and use batch updates
Issue Six: Heterogeneous computing environment. Windows XP home, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Home Basic, etc. Complex environment. The Home machines can't join a domian, cant be administered with group policy. XP using Documents and Settings, Vista using Users. This adds complexity to taking care of these machines.
Then there are other advantages. I can patch, update, modity and work with all of the Ubutnu systems from cli even when there are users logged into the desktop. Even if I have to install an app with a gui I can always do a "vncserver :5" and start up a new desktop that does not interfere with user desktop.
Please do not tell me that it is as easy setting up a computer lab ruinng widows with random donated hardware as it is with Linux. Unless you have a lot of manpower, experince and finances. At that point you could more eaisly create a Widnows Lab with all new Hardware.
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