Open source in schools

[Alex Maynard]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Tyler Aviss wrote:

> My experience with this (working in a district that is greatly Linux
> and moreso over time) is that students and staff like it quite a lot
> in terms of speed and functionality  compared to our locked-down
> windows stations, but that the transition is hell unless you do a
> really strong audit of your existing network/software infrastructure,
> and take a good look at software that doesn't have a linux/FOSS
> equivalent.

If you use thin clients doesn't that mean that you could leave the 
existing windows machines in place as a legacy during the transition so 
as to smooth the transition?  I may not understand correctly what a thin
client is, but I thought it meant that in the class-room you only need 
something like keyboard, screen, and good direct internet connection to 
the server?  If so, couldn't you leave the existing computers place with
their current operating systems and add something like a switch to share 
the monitors?

Alex

>
> Many of the schools here run on thin clients. They're nice to
> administer (central server), but lack of good backups may be the death
> of us in that arena (no server, no clients). The majority of common
> software is available to students/staff, they can login anywhere and
> access their files, and there are a lot of conveniences. We've
> definitely had issues with poor planning (aka it was oftimes crammed
> down people's throats without assessing the important windows-only
> software), poor implementation (daisy-chained 10/100 switches, no gig
> uplinks, servicing 50-100+ clients and one server), and
> miscommunication. It's a good way to give the techs white hairs (in my
> case, hair loss), and a very good way to sour staff on what might
> otherwise be a very positive IT environment.
>
> So my personal opinion is somewhat mixed. I still say that a Linux
> environment in education can be a great thing, but a poor
> implementation creates havoc and just turns people off on the whole
> concept.
>
> Things to consider:
>
> * Server power
> * Redundancy
> * Backup
> * Existing software
> * Existing hardware (compatability)
> * Network infrastructure (including wiring, plain Cat5 doesn't do gig very well)
> * Interface (KDE, gnome, etc)
> * Security (NFS = insecure, and many others)
> * Training
> * etc
>
> If looking to switch, it's also not a bad idea at all to get people
> started with cross-platform FOSS software, for example: Firefox,
> Thunderbird, OpenOffice, GIMP, Blender, GAIM, most google stuff
> (somewhat), and others. It helped here at work, and also when I
> switched my grandparents over to 'nix from win2k, and my cousin from
> XP. It didn't hurt that my grandparents' "Hoyle Card Games" works
> nicely in wine, nor that my cousin finds Vista a more painful switch
> than Linux :-)
>
>
>
>
> On 10/23/07, phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org <phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>
>>> As a LUG i feel we should be more pro-active in this area.
>>                   ^^
>>
>> Is that the Royal We? Or the External We (ie, you guys)?
>>
>> This reminds me for some reason of my colleague's memo pad that says at
>> the top 'I've got a good idea, you do this instead of me.'
>>
>> The trick to getting others involved in a project is (as Tom Sawyer points
>> out in the fence painting episode) to make it look like soooo much fun
>> that others will *want* to join in.
>>
>> --
>> Peter Hiscocks
>> Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto
>> http://www.syscompdesign.com
>> USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator
>> 647-839-0325
>>
>> --
>> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
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>>
>
>
> -- 
> Tyler Aviss
> Systems Support
> LPIC/LPIC-2
> (647) 477-1784
> --
> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
>
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists