I completely agree. Googles results have trailed off from being 'on-the-mark' so much in the past year or so that i've switched over to the teoma.com search engine. The results are very noticeably more relevant.
and it doesn't bother me at all that it's MS. If they, for once, are offering a superior product, at a fair price -- free:o] -- then I'll use it for sure.
I wouldn't say that it is abhorrent, and while I know linux is a great and stable system (I'm gentoo user myself) I would have to agree, aside from cost... Learning curve, softare needs/costs, and resistence to new things... Yes there is a learning curve here, but it is a school, and why not prepare the kids for a world beyond Windows (TM)... The functionality that one would need in a small school setting will most likely be what? Internet browsing, document/word processing, a slideshow-stype program (ala powerpoint) and a spreadsheet-type program (excel), and a few other programs that I'm almost 99.9% positive would be available. Obviously with anything new you'll have the people who just have to resist taking on the new standard, but that's a minimal concern I think...
There are pro's and cons for both sides of the argument here, but I think the switch to linux wouldn't cause many problems in such a small setting...
Why not try it on a few machines at first, and see how many kids are fighting over the two "cool" computers?
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I completely agree. Googles results have trailed off from being 'on-the-mark' so much in the past year or so that i've switched over to the teoma.com search engine. The results are very noticeably more relevant.
and it doesn't bother me at all that it's MS. If they, for once, are offering a superior product, at a fair price -- free :o] -- then I'll use it for sure.
I wouldn't say that it is abhorrent, and while I know linux is a great and stable system (I'm gentoo user myself) I would have to agree, aside from cost... Learning curve, softare needs/costs, and resistence to new things... Yes there is a learning curve here, but it is a school, and why not prepare the kids for a world beyond Windows (TM)... The functionality that one would need in a small school setting will most likely be what? Internet browsing, document/word processing, a slideshow-stype program (ala powerpoint) and a spreadsheet-type program (excel), and a few other programs that I'm almost 99.9% positive would be available. Obviously with anything new you'll have the people who just have to resist taking on the new standard, but that's a minimal concern I think...
There are pro's and cons for both sides of the argument here, but I think the switch to linux wouldn't cause many problems in such a small setting...
Why not try it on a few machines at first, and see how many kids are fighting over the two "cool" computers?