Stop Microsoft
Operating Systems => Linux and UNIX => Topic started by: piratePenguin on 17 August 2006, 15:50
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http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=192201386
By Edward F. Moltzen, CRN
4:10 PM EDT Wed. Aug. 16, 2006
How's this for back-to-school fashion: More than 20,000 Indiana students are now Linux-enabled under a state grant program to roll out low-cost, easy-to-manage workstations, which are running various flavors of the open-source operating system.
Mike Huffman, special assistant for technology at the Indiana Department of Education, said schools in the state have added Linux workstations for 22,000 students over the past year under the Affordable Classroom Computers for Every Secondary Student (ACCESS) program. And that could expand quickly with several new updated Linux distributions, such as Novell SUSE, Red Hat and Ubuntu.
This year, Huffman expects Linux desktop deployments to grow from 24 high schools to 80 high schools, driven by lower costs, higher functionality and early successes.
"The use of [Novell] SLED 10, I think, will increase significantly this year in schools, and we have Red Hat participating. They are getting some penetration in the local schools," Huffman said, adding that one school district has been having "a good deal of success with Ubuntu."
"The amazing part of this is, with everything we're doing in the classroom, teachers don't bring up Linux," he said. "They don't bring up open source. They bring up curriculum. You don't want the focus to be on Linux or open source."
Local schools can choose which platform to use, according to Huffman. "Many will install Windows machines. What we're doing in our grant program is, when we put one-to-one computers in language arts classrooms, they are loaded with Linux.
"We have a million kids in the state of Indiana," he continued. "If we were to pay $100 for software on each machine, each year, that's $100 million for software. That's well beyond our ability. That's why open source is so attractive. We can cut those costs down to $5 [on each computer] per year."
Huffman said he's eager to get a read on student acceptance of Linux. In surveying one classroom last year, he asked a student what he thought of using a Linux desktop vs. a Windows desktop, and the student responded, "Who cares?"
Approved suppliers for the program include Dell and Hewlett-Packard, as well as several system builders. All are supplying Linux-based desktops. HP and Dell have traditionally been strong allies of Microsoft, and their desktops and notebooks to the broader market are virtually all based on Windows.
"It's a very good program," said John Levy, CEO of Wintergreen Systems, an Elkhart, Ind.-based system builder that's on the ACCESS state contract. "The schools that have received [the grant] have been successful in their deployment. And the schools that have not received the product yet are trying to figure out if they need more infrastructure."
Wintergreen provides a complete desktop system for not more than $250. The PC maker has designed student workstations with clear tops that keep monitors out of the way so that teachers can see each student and monitor their work while they're on the computer.
Levy also said he believes new Linux distributions, such as Linspire's recently announced Freespire free Linux OS, will help drive the program. The number of students using Linux desktops in Indiana "will skyrocket," he added.
"I think within five years, we'll see a huge market shift," Huffman said. "But the Linux community really has to come together. They do have to have a common API; they've got to have a common installer. If those things don't exist, it will not be a competitive market again. If they do exist, I think it will."
Neat!
Slashdot discussion (http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/06/08/17/137219.shtml)
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Huffman said he's eager to get a read on student acceptance of Linux. In surveying one classroom last year, he asked a student what he thought of using a Linux desktop vs. a Windows desktop, and the student responded, "Who cares?"
Typical fucking high school punk. However, if he doesn't give a crap, might as well use Linux. Most states and their education systems are fucking broke. It's amazing that no one else has considered this possibility as a means of saving $100 million per year.
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Typical fucking high school punk. However, if he doesn't give a crap, might as well use Linux. Most states and their education systems are fucking broke. It's amazing that no one else has considered this possibility as a means of saving $100 million per year.
Isn't it kind of like asking a prisoner whether he'd like peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese for lunch? It doesn't change the fact that you're in prison, and it doesn't change the fact that you'd rather have a cheeseburger and fries anyway.
No matter what OS it runs, it's just another workstation they'll get shuffled off to when Mrs. Brown is too lazy to make a real lesson plan that day. Solitaire time! You can do busy work in Linux or Windows just fine.
So -- yeah, my response would been pretty similar at age 15.
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I think this reflects the average mentality. I doubt most people even care what is in their computer, let alone what OS it has. All they want is something they don't have to mess with, turn on, do work, play games and cyber some fat chick/dude who is posting fake pix of themselves. It's only the OS collectors and technical minded people who seem to care.
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Wintergreen sold systems through Tiger Direct. Tiger's national warehouse is in Indiana, so maybe the shipping is 'free'.
Glad to see that someone cares enough about saving tax money to try open source.
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Great. Now if Virginia would do that, but we just have all Windows and overpriced, overpowered Macs. You don't need a 256-bit graphics card and terabyte of RAM to surf the net at 3 mbps.
I'll be giving out Ubuntu cds on Screw Microsoft Day, of course. Even got some for Macs :)
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The Good news about open source is actually funny. Thry could use those windows machines that millions of tax dollars were wasted on, and go on the internet to replace the OS with open source for free...But that wouldn't be right, a large organization would more than likely want to by a prpietary copy just to blame someone if their junk breaks...
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Huffman said he's eager to get a read on student acceptance of Linux. In surveying one classroom last year, he asked a student what he thought of using a Linux desktop vs. a Windows desktop, and the student responded, "Who cares?"
He shoulda bitchslapped that fucker, formatted his HDD and installed Window$ 3.1 on it :D And maybe some type of hardware based locking system to prevent him from ever changing his OS again.
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Window$ 3.1
No way! Windows XP!!
(3.1 can't possibly be worse than XP)
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HA!!!
The new motto!
Linux
Because 22,000 students in Indiana can't be wrong.
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No way! Windows XP!!
(3.1 can't possibly be worse than XP)
No, not XP ... Me. If you never tried Me it's like XP, only much less stable, and damn slow. Still, 3.1 would be a pain to run cuz you're stuck with really old, buggy, shitty apps.
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At least 3.1 had a viable shell and an integrated command line interface. Even though it was a hacked-up piece of shit.
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big deal. Around here there are about 2000 in the university, and this is a small non-entity place.
And speaking of the American public school system. If you think it's anything more than a warehouse to keep kids and teens out of adults' way in the day, then you're quite an idealist. :D
Btw, I doubt 3.1 would run on a modern PC. I tried running 98 on a brand new PC a few months ago. It choked for some reason. It has something to do with the processor. It could probably be fixed to run somehow, but who really cares.
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And speaking of the American public school system. If you think it's anything more than a warehouse to keep kids and teens out of adults' way in the day, then you're quite an idealist. :D
Sadly, that can't be more true :(
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You're telling me. It was just a few years ago for me, I remember it well.
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I don't think I learned anything beneficial from school after the 6th grade. Once you can read, write, add, subtract, and multiply you're pretty much set on a road of autodidacticism -- well you should be anyway.
Everything else (and what I'd guess makes the substance of my character) came from self-reading, exploration (talking to interesting people), BBS discussions, late-night phone talks, Internet research, and raw experience only a cold world can provide.
Hard to get that while you're cramming for a test about some asshole named Christopher Columbus and memorizing bullshit. What you do learn from school:
A) Classism -- hey, your family is poor and can't afford the latest Jordans -- go sit at the loser table.
B) Preferential Treatment -- I know you're having trouble in Calculus, but I have to give you this D; Johnny on the other hand needs at least a C or coach will kick him off the football team, and he's our star player.
C) Structure -- Don't think outside of the box. All we need is this 5 year old textbook and the lesson plan I borrowed from the teacher I replaced 15 years ago. Also, be sure not to express any intelligent opinions in front of other peers, because that kind of shit isn't cool. Sticking to the program always works!
The truth is the best teacher is one who will teach you to not need a teacher at all. The 12 years is prison. It's supposed to be. It's indoctrination and brain washing, making sure you have no doubt in the system and that it -- in the long run -- works.
Now college used to be the place you go to unlearn all the bullshit you learned in public school. It was the place where elite ended up, and so they were privileged enough to have this 'outer' knowledge of the nation's workings within the boundaries of their own blind-following; you couldn't get to higher education unless you pretended to swallow the 12 years before it, after all. So you gain this 'outer' knowledge and feel liberated in some sense, but you're still indebted to the 'father' of it all for giving it to you. That's when you work for 15 years to pay off thousands in student loans, never having a minute of free time to pursue much. Oh, that project you were working on? You can't complete it after working from 9-9 every other day of the week.
And so you're stuck. And so those who see through all of this usually drift away and get depressed -- maybe they become alcoholics, drug addicts, or just mental.
Welcome to your future. Sometimes you should envy the stupid people, because they can go through it all just like your household cat or dog -- licking their balls and eager to wake up to another day of systematic nothingness, where some bigger person determines when and how you're let out of your cage.
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Capitalist society requires that you give up a certain amount of your time building capital for someone else, usually somebody higher on the class totem pole than you. For some unknown reason, it has been decided that the time you have to give up is 9am to 5pm, Monday thru Friday. School gets you used to a regular schedule, taking orders from above, not differing from your peers too much, and working toward no benefit whatsoever. Fortunately, you still live at home, so you have a place to go when you fuck up. When you start building capital for the man, if you fuck up, you're out, and when you're out, you starve. That's why they start the training so early, because everybody screws up at least once.
But to be honest, I enjoyed college a lot. Not everyone there had a brain. But college is the easiest place to find those late night discussions and drunken philosphy sessions that really matter to your human development. You can literally walk up to someone and say "Have you ever noticed that all the interaction between young people in Shakespeare's plays takes place during the night, while the older people have total control over the daytime?" and talk so long you miss a whole weekend. I enjoyed that. I didn't have much time for computers because I was busy being in a band, starting my own record company, and drinking whole summers away. I wouldn't give up the 8 years (!) I spent as an undergraduate for anything.
So there you go. It's wrong, but it's right.
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Linux
Because 22,000 students in Indiana can't be wrong.
Sig-quoted. :D
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Now college used to be the place you go to unlearn all the bullshit you learned in public school. It was the place where elite ended up, and so they were privileged enough to have this 'outer' knowledge of the nation's workings within the boundaries of their own blind-following; you couldn't get to higher education unless you pretended to swallow the 12 years before it, after all. So you gain this 'outer' knowledge and feel liberated in some sense, but you're still indebted to the 'father' of it all for giving it to you. That's when you work for 15 years to pay off thousands in student loans, never having a minute of free time to pursue much. Oh, that project you were working on? You can't complete it after working from 9-9 every other day of the week.
Well maybe, but it's also the place where little douchebags go to pass the time to have a few more years of spending daddy's money. Then they think they're hot shit because they somehow end up making something of themselves after a million discarded opportunities, when most people only have about one. It's so easy to "succeed" when there's no real pressure to do so.
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I just read Bedouins post...anyone got some razor blades, a gun, a long piece of rope and a whole shit load of narcotics...I fell like ending it all now...
I see someone in need of that PMA course that fills the empty elective spot.
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I just read Bedouins post...anyone got some razor blades, a gun, a long piece of rope and a whole shit load of narcotics...I fell like ending it all now...
I see someone in need of that PMA course that fills the empty elective spot.
I really liked it ... in fact I will sig that last part.
Come on, suicide is not an appropriate answer. The answer is fight the system ... "rage against the machine" :D
Of course, sometimes this seems pointless ... like you vs. everyone else ... but I like those odds. Overwhelming odds always get to me ... I love going up against a force so powerful you don't even stand a chance against it. Why ? Because it's damn fun and exciting, and it's worth it while killing yourself isn't. If they get you so down you kill yourself then they win. Thechnically they can't lose, but I still bet against them. I bet on myself, I can defeat any enemy, overcome impossible odds, take a million tank shells in the head without even flinching. Fuck yeah !!!
P.S. Some time ago I dreamed that I beat the shit out of Superman ... yeah it took a while to do, but I did it and I didn't need any fucking kryptonite either. :eek:
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[offtopic]Why do people put sig quotes in the "quote" tag? It takes up more room than than simply putting it in quotation marks and then putting "-username" at the end. I mean, the last thing we need is signatures that take up more room....[/offtopic]
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[offtopic] Well as long as it's less than 500 characters it's legal ... ok, fine I've removed all the extra spaces, now it's more compact [/offtopic]