My school isn't really as low-tech and outdated as i thought i'd be...

[dragos240]

Okay so i am pretty happy. I just got a thing to do during LLMs "lunch language math", now instead of doing 25 minutes of practice reading and MCAS practice (so boring), i get to go into the tech office, i had always thought that my school was pretty confused when it came to technology. I was wrong, i got a tour of the office and server room, and i found that all the servers ran linux! And 2 of the personal computers in the corner used fedora and ubuntu, i reconised the interfaces, both were on the login/resume screen, when i tried to login to the fedora one, it was blue, and when it loaded it hasd the fedora loading cursor :D, and the other one right next to it was orange, same shade, and same interface, i pressed Ctrl + Alt + F1 and it was indeed 8.10 intrepid ibex :) . Thats pretty cool to know it's not worshipping microsoft.

[MaxIBoy]

That's far ahead of my district's IT department! My school would be just as advanced it it were allowed to be, but the district IT department (all one guy of it,) has no idea what it's doing, and all school property reverts to the possession of the district, under control of this idiot. He maintains a list of "certified" software and hardware. When the school raised a bunch of money through its own fundraising efforts, and used the money to buy about 30 MacBooks for use by the students, the district literally hijacked almost all of them, redirecting the shipment from the school to the district office (some of them got delivered to our school by mistake, and we had to keep them under lock and key overnight.) The MacBooks sat in the district office for almost a year before we got our hands on them.



During one of my laptop's frequent periods of hardware breakage (damn you, Toshiba!) I cleaned up a couple of the school desktop computers using Malwarebytes' AntiMalware (highly recommended if you need a quick scan to get the computer back on its feet,) then I put Avira on them as a more-permanent measure. This was just so they'd be usable for getting work done, as before they had been $300 virus-infested doorstops. As luck would have it, the district IT department came by and "audited" the school, discovering that one of the computers had Ubuntu on it, and all of the Windows computers were protected with AVG, Avira, or nothing at all. The district IT department demanded that the school must use Windows XP with Symantec, and for my voluntary work on the school computers, I was told that I had "gotten off with a warning."


And don't even get me started on their content filtering setup! The district acts as ISP for the school. Their content filtering system blocks Google's image search service under the category of "visual search engines," and it blocks the school's official website under the category of "malicious sites." Meanwhile, real actual malicious sites are not blocked. It also has the side-effect of preventing Windows Update from working properly.




The teachers are sympathetic, and most of them actually do know their way around computers. My freshman science teacher builds all his own computers. My current science teacher worked for decades as a programmer, he used Berkly UNIX at his university back in the era of 1BSD, and he was the first person ever to use a computer to assist in biology experiments.

No, the blame lies entirely with the district.

[JackieChan]

Ubuntu is better for education, just because there's so much open source software available to help you. There's a geometry program that helped me out. And I don't own a Scientific calculator that I need for homework, so I use one I downloaded on Ubuntu.

[dragos240]

That's far ahead of my district's IT department! My school would be just as advanced it it were allowed to be, but the district IT department (all one guy of it,) has no idea what it's doing, and all school property reverts to the possession of the district, under control of this idiot. He maintains a list of "certified" software and hardware. When the school raised a bunch of money through its own fundraising efforts, and used the money to buy about 30 MacBooks for use by the students, the district literally hijacked almost all of them, redirecting the shipment from the school to the district office (some of them got delivered to our school by mistake, and we had to keep them under lock and key overnight.) The MacBooks sat in the district office for almost a year before we got our hands on them.



During one of my laptop's frequent periods of hardware breakage (damn you, Toshiba!) I cleaned up a couple of the school desktop computers using Malwarebytes' AntiMalware (highly recommended if you need a quick scan to get the computer back on its feet,) then I put Avira on them as a more-permanent measure. This was just so they'd be usable for getting work done, as before they had been $300 virus-infested doorstops. As luck would have it, the district IT department came by and "audited" the school, discovering that one of the computers had Ubuntu on it, and all of the Windows computers were protected with AVG, Avira, or nothing at all. The district IT department demanded that the school must use Windows XP with Symantec, and for my voluntary work on the school computers, I was told that I had "gotten off with a warning."


And don't even get me started on their content filtering setup! The district acts as ISP for the school. Their content filtering system blocks Google's image search service under the category of "visual search engines," and it blocks the school's official website under the category of "malicious sites." Meanwhile, real actual malicious sites are not blocked. It also has the side-effect of preventing Windows Update from working properly.




The teachers are sympathetic, and most of them actually do know their way around computers. My freshman science teacher builds all his own computers. My current science teacher worked for decades as a programmer, he used Berkly UNIX at his university back in the era of 1BSD, and he was the first person ever to use a computer to assist in biology experiments.

No, the blame lies entirely with the district.

Thats absolutely terrible! Wow, i am really lucky!:D Sorry to hear that :(

[Eisenwinter]

@MaxIBoy;

what the hell? that's horrible man. I feel so sorry for you.

And I thought people here were primitive when it comes to computers (I no longer go to school, I'm 20, I mean the general community).

They virtually worship Microsoft, don't know anything about computers, and panic about every little thing.

I said in another post, a few months ago, that there's a gas station here, and you pay up through a computer.

So in the instruction note, the first instruction says "relax, it's just a computer".

but still, that's nothing compared to your district, I'm actually surprised. :o

[dragos240]

it's pretty terrible :(

[jimi_hendrix]

@maxiboy

may $DIETY save your soul

@OP

lucky...

they take all of our laptops away to 'configure them' so they can use internet at the school...but it takes 30 minutes for 1 laptop...for a password?

[D3ath]

Sorry to hear that but i like turtles.

[billgoldberg]

That's far ahead of my district's IT department! My school would be just as advanced it it were allowed to be, but the district IT department (all one guy of it,) has no idea what it's doing, and all school property reverts to the possession of the district, under control of this idiot. He maintains a list of "certified" software and hardware. When the school raised a bunch of money through its own fundraising efforts, and used the money to buy about 30 MacBooks for use by the students, the district literally hijacked almost all of them, redirecting the shipment from the school to the district office (some of them got delivered to our school by mistake, and we had to keep them under lock and key overnight.) The MacBooks sat in the district office for almost a year before we got our hands on them.



During one of my laptop's frequent periods of hardware breakage (damn you, Toshiba!) I cleaned up a couple of the school desktop computers using Malwarebytes' AntiMalware (highly recommended if you need a quick scan to get the computer back on its feet,) then I put Avira on them as a more-permanent measure. This was just so they'd be usable for getting work done, as before they had been $300 virus-infested doorstops. As luck would have it, the district IT department came by and "audited" the school, discovering that one of the computers had Ubuntu on it, and all of the Windows computers were protected with AVG, Avira, or nothing at all. The district IT department demanded that the school must use Windows XP with Symantec, and for my voluntary work on the school computers, I was told that I had "gotten off with a warning."


And don't even get me started on their content filtering setup! The district acts as ISP for the school. Their content filtering system blocks Google's image search service under the category of "visual search engines," and it blocks the school's official website under the category of "malicious sites." Meanwhile, real actual malicious sites are not blocked. It also has the side-effect of preventing Windows Update from working properly.




The teachers are sympathetic, and most of them actually do know their way around computers. My freshman science teacher builds all his own computers. My current science teacher worked for decades as a programmer, he used Berkly UNIX at his university back in the era of 1BSD, and he was the first person ever to use a computer to assist in biology experiments.

No, the blame lies entirely with the district.

Who audits the district?

That stuff (the macbook thing) doesn't even sound legal.

[afm93]

Okay so i am pretty happy. I just got a thing to do during LLMs "lunch language math", now instead of doing 25 minutes of practice reading and MCAS practice (so boring), i get to go into the tech office, i had always thought that my school was pretty confused when it came to technology. I was wrong, i got a tour of the office and server room, and i found that all the servers ran linux! And 2 of the personal computers in the corner used fedora and ubuntu, i reconised the interfaces, both were on the login/resume screen, when i tried to login to the fedora one, it was blue, and when it loaded it hasd the fedora loading cursor :D, and the other one right next to it was orange, same shade, and same interface, i pressed Ctrl + Alt + F1 and it was indeed 8.10 intrepid ibex :) . Thats pretty cool to know it's not worshipping microsoft.

Your lucky, although judging from the other posts, my lab is pretty good too o.O My school runs on XP with no anti virus. It also have only 5 MB of storage for each student. They keep forking out lot's of money for "Fancy" notebooks, just to display powerpoints. They also forked out a few grand so the Librarian can have a "HD" monitor, even though his computer can't support such a high resolution. I can't believe it some times. The IT lessons, are extremely "RESTRICTED". That you have to learn a "Windows" only programming language in an obsolete compiler. Where the language has pretty much fully changed from then (It's visual basic. I do know that there is a compiler for Linux and Mac for that language, but it's not free, and the codes are probably different).

A lot of students get to manage to view Adult content on the school's computers too, due to the filter only being updated by 1 person who just retired, and not banning keywords.

I'm so using my Notebook in my school next year.

[t0p]

LLMs "lunch language math"...25 minutes of practice reading and MCAS practice

What the sneck? "Lunch language math"?? When I was at skool, we had lunch break, during which we ate lunch, snuck off to smoke cigarettes, had fights... you know, lunch-not-classes.

I guess this "lunch language math" must be some new-fangled multi-tasking idea. Krazy.

[kk0sse54]

Our computers are pretty outdated except for four brand new macs, not that it matters anyways since I don't use computers in school because there's no point for me and since well quite frankly I couldn't care less about what goes on concerning my schools network.


What the sneck? "Lunch language math"?? When I was at skool, we had luch break, during which we ate lunch, snuck off to smoke cigarettes, had fights... you know, lunch-not-classes.

I guess this "lunch language math" must be some new-fangled multi-tasking idea. Krazy.

No worries lunch exists still for the slightly normal people :p

[Eisenwinter]

...and since well quite frankly I could care less about what goes on concerning my schools network.

So you do care?

[kk0sse54]

So you do care?

Maybe it's just my lack of english but I fail to see that.

[dragos240]

Sorry to hear that but i like turtles.

In fifth grade my teacher let turtles walk around the room :D

[Eisenwinter]

"Could care less" means you do care.

[dragos240]

What the sneck? "Lunch language math"?? When I was at skool, we had lunch break, during which we ate lunch, snuck off to smoke cigarettes, had fights... you know, lunch-not-classes.

I guess this "lunch language math" must be some new-fangled multi-tasking idea. Krazy.

Actually it's a period in itself, we have LLM then lunch, it's just called that :p

[Giant Speck]

Maybe it's just my lack of english but I fail to see that.

The correct term is "couldn't care less"; not "could care less."

[kk0sse54]

"Could care less" means you do care.


The correct term is "couldn't care less"; not "could care less."

oi, thank you :)

[Eviltechie]

My school system got a round of new computers last year. Dells, because IBM doesn't make desktops any more. All the computers are Windows with Novell. All is not lost though, I have seen openoffice appear on the computers recently, just not in the application launcher. I can use firefox if I install it, but I have to run it through the schools proxy.

I wish they would switch to Linux, because I know they are dreading the end of life of XP, as it will likely break the functionality of about half of the applications.

[dragos240]

Oh no, they might switch to vista! You must warn them!

[Eviltechie]

Doubtful, some of the computers are a Pentium 4's. They run fine, but I doubt they could live on vista or even windows 7 for that much.

I'm currently trying to find a host of linux applications that could replace what they have now. (I live in Raleigh BTW, so imagine how big it is)

The problem is that they use a lot of windows specific apps, like the adobe suite. Wine is great and all, but it is far from perfect.

They have it set so that any program can be run on any computer, no questions asked.

[dragos240]

Well thats good that they're not switching to vista :) , good luck finding alternatives.

[pwnst*r]

Okay so i am pretty happy. I just got a thing to do during LLMs "lunch language math", now instead of doing 25 minutes of practice reading and MCAS practice (so boring), i get to go into the tech office, i had always thought that my school was pretty confused when it came to technology. I was wrong, i got a tour of the office and server room, and i found that all the servers ran linux! And 2 of the personal computers in the corner used fedora and ubuntu, i reconised the interfaces, both were on the login/resume screen, when i tried to login to the fedora one, it was blue, and when it loaded it hasd the fedora loading cursor :D, and the other one right next to it was orange, same shade, and same interface, i pressed Ctrl + Alt + F1 and it was indeed 8.10 intrepid ibex :) . Thats pretty cool to know it's not worshipping microsoft.

so it's low tech and outdated if it uses MS products?

LOL.

[MaxIBoy]

so it's low tech and outdated if it uses MS products?

LOL.
Pretty much, yeah. Windows was about 30 years behind UNIX in gaining multi-user capabilities (with the Windows NT line, which was actually based on VMS and which wasn't entirely written by Microsoft,) and only with Vista have they actually begun to take advantage of the security benefits of multi-user mode in any significant way.

Windows Vista was the first Windows OS to support symbolic links, which had been a standard UNIX feature since the mid 1980s.

The examples go on.

[TBOL3]

My schools ok. Sure, we have really old computers (ok, so their only a few years old now, which is a step up, but they'll get really old before their replaced again). And their stuck with Windows XP (I wonder if they'll bother switching to vista).

But the good news, I know part of the IT department, and while they insist on using old technology, they at least have a brain about them, and can explain with valid reasons, why they chose it. Besides, I don't care too much. I'm not really forced to use their computers much. So I just go home and rock my ubuntu.

[pwnst*r]

Pretty much, yeah. Windows was about 30 years behind UNIX in gaining multi-user capabilities (with the Windows NT line, which was actually based on VMS and which wasn't entirely written by Microsoft,) and only with Vista have they actually begun to take advantage of the security benefits of multi-user mode in any significant way.

Windows Vista was the first Windows OS to support symbolic links, which had been a standard UNIX feature since the mid 1980s.

The examples go on.

we use a mix of both Unix and Windows and being one of the largest retailers in the country, I can tell you that both are very much needed. i'm still laughing at 'outdated'. depends on the use.