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

[mavhc]

Darn, Microsoft beat me to it, they installed linux on Windows, Microsoft is bringing the Bash shell to Windows 10 | TechCrunch guess it's standard now.

[DJ-1701]

Darn, Microsoft beat me to it, they installed linux on Windows, Microsoft is bringing the Bash shell to Windows 10 | TechCrunch guess it's standard now.

 

Well, looks like it will in the Summer. I wonder if this has any baring on the much discussed feature of Android apps on Windows devices... but I digress.

[mikes]

It's too bad the UK government can't put together a distro for school use, with the configuration/packages etc already done.

If done correctly it could save the taxpayer a lot of cash that otherwise goes to MS.

But we know what our Government is like, they would spend billions on big name contractors, putting out some garbage that doesn't work.

 

Also I find it odd when people say, in Linux vs MS debates, "You need MS because you get full support" - you get no support at all from Microsoft, and according to their license agreement, they do not guarantee their OS for anything whatsoever.

[Davit2005]

It's too bad the UK government can't put together a distro for school use, with the configuration/packages etc already done.

If done correctly it could save the taxpayer a lot of cash that otherwise goes to MS.

But we know what our Government is like, they would spend billions on big name contractors, putting out some garbage that doesn't work.

 

Also I find it odd when people say, in Linux vs MS debates, "You need MS because you get full support" - you get no support at all from Microsoft, and according to their license agreement, they do not guarantee their OS for anything whatsoever.

 

The government hasn't exactly had a good history of rolling out new IT systems, inland revenue, NHS, Congestion Zone, etc...

[southhamster]

Thats the kind of thing was for BECTA before it was abolished.

[2ilent8cho]

Kids, and everyone really need to be exposed to more than just Windows, i can see the damage Microsoft being the main computer OS for the last 20 years has caused. Just 1 example so many people who use a desktop class OS every day don't know what a file extension is, why ? because Microsoft thought it would be funny to hide it years ago from the user, so they are never exposed to it and never get an understanding of what its for.

 

Its the company they work for in the future to provide staff training , not the school, they should just turn up with versatile transferable skills, so for example if they understand file systems , they should be able to create a folder (so long as their is a GUI) on a Windows, Mac or Linux PC and know what its path is. If they understand how a spreadsheet works they should be able to use Google Sheets, Excel or Open Office.

 

Instead what we have is people who call spreadsheets Excel , and when you say open your file manager they say is that my documents?

[localzuk]

Interesting necro.

 

I don't think we will be seeing "the Linux desktop" in schools. I think we'll see cloud applications used instead - and the device they're on will be irrelevant. Chromebooks, Windows 10 S, Linux, iPads, whatever. We're well and truly in that transition phase from the old world to the new.

 

We looked at the cloud option with our last server purchases, but decided we just weren't quite ready yet - connectivity is too expensive here. However, in 4 years time? I would say the chance of us moving the majority of use into the cloud is high. Other schools and trusts will be different - some can make the jump now.

 

One thing we shouldn't do is look at a couple of schools doing it and think "they can do it, so can we", without properly looking at the individual school's needs and capabilities.

[mavhc]

The problem with file extensions isn't that they're hidden, after all it's a hack, why is the file type in the same field as the file name, but not the last modified date, etc. The problem is there's no UI to see/change it like Mac OS and RISC OS have.

 

Cloudy-mostly is why I started my linuxschools project in the first place, linux now has most of the apps people use: Chrome.

 

I do think we'd be better as schools if we spent our software money on a co-op company that made open source educational programs/configured open source systems to be easy to use.

 

Paying for closed source software is just throwing money into a black hole, not an investment.

[interele]

We are GNU/Linux for students and if I have my way eventually everywhere, but it isn't easy.

Technically it's fairly straightforward, Linux is more robust, easier to support, quicker and

a lot easier once you have go the hang of it. The difficult bit is the people! In a way I admire MS

they have done an excellent mind job. If you went Linux you will have conversations like this :-

'Windows crashed - it must be something I did'

'Windows crashed - it must be my machine'

'Windows crashed - it must be something the IT guys did'

'Windows crashed - it must be the Internet'

'Linux crashed - Linux sucks'.

 

For us, we spend roughly four times as long supporting 160 Windows machines as 500 Linux ones.

[mavhc]

What version of linux do you use, how to you deploy/manage/update it?

[Meldrew]

We are GNU/Linux for students and if I have my way eventually everywhere, but it isn't easy.

Technically it's fairly straightforward, Linux is more robust, easier to support, quicker and

a lot easier once you have go the hang of it. The difficult bit is the people! In a way I admire MS

they have done an excellent mind job. If you went Linux you will have conversations like this :-

'Windows crashed - it must be something I did'

'Windows crashed - it must be my machine'

'Windows crashed - it must be something the IT guys did'

'Windows crashed - it must be the Internet'

'Linux crashed - Linux sucks'.

 

For us, we spend roughly four times as long supporting 160 Windows machines as 500 Linux ones.

 

Our biggest support item with Windows by far is students forcibly shutting then down by holding down the power button rather than just logging off. How well does Linux cope with this out of interest?

[nathan]

We are GNU/Linux for students and if I have my way eventually everywhere, but it isn't easy.

Technically it's fairly straightforward, Linux is more robust, easier to support, quicker and

a lot easier once you have go the hang of it. The difficult bit is the people! In a way I admire MS

they have done an excellent mind job. If you went Linux you will have conversations like this :-

'Windows crashed - it must be something I did'

'Windows crashed - it must be my machine'

'Windows crashed - it must be something the IT guys did'

'Windows crashed - it must be the Internet'

'Linux crashed - Linux sucks'.

 

For us, we spend roughly four times as long supporting 160 Windows machines as 500 Linux ones.

 

Very different to my observation. Windows gets blamed for everything even if it's a manufacturers drivers causing the issue.

[twin--turbo]

Our biggest support item with Windows by far is students forcibly shutting then down by holding down the power button rather than just logging off. How well does Linux cope with this out of interest?

 

99% of the time fine, the journaling file systems recover much better than the old EXT2 system.

 

and I would say vastly better recovery than windows which 25% of the time wants to repair.

 

 

 

TT

[free780]

I think edu should have the same standard of hardware and software as business. We need to prepare students for the real world. Linux is used but mostly on the server side not the desktop. So edu will be using Windows mostly. The trend to move away from VMWare onto Hyper V is troubling as away from education VMWare is still dominant. Due to cuts a lot of schools/colleges are going with Hyper V. Of you follow the same logic with the desktop OS we could end up with Debian in the classroom. But can you lock it down and manage it in the same way as windows? Or will you spend a lot of time writing scripts in place of GPP.

[mjk]

I don't see why this is even a debate. The School I'm at has been running Liunux for a number of years; and the results are getting better year on year.

The question should be: Would our results improve if we spent more money on higher powererd machines, windows licenses , Office and retraining costs. I doubt it would.

[HPlum78]

I work somewhere else! and will say this on the subject, as far as I can see there is no debate to what we should be doing in schools with desktop OS. Schools should be encouraged to offer a suite of desktop OS's, in the most part when our children leave school they will probably end up using Windows but they may end up using Linux. If they go on to FE/HE then they will undoubtedly sit in front of both and that's not a bad thing in my book and something that should have been done in schools for the past few years at least!

 

That said and cost is not something I am going to argue here MS made end users not have to care about the details and every desktop OS release has moved this concept forward so the argument about file extensions/ drivers/ memory management and all those things we had to care about 20 years ago have faded fast so that end users can be just that end users. Conversely and as I am a man of many (RED) hats for my sins, Linux has also been fighting the self same fight I remember installing Linux for the very first time and having to do a lot of work to make it sit happily on the hardware I had at the time, I now just throw in the media (however that may look or come!) and in the most part its fire and forget (just like MS, they are making the end users not have to care).

 

The change in landscape has been massive and if I look back could I ever have seen MS embracing Linux like they do today or would they have even considered being an open source developer like they are now, would Linux (Red Hat) back then considered a partnership with MS like they are now, BASH on Windows, PowerShell/ .NET on Linux things are changing and if we want to keep paying the bills so must we, offering multiple end user experiences is a must and should be now common place, stop debating it and just get it done!

 

That covers the desktops. Servers are a different matter, along with what the infrastructure behind that looks like and that don't come free!

[mavhc]

I don't see why this is even a debate. The School I'm at has been running Liunux for a number of years; and the results are getting better year on year.

The question should be: Would our results improve if we spent more money on higher powererd machines, windows licenses , Office and retraining costs. I doubt it would.

 

Could you go into a bit of detail about how you deploy/configure/lock down/monitor your system?

[mjk]

Could you go into a bit of detail about how you deploy/configure/lock down/monitor your system?

Chromebooks. Google has a web based management console for them.

[AlanD]

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.

I always think red lights should start flashing whenever a conversation about IT starts moving towards hardware or infrastructure. That's not to say the "right" hardware does not make a difference - but there are may "right" solutions and I agree that familiarity with several platforms leads to a better understanding as to what IT is about. Too many teachers still focus on "what button do I press to insert a new line into a spreadsheet" - and believe that teaching this is delivering an ICT skill....or that the fact they don't know which button to press somehow prevents them from delivering ICT skills in the classroom. One teacher complained he couldn't use iPads in the classroom because he had never used one and had only been taught to use windows. It was interesting to observe that he used an iphone at almost every spare moment during the day.

 

The skill students need is to learn to follow their nose when using ICT...yes they may need to pick up a few tips from teachers or more likely from classmates. They need to be prepared to explore a user interface and hunt around for the option required. Its much more important they learn this skill rather than specifically being taught how to "insert a row in a spreadsheet" on one particular kind of platform.

 

So YES - not only do I see nothing wrong with using Linux, it would get my vote of approval. BUT don't expect using it to gain any credit - because its the ICT skills that you deliver which count....which would be "Can students demonstrate they can code"...or "construct a spreadsheet for compound interest". No one will care what platform they used. And while there might be an argument that Microsoft Office skills are worth having - you can deliver those with Office 365 on Chromebooks, Linux, Android iPads - or Windows.

 

There are lots of schools using chromebooks well without a single PC in sight - and I don't see why using Linux would be any different. Personally - I would be using Linux via thin clients because I'm not sure that the management tools exist to "lock down" individual linux workstations (but perhaps I need to do some more research). And the thin client solutions would allow you to make use of some old workstations (or ones others are throwing out).

[Arthur]

I don't think we will be seeing "the Linux desktop" in schools.

Chrome OS is a Gentoo Linux-based desktop OS and massively popular in the US K-12 education sector.

 

Last year devices running Chrome OS outsold the combined total of Windows, macOS and iOS-based "mobile" devices by quite a wide margin. That's only going to increase both in the US and worldwide.

[localzuk]

Chrome OS is a Gentoo Linux-based desktop OS and massively popular in the US K-12 education sector.

 

Last year devices running Chrome OS outsold the combined total of Windows, macOS and iOS-based "mobile" devices by quite a wide margin. That's only going to increase both in the US and worldwide.

It is not a "Linux desktop" in the traditional sense. It is a Web browser. The "Linux Desktop" that has been spoken of for over a decade is talking of a direct Windows replacement OS taking off. Which hasn't happened, and I don't think will happen.

 

ChromeOS could just as easily be based on FreeBSD or even HaikuOS.

[mjk]

It is not a "Linux desktop" in the traditional sense. It is a Web browser.

 

It's a bit more than that! The fact that Linux is capable of being able to re-invent itself is testament to its flexibility.

Because it's not Gnome doesn't mean it's not a valid Linux.

 

The "Linux Desktop" that has been spoken of for over a decade is talking of a direct Windows replacement OS taking off. Which hasn't happened, and I don't think will happen.

 

Linux is a direct replacement for windows in the school that I work at now, and at many others. It already happened!

 

ChromeOS could just as easily be based on FreeBSD or even HaikuOS.

 

But it isn't. It's Linux. On a Desktop.

[Arthur]

It is not a "Linux desktop" in the traditional sense.

That's precisely why it is successful. Chrome OS is easy for end users to use (there's less to go wrong/get messed up), easy for IT to manage (more so than traditional Linux distros) and with people increasingly using SaaS-based apps there isn't any need to directly copy every single feature found in other desktop OSs.

 

After Chrome OS 19 was released the OS become more than just a (full screen) web browser. For example, it has its own window manager/shell (Aura/Ash) and can run Android apps in a secure container separate from the browser itelf.

 

 

Source: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/ContainersPresoLCE.pdf

 

The Aura Shell and Chrome Integration

A desktop environment is much more than just basic window types. We needed a playground to implement the higher level elements of the window manager, such as constraint-based moving and sizing, shell features such as the persistent launcher at the bottom of the screen, status areas, etc. Rather than build this directly into Chrome, which is huge and takes forever to link, we decided to build this as a separate component. Because it consists of UI components like the launcher and custom window frame Views, it would need to depend not just on Aura but also Views.

 

Source: https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/aura-desktop-window-manager

 

ChromeOS could just as easily be based on FreeBSD or even HaikuOS.

Perhaps, but that doesn't change the fact that it is currently a Linux-based OS.

 

If/when Google switches Chrome OS to Fuchsia that will no longer be true, but that's probably a long way off.

[mavhc]

Never the less, I was mostly refering to people running standard desktop Linux OSes. Can you save an extra £25(?) per device by not paying Google for management?

[Norphy]

The trend to move away from VMWare onto Hyper V is troubling as away from education VMWare is still dominant.

 

What? The virtualisation platform that an organisation uses is entirely irrelevant to the end user. The average user isn’t going to know whether VMware, HyperV, Xen or whatever is running their infrastructure as they’re not going to be exposed to it. The only people it makes a difference to are the people running the system and the beancounters.

 

If a school (or a ltd or plc company for that matter) can save money by using HyperV (or Xen or KVM or whatever) over VMware, what’s the problem?