Windows Vista or Ubuntu Linux?

[ind13]

I seem to remember reading about (maybe it was on here) a conversation someone had with a business person. The reason they used MS was because that was what their employees had learned in school!

 

Andy

 

my school is currently going through BSF and the IT Service provider wants to use star office, which i haven't got a problem with.

 

i agree with the whole 'you need to teach the kids how to use a Word Proccesor, Speadsheet and not Word, Excel'

 

but the issue being raised at the min is when you look at job adverts they will normally state applicants need expericene with microsft office and not word prccessing or speadsheets.

 

you get the same issue with windows and linux, ok fair enough most of the time your using an application and not the opperating system behind it, but how well are you equiping the students for the real world if you only teach them linux and open office or windows and microsoft office.

 

some things you can get around, ie install office and open office, and let them have a go with both you could have windows and linux machines.

 

but at the end of the day it comes down to time, have you got the time to setup and maintain both systems.

 

but also teaching time, the ciruculum is already packed with so much have the teachers got the time to teach the students the difference. (all this in a world where some people don't know the difference between a computer and a monitor) which is one of the main problems i have with the curicuclum, so much time is spent teaching applications, creating databases, presentations, reports etc Yet very little if any time is spent teaching them what is a computer, why do we have a network, what is a network, could go on but need coffee.

[Pottsey]

“but also teaching time, the ciruculum is already packed with so much have the teachers got the time to teach the students the difference.”

Well my school is a special needs school and if our kids can handle both then I see no reason why mainstream cannot do both. We use both Open Office and MS word along with IE and Firefox and more rarely Writing with Symbols and Talking first word.

 

Once children have learnt 1 word processor the rest are easy to pick up and once you get children used to swapping programs they learn and pick up new programs a lot easier then those who only every use 1 application. If children with learning difficulties can do this there is no excuse for mainstream children not being able to lean and use more then 1 program.

 

I find a lot of children at first pretend to struggle with a change of Internet browser just to get out of work but if you turn you back or give them free time they don’t have any problem finding and playing games or searching for various pages.

 

 

 

 

 

“Yet very little if any time is spent teaching them what is a computer, why do we have a network, what is a network, could go on but need coffee.”

I agree on that which is why every so often I take over an IT lesson and let the kids take a PC apart and lean about how it all works or let a few work with me around the building. I can see how that’s a bit tricky in a large school though. I always thought IT techs should get more involved in lessons a large part of my timetable is spent in classrooms dong support though I do pull my self out of classrooms at certain times of year like when new hardware arrives. But again we are a small school I guess larger ones cannot do this.

[Disease]

[

Point two ... a very poor arguement ... people know it because they use it ... if they used something different they would know that too.

 

But the point he is trying to make is that the people still need to be trained on the new product and that increases overheads. People use MS because it's the accepted norm and its easier I see no reason for it to change.

 

Example:

 

Trying to install camera recording software today.

 

Linux - took 2 hours of messing around to get it to work.

 

Windows installer installed in 3 mins working in 5.

 

In todays busy climate why bother with something that has no more features than windows but is more a pain in the ass.

[limbo]

I wonder whether we would be having this discussion if Microsoft products were free? (Which personall I think it would be a shrewd marketing strategy on behalf of Microsoft if they did because it would embed it absolutely into all the blank canvases that are new students!)

 

For me the only reason not to use Microsoft in tthe current climate would be a financial one, and at the moment we have the money to fund a Schools Agreement so it is a no brainer.

[NetworkGeezer]

@Disease

You sound like that bald guy with the moustache in the first Matrix film.

 

How will things ever change if we just to keep taking wide, winding path.

IE6 no change for years then as soon as FireFox started to gain momentum what d'ya know IE7 comes out.

 

It's not just state monoplies we have to worry about.

[Disease]

How many here run their networks entirely with Linux and no MS what so ever?

 

If you think Linux will do the job just as well install it on everything on your network and see how you go.

 

Then see how the kids manage in the real world aftwards.

 

We try to make sure that the kids here use products that are used commercially in the real world for example we have a suite om MACs in media used for DTP running the latest version of Quark, the reason? because most papers and publishing companies use MAC's.

 

Thats why we don't use Linux here

[GrumbleDook]

The other thing that bugs me about this thread (and it is so major it may be a rant on its own) is that most people are talking about either/or ... why not have both? If the users have the ability to learn and adapt it shouldn't matter what you put in front of them ... they will get used to it very quickly and have the ability to make up their own minds.

 

My last place used to do this with Windows and MacOS ... using Microsoft Office and Appleworks ... a few different apps for HTML stuff ... grahpics packages ... it worked a treat. It didn't matter what you threw at the kids or staff they would adapt.

 

Strangely enough this is a school consistantly in the top 10 state schools ...

 

I know it means more to support ... and I know it means more for us to get our heads around ... but it also creates (eventually) a group of users that are more likely to work out problems for themselves, a bunch of staff that accept that systems change and they have to just accept it and get on with things ... and it means you can introduce things that students might not get to see ... giving them more choice when they go out into the real world!!!!!

 

Can anyone see a problem with this?

 

Again ... I redirect people to the idea of the thread ... what will each of the above OSes actually do for you?

[Disease]

Vista will actually do nothing for me at the moment tbh, I will not be upgrading my machines from xp, on the same token I will not be installing any flavour of Linux because I really do not see any advantage in doing so.

 

The money arguement does not hold water for me personally as I have a large budget every year so I am not on a shoestring.

 

At this moment in time my decision is to stay with the very stable Windows XP as neither Linux or Vista have anything to offer over xp.

[limbo]

As I said eariler, I have every faith in students being able to adapt to anything we put in front of them - that has never been a concern of mine.

 

But to answer the question to the ideal of the thread. Vista will give me an easy upgrade path when looking at cost, training and technical ease.

 

The only downside is going to be the compaitiblity of software in the early stages. And what I will probably end up doing is naturally migrating as new boxes arrive with Vista on board until vista is the majority then I shall bring the stragglers on board. So two years and I will probably have migrated the whole site.

 

But I ask you - where is the fun in that as an answer, unless I can bait linux and Mac users I might as well go back to winding up teachers!!

[MkII]

... why not have both?

Yes, why not. It's what I do at home - I have the choice - I will dip into either to perform a specific task. Sounds great - I'd love to do that at school.

[Geoff]

Especially for the naysayers. Here's a case study of a UK high school using a 100% Linux solution.

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/linux_case_study_orwell_high_school.html

 

Where's Orwell High School on the league tables I wonder?

[webman]

It's a vicious cycle. Most educational software developers make software that runs exclusively on Windows, therefore if schools want to use these they have little choice than to run Windows.

 

Then there's the MIS systems that, again, only run on Windows; and not forgetting Microsoft sponsorship for schools.

 

Until all software, resources and services that schools rely on run on other platforms other than Windows, realistically there's not much that can be done on the front end. Running back-end services such as web, email and file serving on alternative platforms makes sense though.

[Teth]

Its the "free as in lunch or free as in gratis" argument always when it comes to windows and Linux.

 

A vista upgrade will cost us all a fortune in hard cash but in time? I think I can deploy Vista on my network in a tiny proportion of the time it would take me to go to linux. In fact I can't even picture getting a windows to Linux switch done in the 2 month summer break.

 

Now of course we then have the argument that "With all that money you save you can employ more staff". Take a look at your schools wage bill some time. 3.2million of our 3.7million budget is wages. Linux qualified IT personel cost more because there are less of them. I honestly believe anyone that could really impliment and maintain a secure Linux education network is out of the budget range of a school. Maybe yours is different.

 

I will continue to develope my Linux skills while I work here by implimenting new backend projects on it. I may even get brave and introduce some front end Linux desktops at some point recycling old hardware for internet kiosks for example. With my skills a unified logon infrastructure with centralised file storage is just not a realistic goal while supporting the existing windows network.

 

On a single desktop for office tasks and internet Linux is there now I believe it can absolutely compete. But in our workd of a school network Linux is a long way from the desktop and so it will be Vista in 3-5 years time for me.

[Geoff]

Linux boxes can replace back end server tasks quite happily. You can do this in a piecemeal fashion. So you could start with DHCP and DNS. Then do File and Printing. Then maybe do a mail or web server or even a web proxy. If you're coming from a Windows admin background I think this is definatly the way to go (and something I'm increasingly seeing on these forums).

[mrforgetful]

I'm thinking of playing with a Linux filtering box, when I have time!

[openhgs]

Especially for the naysayers. Here's a case study of a UK high school using a 100% Linux solution.

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/linux_case_study_orwell_high_school.html

 

Where's Orwell High School on the league tables I wonder?

 

Google pointed me to this link which has their ranking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/education/03/school_tables/secondary_schools/html/935_4038.stm

 

I very much doubt that their ranking has anything to do with what o/s they use.

[Geoff]

Well I know that, but there was an argument put forth eariler in the thread that it might detract from pupils learning.

[Disease]

Well I know that, but there was an argument put forth eariler in the thread that it might detract from pupils learning.

 

 

I think the point was Geoff that in the REAL world they may suffer.

 

Can you google up a link that proves that using freeware programs does not lead to problems getting a job in the commercial market place, say at a solicitors who use MS Office?

[Geoff]

Yep, a post by Ric has some sensible reasoning about OpenOffice vs MS Office.

 

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=7940#7940

[Disease]

That is nowhere near what I asked for but hey ho.

 

1. All government computers will have to support the Open Doucment Standard in the near future - OpenOffice, StarOffice, WordPerfect... all support this but MS Office does not.

 

Link please stating proof not just hearsay.

 

2. The chances are that the kids will not be using the version of Office that you have in School when they finally get a job. The kids in year 7 have at least 5 years before hitting the job market and MS Office 2006 is to be released next year so what you've got now is going to be out of date!

 

And open office or star will not be updated over the next 5 years? Thats such a rubbish and flawed reply.

 

3. The curriculum does not teach the kids how to use MS Office - it teaches them how to use IT effectively (i.e. transferable skills).

 

The curriculum is supposed to teach transferable skills but in practice it does not all it does is teach kids how to use certain packages. People will ALWAYS use what is familiar to them.

 

4. Business is slowly moving away from MS Office as alternatives become a cost effective and viable alternative.

 

Wheres the proof for that statement or again is that just hearsay?

[Geoff]

Point 1

 

I'm not sure specifically where Ric pulled that one from. Perhaps you should ask him? There is evidence open formats is the way governments are moving though. For example Belgium.

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/27/belgium_odf/

 

Points 2

 

This came up further on in the thread I pointed you at.

 

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=8870#8870

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=9015#9015

 

Obviously I cannot see into the future, so I don't know what will become of Star/Open/MS Office in the long term.

 

Point 3

 

Read the BECTA report on OSS in Schools. I believe a section on page 8 deals with curriculum delivery.

 

http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/publications/documents/BEC5606_Full_report18.pdf

 

As for point 4.

 

At the moment, most migrations seem to be government departments and institutions. There's plenty of examples of successful migrations on the OO.org case studies pages.

 

http://www.openoffice.org/product/studies.html

[djm968]

I have just downloaded Ubuntu and I cannot even install to the HDD because it needs to access the Internet!

 

This would be fine except at the school I am working at today proxy authentication is enabled and Ubuntu does not like proxy authentication.

 

In fact I have had issues with quite a few flavours of Linux and proxy authentication and yes I know I just need to put

 

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://username:password@proxy:port"

Acquire::ftp::Proxy "ftp://username:password@proxy:port"

 

in the apt.conf file but if you cannot install the software, how do you insert these lines in a config file its a catch 22.

 

I think Vista will install without an Internet connection, maybe I will use that instead!

[NetworkGeezer]

I know Debian and SUSE sometimes come as mini install CD which install the bulk of the distro via FTP download.

 

However I don't recall coming across this with UBUNTU. Like a Windows install you should get the option to delay somethings till later.

[Geoff]

Use the alternate CD. Using the text install, it'll ask you for the proxy information.

 

Alternatively, you're free to drop to a command line prompt at any time with Ctrl-Alt-F2. You can then edit the apt.conf yourself.

[djm968]

I did have a look but I don't think apt.conf exists when you are running from the Live CD.

 

I have just found the Alternate CD I will give that a go tommorow.