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Education Software Linux

Hawaii Puts Old Computers To Work in Linux Labs 168

Posted by michael from the wearing-flipflops-until-age-18 dept.
johnp pastes "'As pressure mounts to meet state-mandated educational technology standards, some Hawai'i schools with limited budgets are getting updated computer labs at a fraction of the typical costs.'"
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Hawaii Puts Old Computers To Work in Linux Labs More

Hawaii Puts Old Computers To Work in Linux Labs

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  • Wait a Second (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rhsanborn ( 773855 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:04AM (#10289991)
    You mean someone realized that they could get a comprehensive solution for extremely little money by NOT buying windows? What a concept. I really hope more schools get Linux labs, even if they already have MS systems. I like the idea of kids getting their hands on something other than MS.

    • Re:Wait a Second (Score:5, Funny)

      by Randy Wang ( 700248 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:14AM (#10290015)
      Hey, imagine a Beow- oh, never mind.


      I, too, think it's great that they're setting up Linux labs and it's costing them next-to-nothing, but I don't actually think that's the really important thing, here. While it's great that the kids are being given the chance to sample non-MS software, the money that isn't being spent on software is being spent elsewhere, improving education there within the same budget.


      So, save money on computers, you can afford to pay teachers just a little more, new textbooks can be purchased, and so on. There's a much larger effect than just the adoption of open-source, you know.

      • I'd be happy if they were Mac labs even, just something other than MS. Kids need to be non-polarized. Now, as for where the money will go...we'll see about that. Its been my experience that schools generally aren't good at spending money in the right places.

        • Re:Wait a Second (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Zorilla ( 791636 )
          Trust me, in school, we had enough of Macs. It's all most schools had in CA if you were lucky enough to have those instead of Apple // computers. Where students could have been learning real skills for future workplaces which most likely use PCs instead of screwing around with Hypercard. Not that intuitive learning on computers was ever encouraged anyway; nobody dared getting ahead of the instructor when they were teaching.

          • learning applications, or learning skills? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by ChristTrekker ( 91442 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @11:02AM (#10290643)

            You can learn concepts of point-and-click, copy-and-paste, desktop metaphor, and most importantly how to use a help system on any OS. Schools that take the perspective of "we have to teach them system X because that's what they'll use in the 'real world'" are thinking wrong. Teach kids how to think not just which widgets to click.

            And if they weren't screwing around in HyperCard on a Mac they'd be screwing around in Solitaire on in Windows. HyperCard may not be an application used in business today, but the kids learned some skills that can be applied elsewhere. If the teachers stressed that aspect of it, the kids will be OK.

            • Re:learning applications, or learning skills? (Score:4, Interesting)

              by popdookey ( 253795 ) <sctinc AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday September 19, 2004 @04:58PM (#10292444)
              You put your finger on our current initiatives with the Boys and Girls Club, our DOE, and the Makiki Community Library. We are working hard to create Community Technology Centers by partnering with existing institutions. The computer labs we donate are just a start.

              Teachings computer literacy with a vendor neutral platform like Linux is the most important goal we have for the next few years. Education is not supposed to be about workforce readiness. That should be a by-product of a solid knowledge base.

              Most importantly, teaching computer literacy with Linux does not create a multi-hundred dollar deficit to own the very software you are learning on.

              • Agreed. Our school systems are not trade programs. ("School To Work", "Goals 2000" and similar initiatives notwithstanding.) Schools are supposed to provide a liberal arts foundation for later life. The kids (and their parents) that will whine that "this isn't what I/they learned in school" are the ones that never really learned how to think, regardless what Johnny's grades were.

                Great to hear about your program, btw. Kudos to you!

            • You hit the nail on the head there. Applications kids learn today as far as computers go will NOT be relevent when they get to the workforce in 5-10 years, but the concepts will be. Using a mouse, using a keyboard, basic word processing etc are all a kid should really learn, picking up computing concepts for the future.

        • Re:Wait a Second (Score:3, Insightful)

          by PhoenixFlare ( 319467 )
          I'd be happy if they were Mac labs even, just something other than MS. Kids need to be non-polarized.

          No, you just want them to be polarized towards something other than MS. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but don't kid yourself.

          • Re:Wait a Second (Score:4, Insightful)

            by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @03:53PM (#10292105) Homepage Journal
            No, you just want them to be polarized towards something other than MS. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but don't kid yourself.

            I disagree. I'm a teacher in a mixed Linux/Windows based school. All students learn to use both system for basic tasks like word processing and file management. The ultimate idea is to teach them generally about computers so they are better prepared for whatever new systems they might encounter later.

            • The ultimate idea is to teach them generally about computers so they are better prepared for whatever new systems they might encounter later.

              I agree with that attitude 100% - I was commenting to that specific poster, not the whole community. Far better to do things that way, than to go on about how MS is blinding kids to alternatives...And then turn around and have your solution be to exclusively use something else, as long as it's not MS.
      • ...as long as it's implemented properly. I'm thinking diskless workstations booting off a server, locked down so the students have minimal opportunity to disrupt them.

        Even minor issues with the lab could represent a major support hassle for the school and could wind up harming Linux's reputation.

        • Re:Wait a Second (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ArtDent ( 83554 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @12:39PM (#10291103)

          TFA gave the impression that that's how they're doing it:

          He said that these labs increase the life of a computer by a few years, because 8-year-old computers can run software just as quickly as newer ones using the open source servers. "Things don't get old as fast," he said.

          I found this article really inspiring. I'd really love work on something like that around here (Toronto, Canada). Does anyone know if anyone is working on this kind of project?

          • Re:Wait a Second (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Fjornir ( 516960 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @06:47PM (#10293095)
            I found this article really inspiring. I'd really love work on something like that around here...

            I, too, would love to see this in my local schools. I think the way to make that happen is a variation on the old "Think globally. Act locally." ideal in that we need to act at both ends of the spectrum. It's awesome that you jumped right to finding something local to act on, but remember that a failure in Hawaii will make a local adoption less likely. So, in addition to your local efforts, here are two thoughts thoughts on global action which would help smooth local adoption.

            Send a few dollars to the Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation [hosef.org], and it doesn't have to be a lot. $10 would help defray printing costs of handouts and cheat sheets for teachers and students. $20 is a significant portion of the cost of a flight between islands. $100 would help replace a blown monitor.

            Contribute time to the projects these guys are using! And by that I don't mean join the mailinglist and get involved in all of the latest flamewars. I mean do some real work: bug-hunt in the areas students, educators, and administrators are likely to find problems in. Propose solutions to non-bug problem areas, and help to revise ideas with other peoples proposals. Write some test scripts. Write some code....

            Peace, Love, Linux

            Chris

          • ArtDent - this article got me thinking in the same vein. I actually sent an email to Reboot Canada (www.reboot.on.ca) asking if they needed volunteers.

            Take a look at their website - their main chapter is based in Toronto and I think it's just the sort of thing you're looking for.
    • You mean someone realized that they could get a comprehensive solution for extremely little money by NOT buying windows?

      What they should have done is phone up Microsoft and say that they were going to upgrade to a Linux lab for $3,000 instead of the conventional $30,000 and they were going to tell the media about it. Bill Gates would have flown in personally to cut them a "charitable donation" cheque for $31,000 on the condition they go the conventional route. Net profit: $1,000. Staying with Windows i
      • Bill Gates would have flown in personally to cut them a "charitable donation" cheque for $31,000 on the condition they go the conventional route.

        That's not how Microsoft normally plays the game. If you play hardball with them, you can even get $60,000 .... however, all in vouchers for Microsoft software. Little problem is that all that stuff doesn't run well on 8 year old hardware. So, you have to buy new computers, which will quickly drain that "$1,000 net profit". Or was that by now $30,000 profit :-),

    • Re:Wait a Second (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AvantLegion ( 595806 )
      >> I like the idea of kids getting their hands on something other than MS.

      And that's it. Personally, I don't subscribe to the idea of Linux being superior to everything else. But the idea is to break the "Windows OS is the only OS" notion.

      I remember years ago, when people weren't so tied to "Microsoft this" and "Microsoft that". MS stuff was just one option - often a very good option, but not the sole option.

      That's what we need back.

  • Nice precident in this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tjlsmith ( 583149 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:05AM (#10289995)
    As the UoH basically invented computer communications by using a discarded satellite to create the ALOHA system, the basic mathematics of which govern Ethernet and the Internet.

  • not terribly surprising... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Daniel Ellard ( 799842 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:13AM (#10290013)
    When you compare "commercial off-the shelf" prices for computers and software with prices of "recycled" computers and free software, of course you're going to see a big difference.

    A more interesting question is total cost of ownership; i.e. how much money this really saves over the long run (factoring in things like the fact that the PTA is probably giving the schools grief because the students are learning Office or similar skills that will help them get jobs... believe me, this happens). I'm sure someone has opinions (and hopefully data) related to that.

    An even more interesting questions is why our schools aren't adequately funded...

    • Re:not terribly surprising... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by essence ( 812715 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:19AM (#10290029) Homepage Journal
      An even more interesting questions is why our schools aren't adequately funded...

      Maybe because most politicians are owned by corporates. And they only want the upper classes to get good education through private schools - therefore cut funding to public education.

      oh, and maybe if so much money wasn't spent on the military and prison systems, there would be plenty left for schools (and hospitals).
      • I'd be surprised if it was some sort of upper class conspiracy; that would require a degree of organisation and collusion that I have a hard time believing.

        Now, as for spending too much money on other stuff, I think you may be right there...
        • I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but there is a very real hatred between the classes and in most current societies class is defined by money.
        • Sometimes there are headless conspiracies. Otherwise known as the law of unintended effects.

          Most school systems generate the bulk of their revenue from property taxes. Property taxes are based on the assessed value of the homes.

          This is the difference between "good" schools and "bad" schools. People are also willing to pay a premium to move into one of the "good" school districts, driving the valuations higher, and the taxes higher while at the same time depressing prices in poor districts and driving tax
          • That's what happened in CA in 1971. See Serrano v. Priest. And we all know how much better it is here in CA, right?

            The real change is that now people don't believe they can do anything for their schools. They either move to an area with a good school, or turn to homeschooling/private schools.

            Or they're too poor do do any of the above. Or they just plain don't care.

          • State wide fixed per pupil spending would resolve this issue, but the people with the power are the ones that have everything to lose because they currently live in the good districts.

            No, it wouldn't. You'd have to forbid local authorities and parents to subsidize their schools in order to achieve a fixed level for funding, and it would be quite authoritarian way of running the system. Otherwise, the differences will arise nonetheless, only you'll have a less transparent funding mechanism.
            In my opinion,
        • Yes. The terrible upper class conspiracies happen at the religious/private schools. To cite one example, about a decade ago one of the local religious schools started a building project to replace the roof. Ten years and over ten million dollars later, they have a "new parking lot" (of about 8 spaces), an extension to the school, an incredibly expensive gymnasium floor which had been donated but now needs to be more or less completely replaced due to warping, a new playground set... and just now they've STA

      • Re:not terribly surprising... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Bull999999 ( 652264 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @12:03PM (#10290951) Journal
        And they only want the upper classes to get good education through private schools

        Books, such as Millionaire Next Door [amazon.com] shows "wealth takes sacrifice, discipline, and hard work, qualities that are positively discouraged by our high-consumption society. 'You aren't what you drive,'". Your "average" millionaires live in modest houses, drive used cars, and clip coupons. They do value their children's education and thus increase their spending in that area. So if you value getting a large nice house, a new car and computer every couple of years, and buying other usless crap over your children's education, don't bitch at those who do just because they make you look bad.

        As for people sending kids to the private schools, I think that it'll actually help public schools as they still pay property taxes that fund publics schools, but their kids are not using up the resources of public schools.

        oh and maybe if us geeks don't spend so much on ultra fast computers and other cool gadets, there would be plent left for donating to Open Source Software organizations.

        • As for people sending kids to the private schools, I think that it'll actually help public schools as they still pay property taxes that fund publics schools, but their kids are not using up the resources of public schools.

          That's not true in Arizona where the schools get a dollar amount per head actually in the school. And they don't use an average, a high balance, some kind of mean calculation. It's two days during the year where they count attendance. So if it happens to fall during a massive flu outbr

          • That's interesting. Here in Colorado, a certain part of ther property tax is set aside for local school districts and you can see what the percentages are from the county site. In case of AZ, do they reduce property tax if not enough students are in the public school system, or do they spend it on something else?
            • They do collect a specific percentage of property tax for the school district. Exactly how they divvy it up I'm not 100% sure. Here's what I do know: charter schools get public funding right alongside public schools, except charter schools get something like 200~$500 more per student. I also know that the PTO at my childrens' school has bought paper for the copy machine, donated the entire profits from(and incurred unreimbursed expenses due to) the last fund raiser we did. The destination of the funds? Toil
    • 'A more interesting question is total cost of ownership; i.e. how much money this really saves over the long run (factoring in things like the fact that the PTA is probably giving the schools grief because the students are learning Office or similar skills that will help them get jobs... believe me, this happens). I'm sure someone has opinions (and hopefully data) related to that. '

      That is crap and you know it. I don't see why someone exposed to a REAL OS like linux would have trouble adapting to Windows i
      • Either you live in a very enlightened school district (if so please send me where!) or else you've never ever dealt with the PTA.

      • "Besides, the future of IT is Linux. Who gives a shit about Office?"

        Well, it's a little early to be sure of that. In any case, most children are not going to grow up and become IT workers and if current trends continue a much smaller percentage will do so than in the last generation.

        If they use Linux when they grow up, they'll be using a GUI and won't know any more about the Unix command line or Unix internals than the average person knows about the Windows command prompt or Windows internals today.

    • Re:not terribly surprising... (Score:5, Informative)

      by nordicfrost ( 118437 ) * on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:31AM (#10290054)
      How can the TCO of Linux possibly be higher than Windows? I manage the network of a small company, with som PCs and a Linux file server. The Windows machines are taking 90% of the work time to manage. The Linux system sits there humming along, while the Windows machines get infected, clogged down and what not. So far, for the company (a small one), the Linux server has cost them 0$ since they recycled an old server, whereas the Windows is 900$ in new hardware for XP + 4 manhours last week trying to remove the about:blank spyware shit. And they are even running in non-priveliged accounts! + Countless more man-hours setting it up, trying to locate drivers etc. Windows has not a lower TCO than Linux, in my experince.

      • Re:not terribly surprising... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        LOL. I've been managed a classroom with 16 Windows 95 computers with 0 (zero, none) hours per month to manage it.

        The system drive (C:) were read-only and it was allowed to save files only on D: drive or Windows NT4.0 server in users folders.
        All writes to drive C: were stored only in memory, after reboot - system drive (with all files, registry, settings, software) were exactly as it was at date of original configuration.

        Even more - there were no GHost at thouse times, I've to spend a 45 minutes to wrote
        • 20 x Mandrake 9.1 computers, no special effort, "ghosting" done once only with a NetCat-and-dd one-liner, zero maintenance. Really should spend an hour URPMI'ing them all before 10.1 gets released.
      • One of the points of TFA (related to TCO) is that the support costs of proprietary systems are deeply discounted for public schools.
        Keeping ANY system running and in decent order requires expertise and time. Time may be less in a linux environment (though in a public school with very restrictive internet access, who knows) but the time component still exists.
        With the deep discounts given to public schools by vendors such as microsoft, and the general economics of support (a glut of Microsoft Certified sup
      • The higher TCO is generally put down to having to retrain the admins and users of the systems in question, not to mention the loss of productivity while they become accustomed to the change. Not saying that's the way it happens, just that in my experience that's at least part of the explanation for increased TCO.

        Incidentally, if you're really spending that much time fixing your Windows boxes, someone somewhere is donig something very badly wrong. I've run a few XP boxes for the last couple of years, and ha
        • ...past three screens of a six-screen MS-Windows-XP setup, all shiny new boxes with (could be wrong, read the number at long range) 512MB of RAM and 19" LCD screens; things I noticed compared with a Linux-based Internet cafe I set up recently were:
          • of the three screens I saw, one had a frozen screen-saver (marquee), one was in use, one had a Norton anti-virus all-is-well report that the attendant couldn't make go away (clicking on yes, no or the little X blinked the dialog, and it was back pretty much insta

      • Re:not terribly surprising... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bwy ( 726112 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @02:18PM (#10291632)
        How can the TCO of Linux possibly be higher than Windows?

        Think Linux on the desktop and not server. For example, try converting a call center from Windows to Linux. The user has several different apps they have to use to access different systems, etc. Suppose your average employee maybe has 2 years of college or less and earns under $10 an hour. Typical person isn't tech-savy, but they've got a Dell or a Gateway at home and they use Win98 or maybe WinXP to do various things.

        Take this user and give them some flavor of Linux at work. You can train them on how to use their apps... but when the abnormal happens, the user is in unfamiliar territory, and an environment that frankly just isn't a friendly as XP. This isn't really a training issue either. Even IT guys like myself admit that things on the desktop are just harder with Linux. You can't just plug hardware in and expect it to work. Installing drivers is not easy. Heck, installing software isn't easy. People say when a Linux desktop locks up, it isn't Linux, it is X or the Window Manager. Explain this concept to your sub $10 an hour employee and teach them to open a shell, kill X, restart, etc? I think not.

        • Take this user and give them some flavor of Linux at work. You can train them on how to use their apps... but when the abnormal happens, the user is in unfamiliar territory, and an environment that frankly just isn't a friendly as XP. This isn't really a training issue either. Even IT guys like myself admit that things on the desktop are just harder with Linux. You can't just plug hardware in and expect it to work. Installing drivers is not easy.

          What are you talking about? Office workers do not install

          • What are you talking about? Office workers do not install software, and they certainly don't install divers.

            Using that as an example only... Point being that lots of experienced IT folks have issues getting Linux to work on a desktop, installing software, drivers, etc. In my experience, true "idiot" end users will also encounter their own set of issues. Because, most end users do more than just sit at one app or a browser all day. They may not be installing software but these folks will definately fi
            • In my office, I gave a Linux (Mandrake) loaded laptop to a sales guy. He's a competent computer user, but he's not a geek by a long shot. It took him one afternoon to get the hang of things, and he's had no trouble since then.

              Admittedly, it's a small sample size, but it's encouraging. I'll be rolling out more Linux desktops at my office soon.
        • Please don't let users mess with systems! Install drivers? Yeeargh! How many times d'you think they'll install the right driver? Nothing like have a user update a working ATI driver to a version which is broken on your hardware, is there?

          WRT killing tasks, have you not seen stuff like GNOME System Monitor? All GUI and shiny, and the worst they can do on Linux is shoot one of their own tasks in the head. If your X is prone to locking up, either fix the #### thing or leave them Ctrl-Alt-BackSpace to play wit
        • Call center staff will just use what they're given, and will moan about whatever theyre using.. All the call center staff i know moan about the windows systems they use, and they would moan about linux systems too, but most likely they would moan less after the initial whimpering about the changes..
          As for installing software, why do your call center staff need to do this? You should prevent people installing arbitrary software on the machines, remember these are business machines there for a specific purpos
      • Exactly the same situation at my job where I basically fix anything that goes wrong.

        Our linux file server has been runing for 143 days without a single crash, etc. etc.. it just WORKS

        Our Windows-based printer computers? They crash every few days. They just plain run like crap compared to the Linux server and desktops we use there. It's very frustrating to lose the entire print queue because of that (I work at a digital photography place that prints queues of hundreds of photos at a time). We'd be running
    • A more interesting question is total cost of ownership; i.e. how much money this really saves over the long run (factoring in things like the fact that the PTA is probably giving the schools grief because the students are learning Office or similar skills that will help them get jobs... believe me, this happens).

      I'm afraid you lost me there. Are you saying a PTA wants students to gain MS Office skills, or that they don't? In any case, I agree with you, some data would be nice. At my son's public elementar

      • Sorry, I wrote "are" when I meant to write "aren't". Too early in the morning for me (and I'm on the east coast -- you must really be burning the midnight oil!).

        I've definately gotten heat for things like this in the past. Some parents (not all, but enough to make a stink) look at a syllabus and compare that with what they see in the help-wanted ads or in the press and get upset that their child is not being educated to be buzzword-compliant. Of course it's wrong to cave in to their demands, but it's

    • If you mix Windows computers and school age kids, you invariably get a mess of spyware and viruses making the machine unusable fairly quickly. I think that's just the nature of kids and the software that they like to run and the web sites that they like to visit.

      I'd say that you have a better shot at a lower cost of ownership with a linux machine than a windows machine in this situation.

      School aged kids are adaptable and don't need retraining to learn linux applications versus windows applications. S

    • An even more interesting questions is why our schools aren't adequately funded...

      No, the interesting question is why people think that spending $$$ buying new computers every couple of years in the k12 system is good use of public education dollars. The funding is adequate, it's just poorly managed.

  • Sneaking in through the back door... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mudcathi ( 584851 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:16AM (#10290021) Journal
    From the article: "...the (Hawaii Dept of Education) is unlikely to convert to open-source machines itself, because the schools get big discounts on service for proprietary software. Although the open-source programs are free, technical support is not," (Rodney Moriyama, assistant superintendent of the DOE's Office of Information Technology Services), pointed out, "so the DOE would have to pay if there were problems with the software. There's actually no incentive for us to do it," he said.

    Apparently, he doesn't realize that other branches of the state gov't feel differently, and are putting out bids to convert from Windows to Linux [216.239.57.104]

    • > From the article: "...the (Hawaii Dept of Education) is unlikely
      > to convert to open-source machines itself, because the
      > schools get big discounts on service for proprietary software

      This is quite standard microsoft practice with regards to schools. A state or country works out a deal with microsoft whereby they get essentially free access to MS software. It's paid for by the relevant education department, but schools get a package of perhaps 20 CDs of MS software.

      They can be installed at will

      • It's a good or bad thing, depending on how you wish to look at it.

        In the same way that getting a deep discount on your first two hits of crack can be a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it, right? :P (Sorry, couldn't resist).

        I would like to see some open-source based companies do exactly what Microsoft is doing; after all, if pre-loading school kids with Microsoft product experience is considered beneficial to Microsoft in the long run, why would the same model not apply to RedHat? Grant

      • Some Deal (Score:3, Insightful)

        by twitter ( 104583 )
        This is quite standard microsoft practice with regards to schools. A state or country works out a deal with microsoft whereby they get essentially free access to MS software. ... They can be installed at will on any machine within the school, and often on staff personal machines, depending on the details of the contracts worked out with MS and their department.

        That's not how they treated Philadelphia [salon.com] and other school systems they sued.

        It's funny how the administrative people are afraid of free software be

        • Re:Some Deal (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @11:45AM (#10290857)
          The copyright law should be applied universally," she says. "What is it we're trying to teach these children anyway? Are we teaching them that its OK to steal? The message we need to get to them is that intellectual property deserves to be respected.

          That quote from your Philadelphia link was from some BSA drone, but it could have come from the RIAA, the MPAA or, for that matter, Orrin Hatch. If I were an intelligent kid in that school system, the message I'd take way would be this: "stealing" as defined by (insert favorite industry group / misguided Congressman here} is WRONG WRONG WRONG! Got that? It is WRONG. But intimidation, lying, cheating, and misrepresenting facts and relevant law is entirely okay so long as you're doing it to preserve and protect your cash flow.

          So far as I'm concerned, let big business (and big government) keep their little "social messages" away from our children. This is a tactic long used by organized religions, totalitarian states and, for that matter, tobacco companies: indoctrinate children as early as possible, and as adults they will find it almost impossible to think outside the mental sandbox you've created for them.
    • You'd also think that Linux would be easier on the tech support and people would give discounts... Although, the windows tech may give discounts so that they _will_ use windows and then end up calling in the tech support more often, because of bugs and viruses in windows... hrm...

  • bumper sticker... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:20AM (#10290032) Homepage Journal
    My l33t hax0r student just 0wn3d your honor student's Windoze boxen.

  • Cool! Brings back highschool memories. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:29AM (#10290048)
    Cause in 1991 when I was on "business computer" class in Kaneohe, HI (east side of Oahu) we were running some crusty old 386 machines w/ MS Works. We still had quite a few old Tandy comptuers with 8" floppy drives in the room too. Though nobody used them.

    My first taste of the internet was in sept. 1990 on these NAPLS terminals w/ 1200bps modems they were brand new but right after 2400bps modems came out. But every school and state library had at least one. They connected to an X.25 PSDN called "Hawaii FYI". There was a taxpayer funded chat service on the system, as well as links to the state lib, U of H and some state info systems.

    I met some uni students who then turned me on to MUDs, though you had to break out of the library system to get on the net cause there was no public ISP back then. Unless you counted the university system, but then you had to go to Keller hall in the middle of the night. I actually got to meet a member of LoD while messing around online who was at the time an admin for Santanfe.edu. Oh man this brings back memories!

  • Great.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gr8fulnded ( 254977 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:38AM (#10290064)
    Now that's out of the bag, Redmond will be on the phone by the end of their week with their Hawaiian office to offer "discounts" to the schools.

  • Yay for recycling... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jedimark ( 794802 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @08:46AM (#10290086) Homepage
    And they smegging well should too.
    This not only stops certain groups of corporate facist pigs from getting that little bit fatter - using the older computers is good for the environment.
    There's a crapload of toxic waste generated from every circuitboard and chip that is made.
    How much toxic krud came from the crappy computer you are using now? huh? Huh? Go out and plant a tree. ;-)
    Im off to run my super-cluster of older PC's in support of the environment, right after I install that 3-phase power circuit and breath in some more coal fumes...
  • I grew up in Hawai'i. I went barefoot until I was 12.

    Now I'm 42, and I still wear flip-flops, even though I live in Massachusetts.

  • I always thought that American schools, though not all rich, are able to afford computer labs. After all, the computer was invented there, and [major] computer advancement continues to come from the US. This made me think that poor schools in the third world will be able to utilise the technology discarded by the west. Now comes LTSP and budget cuts. These equipment will not smell the African fresh air: Why? because it costs money to send equipment abroad. I was begining to collect this equipment here [in C
    • The thing is, schools are starting to realize they don't "need" new computers for what they are teaching. Unless they are having classes that require lots of computing power. Most school computers get used for, writing papers, surfing the net, learning basic computing and in some cases a bit of programming. Universities and colleges are another matter though.

      As far as I'm concerned it's a good thing the money can be used in other areas.
      • Definitely. The computers we do CAD on though........I can feel the HDDs vibrating through the desk. They're that old.

        The Media Studies computers though are much nicer: G4 towers. And there will be G5s next year. And all with OS X.

        For video editing and photoshopping though, you do need the extra power.

    • Re:Third world schools are doomed! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "I also realize that no body owes the third world a living."

      We may not "owe" them anything, but being human beings, people *deserve* to have basic needs met. To deny those who live in poverty while living in luxury seems terribly hypocritical of our "humanitarian" Western society.

      Seriously, the main thing that guaranteed the well-being of many of us was a spin of the cosmic roulette wheel: we were born in countries with economies that allow us to provide for ourselves. Hundreds of millions of people don't
    • Yes, american public schools are poor, well depending on the area. In reading, Pennsylvania, the average spending per student is about 6,500 roughly. While in areas of New York, New York, the spending goes down to about 1,600. This is why the No child left behind idea doesn't work, many schools are starved for funds already, and money is important for needing to correct the problem. No child left behind is a act started by Goerge Bush that basically gives the schools tests, then if the score is higher tha

  • r'member da kine... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PSaltyDS ( 467134 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @09:08AM (#10290143) Journal
    I graduated from Moanaloa High School, Honolulu in the 70's. The only computer on the whole campus (besides calculators the size of paperback books with red LED displays and fixed decimal points) was an ASR-33 teletype with a 300bd modem that could talk to a UoH computer. The math teacher would demo some real simple COBOL-looking stuff and cover basic boolean. I remember being very under-whelmed and wondering what anybody outside of NASA wanted with one of those things.
  • Two things I'm wondering about
    • Database software? Everything I've seen under linux is backend server stuff; not really the best set up for 6th graders learning the nuts and bolts. After years of waiting I still don't see the FOSS version of something like Filemaker.
    • Hardware requirement inflation. This has been discussed on /dot elsewhere. I looked at the organization website and I'm wondering what system they're installing and what the hardware requirements are. Linux is getting hardware expensive IF peo

    • Re:Great but... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PeterBrett ( 780946 )

      Everything I've seen under linux is backend server stuff; not really the best set up for 6th graders learning the nuts and bolts.

      The first database software I used - well before I started high school - was MySQL. On Windows. Call me wierd, but I didn't find it hard to learn the nuts and bolts of that at all. MySQL is quite well documented.

      Then again, I suppose I was quite a bit more motivated than your run-of-the-mill high-schooler is.

      IMHO, the best way to teach people to use a database is via the b

    • Backend database software? Are you trying to complain that there is no Access or something? Just run a frontend to mysql and all is good. There are many good ones out there. If you just want them to learn how databases work and manipulating them, then the backend can be managed by the teacher.

      Hardware requirements? This is a phony argument. It is easier to tweak a Linux system to run well because there is less automagically installed and running. Ive run KDE on a p166 laptop before, albeit a little slowly
    • Filemaker is a POS. Much better to write your own in PHP or something similar. Trust me - I spent the summer dealing with Filemaker's inflexibility.
  • How could they resist the temptation to say .. "Notebook'em Danno!"
  • I'm at a high school in Toronto, and sometimes I help with computer maintenance and things like that, and the entire department agrees, computer labs like these, with recycled computers can't stay! We get mabey 15 times more requests for help from those labs than any other in the building! Open-source is great, but look into off-lease Dell's, in the long run, it is much easier to use, and easier to make sure they work, and if you're going open-source anyway, the price is quite reasonable.

  • Similar project in Leeds, UK (Score:4, Interesting)

    by terrencefw ( 605681 ) <`ten.nedlohsemaj' `ta' `todhsals'> on Sunday September 19, 2004 @11:34AM (#10290802) Homepage
    Corpus Christi high school in Leeds did this. There's a writeup [schoolforge.org.uk] on Schoolforge UK [schoolforge.org.uk].

    Sadly, it got pulled. The last I heard of the project was this (quoted from a private email, but it's relevant and I'm sure he won't mind):

    It was working fantastically well. Loads of donated clients running as LTSP terminals, squid, samba, and apache servers handling internet connectivity, logins, home directories, login authentication, profiles and policies (superbly hand crafted for lockdown and high performance), intranet, issue tracking for tech support, cups printer servers in every room with a web interface to allow the teachers to control what the kids can print... 100% uptime etc etc. In short, the best setup I've ever seen in any school - and I've been in loads in my 20 years as an educational software developer. Then the headmaster, against the advice of all the IT teachers, technicians, myself and sundry LEA advisers, decided that the school would do the Thomas Telford GNVQ in IT - essentially an MS office training course. So the whole lot was ripped out (Julian Old is now using the salvaged the client machines as a beowulf cluster up at Leeds Met) and replaced with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of windows servers, licences and MS office software. You will not be surprised to learn that all the technical staff in the school resigned (to move to more enlightened schools), I withdrew my support, and that the new system is so flaky it is next to useless. The promised increase in exam grades (the kids, according to the Telford brochure, are virtually guaranteed to get at least a 4 C grade GCSE equivalent from the course) has actually resulted in a massive reduction in performance from the kids.

  • Watch out Intel (Score:3, Funny)

    by jamesl ( 106902 ) on Sunday September 19, 2004 @01:10PM (#10291256)
    The old computers work as well as new ones because they work off of open-source servers.
    Photo caption.
    ... 8-year-old computers can run software just as quickly as newer ones using the open source servers.
    From body of article.

    When the public learns that installing open source software on eight year old machines lets them work as well as new ones, Intel's business is gonna go down the toilet. Dell's gonna be circling the sewer with them.

    Ever wonder what else the newspaper is getting wrong?

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