I go to a programming school, where there were computers running ancient windows 8 and some were on windows 10, they ran really slow and were completely unrelaible when doing the tasks that are required, those computers in question had either i5-4750 (I think?) or i7-4970 so running windows 10 with all its bloat was not going to be an easy task for em, so long story short I decided to talk to the principal about it explaining why linux is so much better than windows and gave him reasons why linux will be better for us for education and he agreed after considering it for a bit, he let me know that some students play roblox or minecraft in middle of the lesson and he asks if linux would stop em from doing that, I stated that as long as they dont know how to work with wine/lutris or know any specific linux packages that run windows games on linux they should not be able to play in the middle of lessons. he gave me the green light to do it, so I spent like 3 days migrating like 20+ computers to linux (since I had to set them up and install some required applications for them) in the last day where I was doing a last check up on the PCs to make sure they are in working order, there was a computer having a problem of which where it didnt boot, I let the principal know about this to get permission to work on it, he said yes, so after some troubleshooting I realized the boot order was all screwed, so since Ive worked with arch before I knew how to fix it, I booted up linux mint live image, chrooted, and fixed the boot order and computer went back to life, prinicipal came in checked on everything to make sure everything works, told me to wait for a bit, and then came back and paid me for his troubles (was a bit of a surprised since I expected nothing of the sort), the next day I came to school, sat down, turned PC on, noticed something was in the trash bin, opened it, found “robloxinstall.exe” on it, told the principal about it, he was pleased with it, so now 2 weeks later he seems now to be confident about linux, as he told me there is another class he is considering to move to linux.
so my question here would be: does this mean linux now is ready for the education sector?
(considering now, that I got a win win situation, I get to use an OS that I like in school, students gets to focus on the lessons instead of slacking.)
Linux was always ready for the education sector. I think already for 10 years now.
It was ready since day one. Linus wrote Linux while a student at the University of Helsinki. It was inspired by MINIX, which was also targeted for use in schools.
My highschool used Ubuntu exclusively back in 2010
fair enough, I just hope at some point schools and organizations switches to the cool penguin.
Back in my days I was also disappointed that schools weren’t using Linux. So I totally agree with you.
When I heard about schools using Chromebooks literally the first thing I said was “Linux can do more than a Chromebook can and is free, why the hell aren’t they using that?!” Linux running on the cheapest OEM laptop (make sure you get ones without the prepaid Windows license so you don’t spend more than you need to) is a better experience than the most expensive Chromebook.
The user experience is not as important as the management tooling.
Just a funny story, but, I use an Ubuntu laptop as my work computer as a teacher, and once, while I was helping another student with work, a student opened my laptop and began trying to install Roblox. She got far enough to figure out it wouldn’t work, and started searching for how to install it. When I came over she was trying to figure out how to set up Wine. She got pretty close to getting it working before I came over. I was secretly pretty impressed with how fast she figured it out. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.
I wouldn’t even be mad honestly. I learned a ton of my early computer skills trying to get stuff running where I shouldn’t or get into things I had no business messing with. That’s how kids learn!
that’s actually an interesting story, makes you wonder if kids nowadys do get exposed to linux first and not windows, would actually learn it faster than having to unlearn windows first?
Or they’re so used to smartphone that windows and Linux are equally alien to them
we dont have those people…yet, I fear for the day when we do though…
Having taught college level students software development, Ctrl-c & ctrl-v was foreign to many
that’s quite unfortunate
i’ve had the same situation with university students
Teh kidz r al rite.
Gives me hope, I’m glad the kids are still curious and willing to learn. I’ve seen too many early-20s people at work who have absolutely zero computer skills.
Linux has been ready for education for a long time! Most of the public high school machines I interacted with in the mid 2000s were linux based. There was a dedicated Mac lab for creative work.
oh I see, good to know!
Nice work, you did a good thing 😊
thank you!
This is a great story, and you should be really proud of yourself! Good job :). I used Linux through college and had very few issues (that I can remember!)
I used Linux in university also, and actually had LESS problems than my classmates - a few of our textbooks came with “homework” versions of industry software (made by the textbook writer, just coded to be good enough to learn some basic concepts and work with some provided example files) and for reasons unknown to man and beast, most of them worked better on wine than on Windows natively - for one, the “submit” button was basically off-screen on Windows but placed where you’d expect on wine, on another trying to connect to machines was a HUGE pain… Except the Linux networking interface had no issues haha.
I only switched because the forced upgrade to Windows 8 ate my first year midterm essays and I never forgave it.
thanks, mind telling me what were those issues? I’m kinda curious, perhaps I should have a mental note for those if they are related to what I just did
It’s been too long, but seems like I had some problems with formatting getting wrecked between Word and LibreOffice. It probably works a lot better now, not to mention that you can just access Word in the browser if really necessary.
ahhhhh okay yeah I agree, my friend (who is also a long time linux user as much as I am one as well) does complain a bit about word processing apps on linux and I quote “basic word processing works alright on linux with libreoffice and onlyoffice, but once you put advanced stuff in it, its a bit difficult to work with”, he seemed to have problems with docx files (iirc) so he has a windows VM where he uses MS office for stuff that he is required to work on, and continue to use linux for everything else.
I love it. Way to go!
thanks a lot!
That’s an awesome story. If all your doing is browsing the Web or using applications that can easily and stably run on linux or have drop in replacements then linux would definitely be totally viable. On the other hand if you need to install specific proprietary applications and you have to rely on wine then maybe not.
luckily its just VSCode, so I didnt have to install something thats too hard!
This is awesome. I hope the students don’t start enjoying xbill :p
Lol, blast from the past…
I looked up xbill and this looks fun, I might try it on my computer actually! thanks btw
Linux over here being all environmental and shit.
real lmao
The issues are probably gonna pop up when teachers and students bring incompatible ms office documents from home, and start complaining. Excel is the one I have run in to most, not always being compatible with libreoffice.
we are a programming school we dont use word processing software, however as for the teachers, we decided to keep windows for them
Them paying you is so nice! I remember installing Ubuntu in some computer in high school before I even used Linux myself lol
ikr, didn’t expect that, perhaps they saw me spending so much time on that so they felt bad or smth
Nicely done! That’s pretty awesome :)
Though I should point out that it’s also not hard to lock down a windows install a bit more if you don’t make the default account an admin one. But moving to Linux is better imo for a whole host of reasons.
Btw I would recommend leaving a note on the desktop saying something like COMPUTER_SPECS.TXT. I had Linux on my computers in school, and I was thinking “holy crap Linux is slow and old”, but it turned out to be cheap hardware (and I didn’t know better, back then)
you’re lucky to have an open-minded principle
They’re often having to juggle with very low budgets, old equipment, low skill and zero support. And that’s before you add children…
I don’t doubt they jumped at the chance of someone helping out.
Principal*
Not being pedantic, just thought I’d let you and others know there are multiple ways to spell this word.
Your input is relevant. It did change my understanding of their comment. Thanks.
I will be pedantic. There is only one way to spell each word; principal and principle are different words (though they share a root).
I was afraid someone would do that.
true, normally people would be too afraid
I love Linux. I’m running Linux and love the experience.
But…
i7-4970i7-4790 so running windows 10 with all its bloat was not going to be an easy task for emWhat in the world are you talking about, man??
Even ignoring the silliness of the “bloat” - i7-4790 eats Win10 alive and asks for seconds.
I stated that as long as they dont know how to work with wine/lutris or know any specific linux packages that run windows games on linux they should not be able to play in the middle of lessons
So… No, you didn’t stop them from doing that. All it takes for them to get back to playing games is to google “linux roblox how to” and 20 minutes later they’re good to go. Windows has AppLocker, and GPO to prevent running unwanted software - have you researched alternatives for Linux?
does this mean linux now is ready for the education sector?
Well, depends on scale. The setup you did is fine for, what, a single classroom? Two classrooms? It’s completely unusable for a larger school - for that you need an MDM solution, ideally with some form of IAM. In the Windows world that’s SCCM/Intune with AD/EID (local/cloud). Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s only bare-bones equivalents in the Linux world for that, which would be the bigger a problem the larger a school you’d be dealing with.
