The big debate: Should we be moving to Linux in Schools?

[Wubbalubbadub]

 

A debate kicked off in this thread: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/nix/165630-linux-school-help-wanted.html

 

That thread has been left to its original purpose. The discussion can continue here.

 

Over to you MJTayloronline

 

 

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Is this a secondary school?

 

I know this doesn't help... But this surely isn't viable!? A whole school on Linux?

 

1. It's not a common GUI

2. Recruitment for replacement staff would be allot more expensive / harder to recruit, due to the skills needed to manage it

3. How will you manage the link between office documents and whatever your Linux system would be running? I assume it would be open office? Not all features would be available!

4. Your severely limiting your options to software out there, most software is built for Windows and Mac... Your severely limiting the software you can offer the kids

 

That's just a few I can think of on top of my head, I'm sure there's plenty more!

Edited March 30, 2016 by elsiegee40

[CyberNerd]

Is this a secondary school?

 

I know this doesn't help... But this surely isn't viable!? A whole school on Linux?

There are some UK schools that have done this in the past, but entire regions of other countries do it regularly. Remember Chromebooks are still the fastest growing machine in the education market (Google claim they outsell all other devices in US education, combined). I am certain it is possible, but to answer the specifics:

 

1) The browser is the GUI. See Chromebooks

2) Most staff can just about use a browser, the skills are not hard at all just different if you have only used windows.

3) The document system is in the browser

4) Mostly offer browser based software, but others are available.

[Wubbalubbadub]

There are some UK schools that have done this in the past, but entire regions of other countries do it regularly. Remember Chromebooks are still the fastest growing machine in the education market (Google claim they outsell all other devices in US education, combined). I am certain it is possible, but to answer the specifics:

 

1) The browser is the GUI. See Chromebooks

2) Most staff can just about use a browser, the skills are not hard at all just different if you have only used windows.

3) The document system is in the browser

4) Mostly offer browser based software, but others are available.

 

Hmm ok thanks.

 

Maybe I'm just being ignorant... Never heard of it as an actual thing!

[unixman_again]

I used to work in a school that had Linux on the student desktops. For what they did, web browsing and office suite, it was all fine.

[twin--turbo]

Best of luck, it will easily do most if not all of what you need for zero cost but a hill of effort.

 

We should learn to use computers not learn or teach microsoft.

 

TT

[liveman2]

IMO Linux is a growing ecosystem and better then ever for deployment. CENTOS (https://www.centos.org) seems to be pretty robust and is based on Red-Hat.

 

Even if you can't get all the same programs as Windows, a lot of programs are web-based now although I appreciate not all.

 

You can also do things like setup your own repo etc for software updates. The one thing I don't like is the absence of Outlook, although if you are using webmail, it matters less.

[gady]

Brilliant idea, there seems to be a mindset that non open-source software in education is the only way to go and anything else is rubbish/impossible/doesn't work/not mainstream enough. It's good to see there are people who are willing to prove otherwise and keep as much money away from micro$oft as possible!

[nathan]

Brilliant idea, there seems to be a mindset that non open-source software in education is the only way to go and anything else is rubbish/impossible/doesn't work/not mainstream enough. It's good to see there are people who are willing to prove otherwise and keep as much money away from micro$oft as possible!

 

I would hope that isn't the driving force behind using Linux and that it's a case of measuring cost/benefits and what will do the best job for your organisation and not a case of "we'll use it because it's not Microsoft"

[jtoland]

Y dont you go with linux but use terminal service for all your normal windows applications then all u realy need to buy to exstend is calls

[gady]

I would hope that isn't the driving force behind using Linux and that it's a case of measuring cost/benefits and what will do the best job for your organisation and not a case of "we'll use it because it's not Microsoft"

 

That's just a fancy way of saying "We'll use it because it's free", which is essentially the same as "We'll use it because it's not micro$oft".

 

Unfortunately, in the eyes of budget holders anyway, this is the main driving force. My main point, though, was that open-source is a brilliant tool that should be used a lot more. Don't Microsoft have enough money, anyway?

[mavhc]

My arguments will be: use it because it's cheaper, better, more secure, faster, has more privacy, better for the push towards computer science, and education should be about open ideas.

 

Currently working on getting salt formulas working with pillars, trying to get salt to configure bind9. Then DHCP and apt-cache, and then creating client machines.

 

Got debian server to auto install, and saltstack setup, a simple push of a standard package is working.

 

Then openldap I assume, not used that before, advice welcome.

[nathan]

That's just a fancy way of saying "We'll use it because it's free", which is essentially the same as "We'll use it because it's not micro$oft".

 

Unfortunately, in the eyes of budget holders anyway, this is the main driving force. My main point, though, was that open-source is a brilliant tool that should be used a lot more. Don't Microsoft have enough money, anyway?

 

I certainly agree with you that open-source is brilliant, i use it a lot in certain areas and i'm looking into further areas. But the point i'm trying to make is that there are more variables than just the cheapest product.

 

Which big company doesn't have enough money!

[Blue_Cookeh]

Surely as people working in education your main priority should be enabling children to be prepared for the future?

 

Realistically on the client end, Windows is probably used in the majority of business, with Mac closely following, and Linux way off the mark. Children should be given tools they will be using later in life, not using software shoehorned into an Educational environment that teachers can barely use. Chromebooks are an exception, they are entirely web-based and very much a closed ecosystem compared to any Linux distribution. If I tried to switch our school to Linux, no amount of saved money is going to convince them to let me install Linux everywhere, an NQT coming into our school knows Windows, a 4 year old coming into our school knows Windows, it's a no brainer as to what we should be using.

 

A fun project, but it should stay that way, a mishmash of free OSS will never compete with the ecosystem Microsoft have built, and rightly charge for.

 

My arguments will be: use it because it's cheaper, better, more secure, faster, has more privacy, better for the push towards computer science, and education should be about open ideas.

 

I think you're taking a very naive view on why schools would be using Linux over Windows. Linux is not necessarily more secure, not necessarily faster, doesn't have more privacy, and isn't a drive towards computer science.

 

1. Your system is only as secure as the weakest link. If I open up SSH and RDP access to the world and leave those servers unpatched, both will eventually be exploitable

2. Speed is subjective, if I can do my work 10x faster on Windows because I know the environment, it doesn't matter that my Linux-based OS is booting 5 seconds quicker than Windows

3. Lock down your privacy controls using group policy, this is what Enterprise is for, not only this but the world is a changing place. The definition of privacy is changing, and privacy on a shared school computer is probably a moot point anyway.

4. Real "computer scientists" can work on any hardware/software combination. I can write my NumPy/SciPy based scripts in Python on any OS, it's entirely cross compatible.

 

As I said, fun project, but not much more than that. Part of the cost of Microsoft or Apple products are the guaranteed support. You don't get that with OSS software.

 

Samba4 will replicate and replace a windows AD server.

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/LDAP_Backend

 

Samba4 will NOT replace AD and the associated services it provides.

 

Maybe having an IT suite or laptop trolley with CentOS or Ubuntu installed would be a good idea though, to give children the option of using it.

 

I guess my main point here, as much as I love Linux (and do have active Linux servers in our school!), is that this thread is a complete Linux circlejerk with the amount of "Micro$oft" bullpoop flying about.

Edited March 30, 2016 by elsiegee40
Split from original thread

[CyberNerd]

Surely as people working in education your main priority should be enabling children to be prepared for the future?

 

I learned from BBC Micro and Archimedes. Later is was RM nimbus and word-perfect.

Learning about a specific operating system or software does NOTHING for grades or work in later life. The key is about transferable skills.

If you can save £60k per year or more (we save considerably more using chromebooks) t's more cost effective to do so and employ more teachers.

 

 

Chromebooks are an exception, they are entirely web-based and very much a closed ecosystem compared to any Linux distribution. If I tried to switch our school to Linux, no amount of saved money is going to convince them to let me install Linux everywhere, an NQT coming into our school knows Windows, a 4 year old coming into our school knows Windows, it's a no brainer as to what we should be using.

 

Utter rubbish. If staff can use a browser they can use linux.

"Chromebooks are an exception" ?????? they ARE linux. The only difference is that they have a management GUI. If you think they are an exception just setup another distro like them.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Samba4 will NOT replace AD and the associated services it provides.

 

I've done it at a previous site.

[Geoff]

Windows is probably used in the majority of business

 

While this might of been true a few years ago, most SMBs are looking or have moved to cloud providers. The obvious choice to keep end users happy is O365 and Azure. Granted we have a legacy estate of windows 7 desktops and 2k8 VMs in a Vmware setup but given a clean slate and the same budget today we would never implement such a system again. It simply isn't cost effective compared to cloud. Economies of scale and all that. Given that the choice of client is fairly irrelevant.

 

In fact given the rise of mobile computing the in the workplace (everyone wants to run their professional lives via their smartphone / tablet) cross platform support is required and 90%+ of the mobile market isn't running Windows Mobile. I can speak from experience and say that our business is mostly blackberry with a smattering of iPhone/iPads for the SMT. I actually have the only company Nokia Windows phone purely for trial purposes.

 

Part of the cost of Microsoft or Apple products are the guaranteed support. You don't get that with OSS software.

 

This is manifestly not the case. As a fully paid up commercial enterprise customer of Microsoft we get very few 'free' support incidents a year (I think it's about 3). To the point where we pay again for another MSP for support. I get full support off Redhat for our smattering of RHEL servers as much as we like in contrast and I get to talk to a real engineer instead of an Indian call centre.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Geoff

[Blue_Cookeh]

While this might of been true a few years ago, most SMBs are looking or have moved to cloud providers. The obvious choice to keep end users happy is O365 and Azure. Granted we have a legacy estate of windows 7 desktops and 2k8 VMs in a Vmware setup but given a clean slate and the same budget today we would never implement such a system again. It simply isn't cost effective compared to cloud. Economies of scale and all that. Given that the choice of client is fairly irrelevant.

 

In fact given the rise of mobile computing the in the workplace (everyone wants to run their professional lives via their smartphone / tablet) cross platform support is required and 90%+ of the mobile market isn't running Windows Mobile. I can speak from experience and say that our business is mostly blackberry with a smattering of iPhone/iPads for the SMT. I actually have the only company Nokia Windows phone purely for trial purposes.

 

You're comparing Apples and Oranges, I'm not disputing the fact business is moving to a different way of working, what I did say was that in the case of most organisations (significant ones in the UK, I'm not talking about Silicon Valley/Roundabout startups here, lets be realistic) Windows is the primary choice of OS, and I said Apple follows in a close second because of the SMB types. This still doesn't warrant moving an entire school to Linux, if this is how you think you should be teaching children to work, then you ought to be ditching computers entirely and giving them tablets, but we all know your typical office worker isn't sitting on an iPad all day.

 

IMO (and yours may differ...) schools should be providing a wide range of resource for students, but still be realistic. Give children the tools and let them decide what to use, this means having all manner of OSes and devices available at their disposal, but for serious work you should be looking externally at what businesses are using and realising that in fact, Windows isn't going anywhere anytime soon on the desktop.

 

This is manifestly not the case. As a fully paid up commercial enterprise customer of Microsoft we get very few 'free' support incidents a year (I think it's about 3). To the point where we pay again for another MSP for support. I get full support off Redhat for our smattering of RHEL servers as much as we like in contrast and I get to talk to a real engineer instead of an Indian call centre.

 

That's not free and OSS, RedHat is a fully commercial solution, in the same way Microsoft is (and I dare say you probably paid a relatively significant amount of money for it), the fact they contribute their code to OSS doesn't count, and their licensing/support fees can be just as eye watering as Microsoft's.

 

Microsoft won't walk you through configuring your environment, their support is there for real edge case issues much like RedHat's.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Blue_Cookeh

[MrKJLS]

You're comparing Apples and Oranges, I'm not disputing the fact business is moving to a different way of working, what I did say was that in the case of most organisations (significant ones in the UK, I'm not talking about Silicon Valley/Roundabout startups here, lets be realistic) Windows is the primary choice of OS, and I said Apple follows in a close second because of the SMB types. This still doesn't warrant moving an entire school to Linux, if this is how you think you should be teaching children to work, then you ought to be ditching computers entirely and giving them tablets, but we all know your typical office worker isn't sitting on an iPad all day.

 

IMO (and yours may differ...) schools should be providing a wide range of resource for students, but still be realistic. Give children the tools and let them decide what to use, this means having all manner of OSes and devices available at their disposal, but for serious work you should be looking externally at what businesses are using and realising that in fact, Windows isn't going anywhere anytime soon on the desktop.

 

 

 

That's not free OSS software, RedHat is a fully commercial solution, in the same way Microsoft is, the fact they contribute their code to OSS doesn't count

 

Yes. Binaries and updates are part of the commercial subscription from Red Hat to its customers. The complete source code in the form of source RPM's is available publicly at Red Hat's ftp mirror which is above and beyond the requirements of any of the free and open source licenses. Red Hat participates in the CentOS project and the sources are available from their site as well. Red Hat also provides a complementary repository containing small number of additional packages which are licensed from its partners under different licensing terms.

 

Source: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux

Edited March 30, 2016 by MrKJLS

[Blue_Cookeh]

Source: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux

 

I don't understand the point in picking out a technicality? You're using fully unsupported software by using RedHat without a subscription.

[CyberNerd]

I don't understand the point in picking out a technicality? You're using fully unsupported software by using RedHat without a subscription.

 

A subscription is peanuts for EDU. The code base between RHEL and Centos is identical - just get a support contract on one server/desktop and make sure you can replicate the problem.

[Geoff]

I'm not disputing the fact business is moving to a different way of working, what I did say was that in the case of most organisations Windows is the primary choice of OS

 

It is at the moment, but as I said the move towards cloud and mobile is there.

 

What I did say was that in the case of most organisations (significant ones in the UK, I'm not talking about Silicon Valley/Roundabout startups here, lets be realistic) Windows is the primary choice of OS.

 

We only have Windows desktops because that's what we've invested in and we will use it until it's obsolete or written off. What we replace it with when 2019 rolls around is an open question we've not chosen to address yet.

 

This still doesn't warrant moving an entire school to Linux, if this is how you think you should be teaching children to work, then you ought to be ditching computers entirely and giving them tablets

 

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't but maybe it doesn't matter because I don't care what the school runs. The bottom line for a business is that the prospective employees that you produce can read, write, type and have some common sense and problem solving skills. These qualities seem to be on a worrying decline and I'd suggest that the choice of software platform isn't a deciding factor in this result.

 

but we all know your typical office worker isn't sitting on an iPad all day.

 

Actually they are often buried under mounds of paper, technology be dammed and all that. However, when out of the office yes they do solely rely on phones and tablets. So in some job roles a desktop PC is a wholly unsuitable dinosaur.

 

That's not free and OSS, RedHat is a fully commercial solution, in the same way Microsoft is (and I dare say you probably paid a relatively significant amount of money for it), the fact they contribute their code to OSS doesn't count, and their licensing/support fees can be just as eye watering as Microsoft's.

 

Microsoft won't walk you through configuring your environment, their support is there for real edge case issues much like RedHat's.

 

Factually wrong as @MrKJLS has pointed out. Apart from anything else the licensing demands Redhat provides the source code. Granted I have support contracts in place for the systems but that is a separate agreement to actually getting hold of the OS and one does not depend on the other. In house support (with or without certification) is a perfectly valid pragmatic solution too. It all comes down to cost vs benefit.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Geoff

[elsiegee40]

Split off from http://www.edugeek.net/forums/nix/165630-linux-school-help-wanted.html to allow the debate

[GeekyPete]

Switching to Linux is a No! Incorporating Linux is a must. We are not a company looking to squeeze every penny out of our investment. We are a place of learning. We need to embrace Linux, Windows, IOS, Android, Adruino, chromebooks, BBC Micro Bits, Raspberry Pi and all, to a lesser or greater degree.

 

It's up to us and the teachers to offer a range or experiences to the students. We must do this cost effectively but we must also avoid a monoculture.

 

The student's need to be able to think on their feet and adapt to whatever society throws at them.

 

As alternative platforms develop and become cost effective for larger scale up take we must be skilled up to take advantage of it.

[CyberNerd]

Switching to Linux is a No! Incorporating Linux is a must. We are not a company looking to squeeze every penny out of our investment. We are a place of learning. We need to embrace Linux, Windows, IOS, Android, Adruino, chromebooks, BBC Micro Bits, Raspberry Pi and all, to a lesser or greater degree.

 

It's up to us and the teachers to offer a range or experiences to the students. We must do this cost effectively but we must also avoid a monoculture.

 

The student's need to be able to think on their feet and adapt to whatever society throws at them.

 

As alternative platforms develop and become cost effective for larger scale up take we must be skilled up to take advantage of it.

 

 

If you want to be able to use a ubiquity of different devices and operating systems the only practical way of doing it is by using web based apps. This is what we did - to get a range of different experiences. The "problem" is that once you have (mostly) achieved this it goes full circle because you start wondering what advantage you get from using windows/OSX when you can use a machine that requires half the spec, lower maintenance and lower licensing costs to achieve the same goal.

[mavhc]

Linux, Windows, IOS, Android, Adruino, chromebooks, BBC Micro Bits, Raspberry Pi

 

So Linux, Windows, BSD, Linux, No OS, Linux, mbed, Linux.

[mavhc]

Surely as people working in education your main priority should be enabling children to be prepared for the future?

Indeed, can't predict the future though. Main point is to put the effort into some code so that anyone who wants to can use linux more easily than Windows, million schools in the world, should save quite a bit.

 

Realistically on the client end, Windows is probably used in the majority of business, with Mac closely following, and Linux way off the mark. Children should be given tools they will be using later in life, not using software shoehorned into an Educational environment that teachers can barely use. Chromebooks are an exception, they are entirely web-based and very much a closed ecosystem compared to any Linux distribution. If I tried to switch our school to Linux, no amount of saved money is going to convince them to let me install Linux everywhere, an NQT coming into our school knows Windows, a 4 year old coming into our school knows Windows, it's a no brainer as to what we should be using.

In 14 years what's that 4 year old going to be using? VR contact lenses for all Year 1s! We don't just read popular books in English, or do money problems in Maths, or learn to use a satnav in Geography.

 

Also they're all the same really, there's a button to load programs, you click it, there's menus etc. iPad is way more different to Windows than Linux is.

 

A fun project, but it should stay that way, a mishmash of free OSS will never compete with the ecosystem Microsoft have built, and rightly charge for.

Not really a mishmash though is it, it's industry standard. What DNS server does your ISP run, Windows or Bind? Mac runs Apache, bash, bind, ssh, sqlite, perl, ldap, cron, postgresql, python, openldap, they even own cups.

 

 

I think you're taking a very naive view on why schools would be using Linux over Windows. Linux is not necessarily more secure, not necessarily faster, doesn't have more privacy, and isn't a drive towards computer science.

 

1. Your system is only as secure as the weakest link. If I open up SSH and RDP access to the world and leave those servers unpatched, both will eventually be exploitable

But a) 99% of viruses are for Windows, b) ssh patch won't require a reboot, c) easier to patch software on linux, just apt-get update.

2. Speed is subjective, if I can do my work 10x faster on Windows because I know the environment, it doesn't matter that my Linux-based OS is booting 5 seconds quicker than Windows

after you've waited 10 minutes for the monthly "Windows is updating, please don't turn off, no idea why we couldn't do this before we logged you out" message

3. Lock down your privacy controls using group policy, this is what Enterprise is for, not only this but the world is a changing place. The definition of privacy is changing, and privacy on a shared school computer is probably a moot point anyway.

I prefer to use the phrase "mute point" due to the origin of "moot point". I'll just change that to "Better privacy by default, actual privacy unknown as there's no source code" then.

4. Real "computer scientists" can work on any hardware/software combination. I can write my NumPy/SciPy based scripts in Python on any OS, it's entirely cross compatible.

not entirely, sound for example. So if they can work on any combination it's probably best for them to use something different to Windows, to get used to that.

As I said, fun project, but not much more than that. Part of the cost of Microsoft or Apple products are the guaranteed support. You don't get that with OSS software.

I've never used support from MS or Apple.

 

Samba4 will NOT replace AD and the associated services it provides.

Which associated services?

 

I guess my main point here, as much as I love Linux (and do have active Linux servers in our school!), is that this thread is a complete Linux circlejerk with the amount of "Micro$oft" bullpoop flying about.

 

Didn't notice that much, don't really care for it.

 

Reasons to use Linux: Never having to read about Microsoft licencing again.

Edited March 30, 2016 by mavhc
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