9000 PCs in Swiss Schools Going Linux Only

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According to this report, nine thousand computers used in Swiss schools will no longer be dual boot systems, opting instead to go Linux only.

Beginning this September, all 9000 computers will run only Ubuntu and free and open source software. While officials are happy to be saving money on licensing, the Department of Public instruction largely made the move out of what they considered best practices for student education.
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Well, this will give them an edge over students in the US learning windows :( I decided on a Linux/XP dual boot for a friends kids and I try to make sure they use linux for everything except thier games so they will be a little better prepared for the computer world as they grow up. When they get a lil older I'll prob build them a tripple boot hackintosh PC with Linux, Windows and a Mac OS.

This is very good to see public schools acknowledging Linux, I just hope it's not a consumerized distro like Ubuntu.
 
If you have one hardware platform (or very few) and one set of software that is applied to all the hardware, any platform is fine...thus the cheaper one wins. The whole "best practices" thing is just a pile of crap IMO.
 
how does it save them money... any machine purchased comes with wiindows
 
if its a "personal" computer, it be ok to go full linux if you really want it (its your choice), but its a school, imo , a dual boot system is still better, you can atleast tech students both operating systems, ( include OSX I guess ), because in reality, most of the places they will go to work on, will have a mix of all these operating systems. atleast the students can atleast understand , why one OS is good at one thing, while the other fails at that same thing imo.
 
dyzophoria said:
if its a "personal" computer, it be ok to go full linux if you really want it (its your choice), but its a school, imo , a dual boot system is still better, you can atleast tech students both operating systems, ( include OSX I guess ), because in reality, most of the places they will go to work on, will have a mix of all these operating systems. atleast the students can atleast understand , why one OS is good at one thing, while the other fails at that same thing imo.
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Eaxctly. You can't be resonably computer literate in the working world without some knowledge of Windows, its simply too widely deployed to totally ignore on a desktop computer. At some level this won't help the students but most of them already have Windows machines at home anyway. Switzerland is a wealthy nation.
 
compudocs said:
... I try to make sure they use linux for everything except thier games so they will be a little better prepared for the computer world as they grow up. When they get a lil older I'll prob build them a tripple boot hackintosh PC with Linux, Windows and a Mac OS.

This is very good to see public schools acknowledging Linux, I just hope it's not a consumerized distro like Ubuntu.
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Right, better teach the youngin's how to be prepared for the alternate universe where MS does not dominate the market for personal computing operating systems and own the lion's share of business software. You sir, are quite clever.

While I appreciate your efforts to promote open source software, pretending that it is somehow preparing people for what they'll face in damn near any professional environment is just wishful thinking.
 
I know when I was growing up, every school I went to used Apple computers, that said even then Apples market share was smaller than it is today. So what of the students that did not have PC's of any kind in their home? I guess all of those students were fucked. At k-12 level people aren't set in their ways yet, honestly if you aren't set in your ways and you know how to use a web browser and with this generation I don't see any issues with that they will get a long just fine. Plus if the school system is run by the government, and the project is a success, I'm sure the gov will adopt similar installations for the gov workplace. It is possible that this will create a snowball effect in which people in the workplace will start wanting to use what they use at work/school thus creating a market. It could also end up in epic failure producing a workforce that is untrained on computer systems ultimately causing an economic collapse.
 
compudocs said:
This is very good to see public schools acknowledging Linux, I just hope it's not a consumerized distro like Ubuntu.
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Sure it's good...but why Linux? Why not something with real value, like AIX, HPUX or Solaris, since those are really the only hardened (to some extent) OS's that corporations depend on for back end. (Well, there is that redhat ESX VMWare thing too)

But, I guess it's a good plan none the less: So that when they are brainwahsed to think Mac is good, they will at least understand some of the real OS that pretty (limited) shell is floating on top of.
 
spinelli said:
Right, better teach the youngin's how to be prepared for the alternate universe where MS does not dominate the market for personal computing operating systems and own the lion's share of business software. You sir, are quite clever.

While I appreciate your efforts to promote open source software, pretending that it is somehow preparing people for what they'll face in damn near any professional environment is just wishful thinking.
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What I think: The only reason they are going linux is they are too cheap to buy relevant software that the kids could actually benefit from.

Let me tell you what good a linux geek is to the business world: They get about 2 minutes into an interview for a unix admin position then they are shown the door for not knowing anything.
 
Beginning this September, all 9000 computers will run only Ubuntu and free and open source software.
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So in other words they are going to suck when it comes to a lot of things. No Office 2010, no OneNote, none of that. FOSS is great but it doesn't rule the world and OpenOffice is becoming an old ass piece of junk and the cloud stuff is still well behind.

There needs to balance to this.
 
BBA said:
What I think: The only reason they are going linux is they are too cheap to buy relevant software that the kids could actually benefit from.

Let me tell you what good a linux geek is to the business world: They get about 2 minutes into an interview for a unix admin position then they are shown the door for not knowing anything.
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I worked for a company that dealt mainly with HPUX, AIX and Solaris, I walked in with no working knowledge of any of the systems, with a little bit of a learning curve I was able to pick up the systems with little effort. Sure things are different but they are relatively the same, this helped a lot.
 
Cool. Education is one place where the open-source model makes a lot of sense. Thousands of institutions with very similar goals and methodologies, and no profit incentive to keep their developments private. Places like universities, libraries and schools have significant resources in the aggregate, but are usually constrained on their own. Putting their resources into open-source is a great way to get a lot of value out of limited dollars. There have been a lot of successful development projects along these lines in these communities, and taking it to the desktop is a logical next step.
 
I'm thinking of going to Linux Ubuntu myself. I run Windows 7 X64 right now and I feel like I don't really own it. Too little customization unlike Ubuntu. More supported hardware.

The only reason I haven't gone to it yet is gaming, and so far that's declining rapidly on Windows. I'm thinking that Wine can take care of most of my gaming needs, and I don't care if it only does DX9.
 
To add: It's not just licensing costs either. It is much easier to deploy a secure, usable and low-maintenance Linux lab than a Windows one. Throw up a server with some storage and a boot filesystem and PXE boot all your workstations and you're done. Students can't break it, it takes 30 seconds to add a new machine to the lab, changes and updates propagate with nothing but a workstation reboot, everything is always totally consistent across workstations and you can save the cost of a hard drive in every box.
 
keenan said:
To add: It's not just licensing costs either. It is much easier to deploy a secure, usable and low-maintenance Linux lab than a Windows one. Throw up a server with some storage and a boot filesystem and PXE boot all your workstations and you're done. Students can't break it, it takes 30 seconds to add a new machine to the lab, changes and updates propagate with nothing but a workstation reboot, everything is always totally consistent across workstations and you can save the cost of a hard drive in every box.
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Unless you want your students in the CL all the time and no "real" world programs they can use, then by all means that is the way to go. BUT a PXE environment for 9000 workstations with real text editing, spreadsheet, and real programs kids use, not gonna happen.
 
compudocs said:
Well, this will give them an edge over students in the US learning windows :( I decided on a Linux/XP dual boot for a friends kids and I try to make sure they use linux for everything except thier games so they will be a little better prepared for the computer world as they grow up. When they get a lil older I'll prob build them a tripple boot hackintosh PC with Linux, Windows and a Mac OS.

This is very good to see public schools acknowledging Linux, I just hope it's not a consumerized distro like Ubuntu.
Click to expand...

You did that friend a disservice by doing that when the majority of the modern jobs out there REQUIRE you to know how to use Windows. Linux on side is great but not a Windows replacement.
 
the-one1 said:
Unless you want your students in the CL all the time and no "real" world programs they can use, then by all means that is the way to go. BUT a PXE environment for 9000 workstations with real text editing, spreadsheet, and real programs kids use, not gonna happen.
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What gives you that idea? It isn't hard to boot a full system over PXE, nor is it hard to set up an environment that uses a terminal server and boots over PXE directly into that environement. Provisioned and configured properly, either will work well.
 
Right on.

Linux would be good to have in the toolbelt of life/tech skills. Good to hear this kind of thing, truly.

And hey...maybe desktop linux will be advanced a lil by these folks...it still needs a few bits n pieces that are well beyond me to program...like say...audio production SW.

/end veiled wishlist
 
Ashbringer said:
I'm thinking of going to Linux Ubuntu myself. I run Windows 7 X64 right now and I feel like I don't really own it. Too little customization unlike Ubuntu. More supported hardware.

The only reason I haven't gone to it yet is gaming, and so far that's declining rapidly on Windows. I'm thinking that Wine can take care of most of my gaming needs, and I don't care if it only does DX9.
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You really have no idea about the FULL potential of Windows. Gaming declining rapidly with things like Eyefinity and Surround on the way, sure. Tools like Office 2010 and in particular OneNote, perhaps the greatest productivity tool on the planet. And the only OS that has first class digitial ink and a platform in the Tablet PC to actually use it like pen and paper.

Most people don't want tweak their OS, thay want to use it. Windows powers so much so well that I feel totally in control because I SOOOOO many options to do what I want and not even thinking about the OS really.
 
heatlesssun said:
Eaxctly. You can't be resonably computer literate in the working world without some knowledge of Windows, its simply too widely deployed to totally ignore on a desktop computer.
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Transitioning from Ubuntu to Windows (and vice versa) would be straightforward. They both utilize the same basic framework for user interfacing (a desktop, windows for applications, prompts and alerts, window minimization and maximization). Probably the biggest thing that differentiates Ubuntu, Windows and OS X is how software installation is approached, but there are plenty of similarities there as well.

It's not like someone using Ubuntu for ten years is going to look at a Windows desktop for the first time and go into a state of panic. Let's not kid ourselves here.
 
phide said:
Transitioning from Ubuntu to Windows (and vice versa) would be straightforward. They both utilize the same basic framework for user interfacing (a desktop, windows for applications, prompts and alerts, window minimization and maximization). Probably the biggest thing that differentiates Ubuntu, Windows and OS X is how software installation is approached, but there are plenty of similarities there as well.

It's not like someone using Ubuntu for ten years is going to look at a Windows desktop for the first time and go into a state of panic. Let's not kid ourselves here.
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It's not the OS, it's the tools that the OS supports. There are simply a lot of great things that aren't available to Linux. Linux is just falling behind on the high end of desktop computing. That's not to say that it's bad or useless but its ecosystem is skewed towards the lower end of desktop.
 
heatlesssun said:
It's not the OS, it's the tools that the OS supports. There are simply a lot of great things that aren't available to Linux. Linux is just falling behind on the high end of desktop computing. That's not to say that it's bad or useless but its ecosystem is skewed towards the lower end of desktop.
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I hope you are not confusing "not available" with "I don't know how to do it". I have been using Linux on my desktop for almost 10 years now, I have not ran into anything that I couldn't do. I have done everything from video editing to music creation to 3d model rendering. Not sure what you mean by high end desktop computing.
 
GNU/Blind said:
I hope you are not confusing "not available" with "I don't know how to do it". I have been using Linux on my desktop for almost 10 years now, I have not ran into anything that I couldn't do. I have done everything from video editing to music creation to 3d model rendering. Not sure what you mean by high end desktop computing.
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Not all, things like REAL digitial ink, the top end commercial packages, Office, Photoshop, Autocad, the list goes on, not there, at least natively. There's PLENTY that Linux doesn't do.
 
GNU/Blind said:
I hope you are not confusing "not available" with "I don't know how to do it". I have been using Linux on my desktop for almost 10 years now, I have not ran into anything that I couldn't do. I have done everything from video editing to music creation to 3d model rendering. Not sure what you mean by high end desktop computing.
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If Linux did everything that Windows could do as easily as Windows Linux would have replaced Linux long ago EVERYWHERE, not just on offs like this.
 
In the working world, unless they work in IT or are a programmer, they will be using Windows. Even many people in IT and programming use Windows.
 
heatlesssun said:
If Linux did everything that Windows could do as easily as Windows Linux would have replaced Linux long ago EVERYWHERE, not just on offs like this.
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Nice sentence, some coherence in your statements would be nice, first you are talking about high end desktop computing now you are talking about ease of use? U mad?
 
GNU/Blind said:
Nice sentence, some coherence in your statements would be nice, first you are talking about high end desktop computing now you are talking about ease of use? U mad?
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LOL! Is this the new retort when one has nothing else to say? Mad about what? Did someone try to steal from me or hurt me? No. Funny shit!:D

But it's both. Windows simply has more and easier support for leading edge technology. OneNote 2010 for example. An incredibly useful tool ESPECIALLY for students and in particular math and science students with its ability to treat ink as text and now even emerging support for math recognition.
 
heatlesssun said:
LOL! Is this the new retort when one has nothing else to say? Mad about what? Did someone try to steal from me or hurt me? No. Funny shit!:D

But it's both. Windows simply has more and easier support for leading edge technology. OneNote 2010 for example. An incredibly useful tool ESPECIALLY for students and in particular math and science students with its ability to treat ink as text and now even emerging support for math recognition.
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Cool I have heard good things about onenote, onenote 2007 runs fine under Linux, I'm sure it won't be long before 2010 is up and running after its released. U mad? haha, also do remember that there is more than likely something that does an adequate job natively. The system requirements for onenote 2010 aren't exactly high end. So please, please tell me about something that remotely relates to "high end desktop computing" that is not available on Linux.
 
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