A Year of Linux Desktop At Westcliff High School

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A Year of Linux Desktop At Westcliff High School

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday July 31, 2013 @05:17AM from the freedom-for-all dept.

jrepin writes "Around a year ago, a school in the southeast of England, Westcliff High School for Girls Academy (WHSG), began switching its student-facing computers to Linux, with KDE providing the desktop software. The school's Network Manager, Malcolm Moore, contacted us at the time. Now, a year on, he got in touch again to let us know how he and the students find life in a world without Windows." And they didn't even meet much resistance: "Younger students accept it as normal. Older students can be a little less flexible. There are still a few that are of the view that I can get rid of Microsoft Word when I can pry it from them. Staff are the same (although it is surprisingly not age-related). Some are OK and some hate it. Having said that, an equal number hate Windows 7 and nobody liked Windows 8. I think the basic problem is that Windows XP is a victim of its own success. It works fairly well from a user point of view, it's been around practically forever, and people don't like change, even some students, oddly."

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Re:High School for Girls Academy by X0563511 · 2013-07-31 05:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Nobody said this was a focus group.

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Why not more than a clone of Windows and Office? by WillAdams · 2013-07-31 05:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'd really like to see a desktop suite of alternatives which do away w/ the shackles of backwards compatibility and instead try to do things right:
- LyX for documents
- Flexisheet for spreadsheets
Wish there was something other than Asymptote or METAPOST to suggest for vector graphics (I'd like to see a successor to Altsys Virtuoso and Aldus IntelliDraw and FutureWave SmartSketch).
Other alternatives which aren't ``just'' clones?

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Are high school girls not normal users? by crashcy · 2013-07-31 05:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

Is there any reason to think this user base would be any more or less likely to adapt to Linux than a "normal user base"?
1. Re:Are high school girls not normal users? by crashcy · 2013-07-31 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Why would you assume the normal user is rational and practical? If you've ever worked desktop support, you wouldn't. So the point of this article is that a group of students, in this case high school age females, had no trouble with the transition. There is no reason I can think of to assume they would be more likely to adapt then another sample.
2. Re:Are high school girls not normal users? by interkin3tic · 2013-07-31 05:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There's a valid point that your sarcasm hides: high school girls are often stubborn, irrational, and value popularity of a product more than the product itself. Aside from microsoft employees and apple fanatics, high school girls are the group I'd most expect to be resistant to changing OS. Yet they seem to have no problem with it.
  
  It drives home the point that the only reason people don't switch to linux is inertia. It's not that people reject linux, even very stubborn, crazy groups of people.
  
  (Disclaimer: I may still be a little bitter at high school girls from when they wouldn't talk to me when I was in high school.)
3. Re:Are high school girls not normal users? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-31 06:05 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  There's a valid point that your sarcasm hides: high school girls are often stubborn, irrational, and value popularity of a product more than the product itself.
  Sounds like Slashdot.
4. Re:Are high school girls not normal users? by crashcy · 2013-07-31 06:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Let me understand this: high school girls have no trouble using Linux, and high school girls like Twilight and Bieber, hence, Linux must suck? Am I understanding your logic ok here?
  My take from this story is that a group of people with no general predisposition toward using an OS that is commonly seen as difficult to learn and just for geek hobbyists picked up on it without trouble.
5. Re:Are high school girls not normal users? by Nerdfest · 2013-07-31 07:14 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  They still don't talk to me. 40 years has merely changed it from "nerdy" to "creepy". You just can't win.
6. Re:Are high school girls not normal users? by dandelionblue · 2013-07-31 07:57 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I actually went to this school when I was younger (so I was pretty surprised to see it appear on Slashdot!), and was very interested in this article because when I was there, we were given a very good IT education - in MS Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint and Frontpage (plus, er, PageMaker).
  Anyway, I think there are a few reasons why this userbase might adapt to Linux better than a random selection of people:
  1. Their age - while a lot of older people are extremely reluctant to just try something on a computer, for fear of breaking it, people who've grown up with computers as the norm aren't so worried about that. So I think they're less likely to be intimidated by a new interface, and more likely to engage with customising it.
  1a. You would also probably get less resistance from them than from a worker who's been using MS Office every single day for the past 20 years and is extremely familiar with it and therefore works very, very quickly. Swapping their software over will result in an immediate productivity drop and could cost a company money. Swapping a 12-year-old's software over is a minor annoyance.
  2. It's a science and engineering school, so a number of the girls who have chosen to go there will have a bigger interest in technology than the average population of the area. (There are other schools of a similar academic standard locally with different specialisms and this does guide some students' school preferences.)
  3. The school is academically selective, so you have a better chance of being able to teach the students how to adapt to different systems (swapping between Linux and Windows when a workplace requires it, for example). In an average population you will confuse a lot of people just because the blue "e" they click to go on the Internet has disappeared.
Exactly! by sootman · 2013-07-31 05:31 · Score: 5, Interesting

> [Windows XP] works fairly well from a user point of view, it's
> been around practically forever, and people don't like change.
Yes, yes, and yes. Too bad MS didn't realize that -- they could have just spent the last few years refining XP and keeping people happy.
Apple actually has a pretty good thing going on with OS X -- like them or not, "small changes every year or two" beats "monumental fuckups twice a decade."

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Windows is cheaper than Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-31 05:34 · Score: 5, Informative

One of the reasons we see so much Windows in education is that its cheaper than Linux. Microsoft gives out free software and hardware deals to schools as "donations". At my University, our CSE department had clearly been supplied with a lot of Windows stuff (I got 3 free Windows licences, and lots of other stuff as a student, I suspect the Labs got similar offers). The ratio of Windows to Linux machines was higher than most of the students wanted (It was often hard to find open Linux machines).
My High-school got all its computers replaced through some deal with Microsoft while I was there, and they were all Windows.
Microsoft makes large investments in getting its products into education so people get used to them. The people who resist change will then be stuck with them and but it in the future.
I assume this kind of thing is not the case everywhere, but their efforts seems to be keeping Windows as the standard OS in education. I'm really happy to see people working (and succeeding) at escaping this.
Re:I understand, it is Very hard to leave Windows by KernelMuncher · 2013-07-31 05:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

I have to wonder about the Microsoft corporate strategy to keep changing the interfaces to their OS with each release.

Imagine if all changes were on the back end (security, improved networking, etc) and only a handful of changes were made with the front end. Windows would have millions of content and loyal users. And nobody would ever want to change.
Parents Protesting Over Lack Of MS Office by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-31 05:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

The author mentioned that some parents protested because they felt learning Microsoft Office is crucial to their children's success. However we now live in an era where Microsoft is beginning to lose that stronghold. With Open/Libre Office always improving and solutions such as Google Apps gaining traction, I fail to see how this is really a factor anymore. By 2024 MS may not even be the major player anymore in the office space. This is like the prior generation telling us we must be proficient at using a typewriter or hand writing in cursive to land a job.
Re:I understand, it is Very hard to leave Windows by masterofthumbs · 2013-07-31 05:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

To be fair, the difference between XP and Vista/7 wasn't that drastic. Sure the colors changed but if anything, it was still XP underneath with an updated look (and some cool new tools). Windows 8 is where they went off on a tangent and put a little too much tablet UI in a desktop OS.
Re:Think of the children by Bert64 · 2013-07-31 05:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

They said the same about DOS and Wordperfect when i was in highschool, where are they now?
School should teach users generally applicable concepts, ie that there are multiple applications to accomplish a given task. If you only teach specific software then users will be stuck if they encounter different software, and by the time they leave school the software will be different. Even newer versions of the same applications are often wildly different. If taught properly, people will be able to grasp any new application that's designed for performing the same general functions.

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Re:Think of the children by bryanandaimee · 2013-07-31 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Exactly! Because we all know that school is first and foremost a job training program designed to replicate drone workers efficiently. You wouldn't want to expose those impressionable youngsters to alternative tech, or heaven forbid, non-PC thought.
Re:Think of the children by iggymanz · 2013-07-31 05:46 · Score: 4, Informative

I used a typewriter in high school.
on the side, a teacher and some of us students formed a computer club and bought a TRS-80 so we could do Z80 assembly.
Since then I've used various document creating softwares on CDC Cyber, Vax, Unix, OS/2, Novell, Windows, Linux,
so the answer to your question is "hell no, what's the point"
Re:People hate change by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-31 05:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

Figure out this: Loading very large documents, which are fairly common in professional settings, is instanteous with Word because it loads them asynchronously and doesn't parse the entire document when it is loaded, LibreOffice and its predecessor on the other hand try to parse the entire document, which can take upward to seveal minutes. It is them that need to change some of the architecture of their program, not the users who "must adapt to change".
Re:Linux needs some help from Microsoft... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-31 05:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

s/Linux/Os X/
Re:People hate change by Animats · 2013-07-31 05:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

If you can't figure out LIbre Office you shouldn't have your job.
LibreOffice just isn't very good. I've used StarOffice, then OpenOffice, then LibreOffice. I haven't used Microsoft Word since Word 97. And I still think LibreOffice sucks. It's usable, but amateurish.
Open source just can't get user interfaces right. LibreOffice has subtle problems, such as spelling correction that insists on making a change even after you've undone the change. Microsoft Word will yield to the user in that situation. The command-line crowd will never get fine details like that. I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu machines side by side on my desk, but the Ubuntu machine is used only for robotics software development.
I've watched Linux blow it on the desktop for fifteen years. There was an opportunity when XP was late. Linux blew it. There was an opportunity when everybody hated Vista. Linux blew it. There's an opportunity now when nobody wants to go to Windows 8. Linux is blowing it.
For a good laugh, look at what it takes to create a shortcut to a program in Ubuntu.
Bring back XP by Skapare · 2013-07-31 06:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's OK to upgrade it with drivers for newer hardware, and plug up more security holes. But give us the same user interface (as a choice).
Really. We CAN go back and run most older window systems/managers on a new Linux kernel and maybe new X server. We can get the old user interface. We can even get something that emulates Windows 95 (seen it). Why can't the core Microsoft Windows system do that? Just provide an app that chooses which user interface to use.

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Re:Why not more than a clone of Windows and Office by DutchUncle · 2013-07-31 06:03 · Score: 3, Informative

Easy to say discard compatibility; except that means EVERYTHING has to become compatible with this NEW system. All you're doing is trading one compatibility for another. Plus people already have older PCs with an installed ecosystem of programs.
Re:Think of the children by Just+Some+Guy · 2013-07-31 06:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

None of my workplaces have used Windows for anything important. The shift to everything-as-a-web-app certainly helps.

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Re:Think of the children by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-31 06:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

My last workplace used Linux almost exclusively. Its not a Windows World out there.
Personally, I think learning only one OS cripples someone's understanding of is a design decision in an OS, what is a fact about current computers, and what is basic reality. Its much like learning only one programming language, or only one spoken language: you can't understand something very well from passive use of a single just one type. This is why you pretty much have to take some foreign language to get into college, and the same thing applies to OSs.
There is a reason I've played with Windows, Mac (os 1-9 and X), Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, Sugar...), BSD, Plan9 etc. and read up on others like DOS, Genode, Unix, Multix etc. I don't expect everyone to go that far, but using at least a few will greatly help you understand what an OS is, and what they can do.
I've see single OS users (my mom with Mac for example) attempt to explain how to do something on a different OS (say windows) to someone by referring to specific specific abstraction's details (where menus are for example) which are missing or very different on the OS they are talking about. Not understanding the difference between "launching a web browser", and "clicking on safari in the right end of the dock" is horrible! People won't make it past this naive understanding unless you either make them use a couple OSs, or give them a serious lesson in OS design (I recommend the first approach).