Linux in Schools and Colleges

[ubageek]

I am currently a first year student at collage and I feel that there should be more acceptance of Linux in collages across the world, Now don't take this the wrong way, but it is probably the case that most of the people on the great, vast network are over the age for schools and collages, But I'm sure that you also feel that the lack of a good Linux os can bring you down sometimes.

I mean I'm just speaking from my experience because at my collage I sometimes feel separated for my peers because I use Ubuntu and Xubuntu where as everyone else uses microsoft products. This shouldn't be the case there should be more use of Linux in schools and collages. Because it doesn't help me when there trying to teach me thing and I'm having to repress the voice inside my head that keeps telling me that this would be so much easier if you use Ubuntu.

I'm just curious, does anyone else suffer from the same problems in a educational environment.

[Lord Illidan]

I am currently a first year student at collage and I feel that there should be more acceptance of Linux in collages across the world, Now don't take this the wrong way, but it is probably the case that most of the people on the great, vast network are over the age for schools and collages, But I'm sure that you also feel that the lack of a good Linux os can bring you down sometimes.

I mean I'm just speaking from my experience because at my collage I sometimes feel separated for my peers because I use Ubuntu and Xubuntu where as everyone else uses microsoft products. This shouldn't be the case there should be more use of Linux in schools and collages. Because it doesn't help me when there trying to teach me thing and I'm having to repress the voice inside my head that keeps telling me that this would be so much easier if you use Ubuntu.

I'm just curious, does anyone else suffer from the same problems in a educational environment.

Yes I also suffer from this. But I get around quite well.

[seijuro]

Indeed, I won't name the school but I attended one for one year that flat out would not support linux at all they even went so far as their website would check you and not display the page if it thought you were not running windows. Needless to say I checked in to another school the following year. Hopefully the status has changed by now this was back in 02-03.

[IYY]

My school pretty much forced the CS students to use Linux in school, but their configuration is really horrible. Very old, yet unstable versions of software (like, betas from 5 years ago). For me, it's better than nothing, and I just use the command line for everything, but other students get the wrong impression of Linux.

[GameManK]

Yeah it's kind of annoying but it's also a chance to spread ubuntu (which i haven't taken advantage of).


Because it doesn't help me when there trying to teach me thing and I'm having to repress the voice inside my head that keeps telling me that this would be so much easier if you use Ubuntu.

Stop repressing it and tell them!

[zekopeko]

at my college there are different departments and they differently support linux. some are more MS and some are open source & linux all the way. the web is completely writen in php and postgresql.
most students use windows just because they can get it through MSDNAA (almost their every product)

[RAV TUX]

I am currently a first year student at collage and I feel that there should be more acceptance of Linux in collages across the world, Now don't take this the wrong way, but it is probably the case that most of the people on the great, vast network are over the age for schools and collages, But I'm sure that you also feel that the lack of a good Linux os can bring you down sometimes.

I mean I'm just speaking from my experience because at my collage I sometimes feel separated for my peers because I use Ubuntu and Xubuntu where as everyone else uses microsoft products. This shouldn't be the case there should be more use of Linux in schools and collages. Because it doesn't help me when there trying to teach me thing and I'm having to repress the voice inside my head that keeps telling me that this would be so much easier if you use Ubuntu.

I'm just curious, does anyone else suffer from the same problems in a educational environment.

Perhaps you should transfer to MIT or UofO

[sweemeng]

same here, same here.

my school, hee, have no linux at all. a pure microsoft envronment. with a very active, ms student ambassador program. did i tell you the faculty subscribe to msdn. so i can get free microsoft development tools, and os. so i might actually keep vista because of it, by then i want to keep riso os, amiga, beos .........

but alienated no, i'm turned into a hard core geek among my friends. which is a good thing. because people have asked many question. thats where try to create awareness of linux comes in. but i'm not into conversion thingy, but when friends need help in running linux, i'm more than happy to help.

being the only linux guy in the faculty(of computer science), make me appreciate, things like python, ruby, perl, java, wine, and even virtualization. and i actually, appreciate what mono is doing. yes it is dangerous, but try to tell that to some ms user that think c# is the future. the best we can do is to provide a path.

[Polygon]

My dad tells me that a lot of colleges force people to use windows because they have programs that you MUST run on your computer before you can connect to the internet that forces you to have an anti virus/anti spyware program (or it installs one for you and scans your comp itself) to prevent virus's and malware to spread across the university network

While it has good intentions, that is kinda stupid. I would hate it if that happened to me...

and as being the only linux user in my group of friends / family is not a bad thing. I cannot count how many times i / someone in my family has had a problem, and when my dad offered to buy a program to fix whatever problem it was, i just simply say "no" and find some linux program to do it for free :D

[seijuro]

when I went to UPB (University Pittsburgh, Bradford campus) they were a lot more linux friendly the CS department is entirely run by Linux geeks + windows haters. Their network did require a login from the web browser but it ran fine on my laptop with Ubuntu. Unfortunately being in a small rural area like this there is not a lot of CS students going there. Anyone looking for a small friendly school should really give them a look over.

[teet]

My dad tells me that a lot of colleges force people to use windows because they have programs that you MUST run on your computer before you can connect to the internet that forces you to have an anti virus/anti spyware program (or it installs one for you and scans your comp itself) to prevent virus's and malware to spread across the university network

While it has good intentions, that is kinda stupid. I would hate it if that happened to me...


My old college did that during my senior year. They made you install "Cisco Clean Access Agent". It was actually a pretty good program for most people because it forced them to update their system and install an antivirus. It could be really annoying too, especially if your system had a virus or didn't have a service pack installed.

The program was really easy to side step though. All you had to do was change your useragent string in your browser to something that wasn't microsoft.

-teet

[banjobacon]

I don't care much about Linux in school right now (its time will come), but I'd like to see support for open formats like OpenDocument. I hate having to deal with files created in MS Office (either by me on a school computer, or a classmate-created file), and not being certain that they'll display properly on my computer, and vice-versa. OpenOffice works great most of the time, but it's not perfect.

[Polygon]

My old college did that during my senior year. They made you install "Cisco Clean Access Agent". It was actually a pretty good program for most people because it forced them to update their system and install an antivirus. It could be really annoying too, especially if your system had a virus or didn't have a service pack installed.

The program was really easy to side step though. All you had to do was change your useragent string in your browser to something that wasn't microsoft.

-teet

now that i do think about it, my dad said it was a cisco program. But it is good to know that it recognizes that if your not running windows, you dont have to run the program to connect to the net :D

[sloggerkhan]

I go to the university of Arizona. Things are very mixed as originally different departments implemented things differently.

The CS labs are mostly windows, though they have a small section with 5 or 6 Fedora boxes (not sure what version) and a couple of macs. The main student labs have windows and a smaller mac sections. The engineering department has mac and windows labs. CS and Engineering both run linux and unix OSes on servers.

Overall, I'd say we are very windows. In residence halls, users must install spyware to get on the network if they use windows. Some of the labs still run windows 98. Apparently people would rather run windows 98 than switch them to linux, even though they acknowledge that windows 98 has security holes and stability problems. It's a sure bet that they'll never see xp, 2000, or vista. I'm told the reason we still have these computers is that faculty would leave rather than adjust to windows 2000, xp, vista, or linux. I don't think there are any plans to use vista as of yet, really, budget wise, I think most universities aren't able to consider upgrading.

The main reason IT people here seem opposed to linux is that they either a) think windows 2000 is the best OS ever existed, or b) Users won't people able to adjust to a slight change in user interface.

Among my friends I get harassed and take flak for using linux. I hear a lot of "it's not worth the time," that it sucks, that it's only for nerds, that more people use windows because it's better, that it doesn't run games, that it doesn't run app x, y, or z, and so on.

Really, the only valid reason I've ever seen is games. For gamers, it might make sense to have windows.

Most other reasons are because people would rather feel like MS is responsible for their computer problems, rather than them, personally. If an operating system actually worked, people wouldn't be able to commiserate about their computer problems because they would become more like badges of stupidity.

Oh, and the spyware our windows users must install, it can be worked around by virtual machines and other methods. I don't know about the user agent string. I haven't had windows in a while, so I'm really not up on working around the spyware.

[GameManK]

My dad tells me that a lot of colleges force people to use windows because they have programs that you MUST run on your computer before you can connect to the internet that forces you to have an anti virus/anti spyware program (or it installs one for you and scans your comp itself) to prevent virus's and malware to spread across the university network

While it has good intentions, that is kinda stupid. I would hate it if that happened to me...

and as being the only linux user in my group of friends / family is not a bad thing. I cannot count how many times i / someone in my family has had a problem, and when my dad offered to buy a program to fix whatever problem it was, i just simply say "no" and find some linux program to do it for free :D

In this regard my university is actually quite linux friendly. Amusingly so in fact:
First time you log on to the network, if you are running windows and internet explorer, you have to install AV and do windows updates and stuff. If you're running windows and firefox, it says "You're running windows and a browser other than internet explorer. Good for you, but you need to go to internet explorer [so you can do Windows Update]". If you are running Linux, there is a similar message minus the IE/windows update part, and you just register and that's it.

Our computer science computer cluster is all linux (RHEL, quite outdated too) and macs. The admin vehemently refuses to add any windows machines :). Unfortunately, the rest of campus is all Windows XP and MS Office, but at least all the machines get Firefox. Most of the professors have macs.

[maxamillion]

My entire campus network hides behind Fedora Core servers, but on the inside I can't even convince the department chair to give the Computer Science department 1 Linux lab for software development and I remain the minority in the CS department because I use linux, but I have been teaming up with the Mac users for numbers and to help the cause of (atleast) *nix advocacy on campus. I wouldn't even care if they wanted to do something like a Solaris setup, I just want gcc (and its "family" of compilers) and gvim on a campus machine to be able to code on while I am forced to be on campus.

I am lucky enough however to have landed a systems technician job (basic tech gopher who admins servers, troubleshoots the network, writes random code, and whatever else they need done) for the campus library and my boss was nice enough to let me install Xubuntu on my machine in the office. :)

[ubageek]

I know that some Collages use ofther operationg systems that microsoft, for example my collage uses both windows and mac computers if only they could expnad there sights and allow Linux to get some action!

I want to be able to use my software apps for my work instead of being forced to do it the 'Mans' way!:lolflag:

[ubageek]

I know how you feel, being a minority in your collage, because i am the same, I to am the only person (that I have found) in my collage that uses a linux distro.

But I do know that there are people trying to bring edgy into the secondary school enrironment:D , the best example that I can think of at the moment is my good friend cbx33 who as some of you may know that he works in a school as an IT manager and every second wendsday he runs a linux inrichment class where a small group of students work with and learn about Linux, this is also were YouthLug came from

For more info on Youthlug:
http://www.youthlug.org/
It may be a bit bare at the moment but were working on it when we get any free time

[macogw]

My school has software that checks your Windows is updated and AV is all up to date and running and all, but only Windows users have to use it. The Mac and Linux users just log in through the web browser. There's supposedly no wireless for Linux users, but it's just that the school doesn't support it. It can be done, and I get wireless in areas where the [supported] Mac users don't.

The entire Physics building is Linux, and one of the computer labs in the Engineering building has KVM switches set up that jump you between Dells running Fedora and Macs.

My CS professor just calls in Mac "Unix" all the time and calls Windows users unfortunate, then tells them to get Cygwin.

[sweemeng]

My CS professor just calls in Mac "Unix" all the time and calls Windows users unfortunate, then tells them to get Cygwin.

you rocks man :guitar:

[urukrama]

A friend of mine had a problem with a computer running windows and went to the University computer help centre for some assistence. Their advice? Download or order an Ubuntu CD and change operating system.

The computer offices here at the university are quite open to Linux systems, but it is still hard to get unto the university network with Ubuntu. They have made some improvements lately, but it still isn't as easy as Windows or Mac.

[Hendrixski]

A lot of computer science departments run on solid operating systems: at my university we used Solaris UNIX. I wrote some of the worst bugs known to man for all the theoretical math classes that I took: everything from infinite recursion on really large trees (which would blue-screen any windows computer) to huge memory gaps in Assembly programming on the CPU. I only crashed a UNIX box ONCE, in 5 years of intense use.

I know a lot of computer science departments also use UNIX or LINUX, though the whole rest of the school probably uses Windows (except the art department which uses Mac).

[ubageek]

I think its cool that there are collages and universities that are expanding to the world of Linux, it's just a shame that my collage isn't as open to Linux as others are, But I will continue to suggest the use of Linux will make some aspects of work easier.

When I start looking into Universities I will be asking whether they use Linux on there network system. I will no give up!:D

[ubageek]

I did have to laugh at the comment macogw made about his professor, I think it's just great that there are people are not afraid to just speak there mind about microsoft.

And it's just great that computer support at a uni would tell someone that to sort out a problem with windows they should just download or order a Ubuntu CD.:D

Keep on rockin, out there on the great network!:lolflag:

[gamerchick02]

The school I went to (Kettering University, Flint MI, USA) was mostly Windows. We have several labs that run Unix (Solaris, I think) for programming (CS) and CAD (ME). The Unix machines had all of the apps you needed (Netscape, terminal, CAD, compilers, Matlab, Sun Office) so there was really no reason to use a Windows computer in one of the other labs.

When I lived in the dorm under the old rules for connecting to the network, you needed to sign in using a browser (didn't matter) but when I moved into the dorm again, they're were no restrictions (no sign-in) to use the internet. I never browsed the network, seeing as I didn't really need to.

At that time, I used Windows XP (I didn't know about Ubuntu). Now I am almost Windows free, except for a few programs (mostly games and Matlab, and although I hate to admit it, MS Offce).

There were no Macs (no need for it; maybe a couple of students had Macs) in the computer labs. Nobody did graphical design for classwork so they weren't provided.

Amy

[mkurdziolek]

When I was a freshman our programming was done with Visual Studio in a windows environment. Then the next year we had to use Vim to write our code and make our own Make files using Mandrake. (Ugh, I dislike Mandrake.) From that point on we had to use linux as our programming environment.

Now that I'm in grad school I use whatever I damn well please.

Unfortunately the engineering classes now require freshman to have Windows so you can run programs like AutoCad and the like, but the CS department does all its programming in some flavor of linux. (They just switched from Mandrake to Fedora Core, yay!) So pretty much you need to partition your PC or have two.

[GameManK]

ubageek: I'm sorry to nitpick but this is really annoying me, it's "college". A "collage" is a bunch of pictures cut up and glued to a posterboard.

[Lord Illidan]

The main reason IT people here seem opposed to linux is that they either a) think windows 2000 is the best OS ever existed, or b) Users won't people able to adjust to a slight change in user interface.

Among my friends I get harassed and take flak for using linux. I hear a lot of "it's not worth the time," that it sucks, that it's only for nerds, that more people use windows because it's better, that it doesn't run games, that it doesn't run app x, y, or z, and so on.

Really, the only valid reason I've ever seen is games. For gamers, it might make sense to have windows.

Most other reasons are because people would rather feel like MS is responsible for their computer problems, rather than them, personally. If an operating system actually worked, people wouldn't be able to commiserate about their computer problems because they would become more like badges of stupidity.

Oh, and the spyware our windows users must install, it can be worked around by virtual machines and other methods. I don't know about the user agent string. I haven't had windows in a while, so I'm really not up on working around the spyware.

I get this feeling too.

[Choad]

I am currently a first year student at collage and I feel that there should be more acceptance of Linux in collages across the world, Now don't take this the wrong way, but it is probably the case that most of the people on the great, vast network are over the age for schools and collages, But I'm sure that you also feel that the lack of a good Linux os can bring you down sometimes.

I mean I'm just speaking from my experience because at my collage I sometimes feel separated for my peers because I use Ubuntu and Xubuntu where as everyone else uses microsoft products. This shouldn't be the case there should be more use of Linux in schools and collages. Because it doesn't help me when there trying to teach me thing and I'm having to repress the voice inside my head that keeps telling me that this would be so much easier if you use Ubuntu.

I'm just curious, does anyone else suffer from the same problems in a educational environment.
yeh i know what u mean

its better now im at uni tho. we have lectures about unix and linux and a few labs dual boot with fedora.

[macogw]

I did have to laugh at the comment macogw made about his professor, I think it's just great that there are people are not afraid to just speak there mind about microsoft.

I'm a "her"
He said "if you're unfortunate enough to still be using Windows, I suggest you download Cygwin which will put Unix on top of your Windows otherwise you'll be speaking a different language called DOS which I refuse to teach." He uses the terminal a lot for compiling because he likes Emacs (I'll stick with Vim) and wants the class to use it instead of BlueJ. At the end of class a girl asked how to get Unix, and I handed her a Kubuntu cd (I just came from Edubuntu-ifying some computers and had a whole bunch of *buntu live cds).

[boredandblogging.com]

I'm not sure this is feasible. In reality, most students and stand come to college having used Windows. The help desks are designed to help most of them.

Budgets for colleges and universities are tight. They will try to support what 90% of the population is comfortable with and that is Microsoft.

Now, if students or staff want to use Linux, hopefully there would be someone at the help desks that could help out if there were issues.

[Pikestaff]

Other than a few very minor issues I've stumbled across, my university (Montana State) seems to be pretty Linux friendly. Open Source programs, in general, are very smiled upon: every computer on campus has Firefox and Open Office installed on them (and I'm pretty sure Firefox is the default browser on at least some of those computers). I've taken my laptop to school before and it connects to the wireless fine, and I've tested many aspects of the school's website and programs and as I said I have encountered very few problems.

I honestly don't know what the CS department here uses, as I'm a film student. =P

[randomnumber]

Our cs department smiles and forces you to us unix/linux.

When I started we had a few old sparc systems. The last semester they bought approx 12 linux machines of dell hardware. They used fedora 4 on them. Our schools linux tech guy(one guy) had to figure out how to integrate them into our windows network and I believe he is still working on it.

Since they installed the linux machines we find more and more people in the , what was called, unix lab, now called mp lab (multi platform). We have 2 macs some sparc machines 9 and 10.

All the systems are integrated into the windows server that supplies student storage. People are finding it neat that all their settings follow them on the Linux machines, where the settings did not follow them on the windows machines. It is really cool to see those that come into the lab gaining interest in the os's. Unfortunately the lab has a feeling of nerdy or high intellect which seems forbidding to the students not involved in tech degrees.

I do not think our school has any plans to upgrade to vista any time soon. In fact, I hope that our school's admin are looking more into open source and Linux. It seems they have been hit with continues problems with proprietary software that cost a lot of money, like elearning.

It also seems that our IT department is about as experienced with a pc as my parents. If it doesn't run XP they have no clue.

BTW, our elearning system, that our school has to pay for, upgraded this last December. It took 2 weeks and we had all kinds of problems for a month. Before that they warned us to not upgrade to the new MS internet explorer. Our elearning system is getting to be a joke.

Sorry, got off subject a little.

[ironfistchamp]

At my College (UK so thats 16-18yr olds) we have a small Cisco lab full of XP and 2000 machines. We use a KVM switch on each to switch between the 2000 and XPs. On the XP ones (not on the main network) we wanted to put Ubuntu. We were allowed one machine and we got ububtu 6.06 running on it (just). Our teacher got a little annoyed with us not changing GRUB to boot to Windows first and uninstalled Ubuntu. We then went round and installed Ubuntu on ALL the machines.

He wan't pleased. Stupid thing is he used to run a Suse server (which he hadn't the first clue about) until we fork bombed it by accident (yes it really was an accident). That kinda killed the whole thing and now we ahve to have a Windows 2003 webdev server :'(

It's ok tho cos one of us has a Ubuntu webserver which we all SSH into and just play about on :D.

BTW The ubuntu server was the one we were meant to fork bomb not his. We had two ssh terminals up and picked the wrong one.

Ironfistchamp

[nandasunu]

Here in Liverpool we have a lab of about 100 computers with XP & Suse dual booting. They also have a CD/DVD burning machine with images of Suse for students to take home (amoungst other things). Most people don't know linux is on those machines unless they reboot. Most of the computing degrees require some linux usage, we had to code some bash scripts for part of one coursework, its how I got into linux actually.

[tonyyarusso]

@ Polygon:

A friend of mine is at such a school as your dad described, but we did a little experiment. The results? Those checker programs are ONLY a Windows requirement - you can get on in Linux without lifting a finger. :)

[ErikTheRed]

I'm at Purdue and we have some linux support/use but there's still a lot of Windows machines. The CS labs mostly run linux or solaris, but that doesn't really help me as I'm in business management and windows is pretty much the defacto standard. It's sad because some of the machines run pretty slow from the clogged up windows installs (Despite being capable machines: Pentium 4's.)

[unbuntu]

He said "if you're unfortunate enough to still be using Windows, I suggest you download Cygwin which will put Unix on top of your Windows otherwise you'll be speaking a different language called DOS which I refuse to teach."

That's ridiculous...most Windows users don't even have a clue what 'DOS' means :D

[macogw]

That's ridiculous...most Windows users don't even have a clue what 'DOS' means :D

It's a programming class. If they fear the CLI (even on Windows) they shouldn't be computer science majors.

[unbuntu]

It's a programming class. If they fear the CLI (even on Windows) they shouldn't be computer science majors.

Cool.

Anyway, here in University of Toronto, our lab workstations use exclusively Debian Linux.

[maxamillion]

Cool.

Anyway, here in University of Toronto, our lab workstations use exclusively Debian Linux.

I need to get in contact with your net admin and let him talk some sense into the net admin at my University :)

[AndyW]

Im a CS student at wichita state university and the CS department has 4 linux labs (running Debian) and 1 windows lab. The computers have kde, gnome, and xfce installed, and they are integrated very well into the network. My c programming course requires you to write and compile the programs in linux, so we have ssh access to around 10 servers and all of the windows computers on campus have putty installed for this purpose.

My friend (a computer engineering major) is taking a c programming class and is jelous because he has to use windows while I get to use linux.

The linux labs have some of the best hardware on campus (p4 with 1gb ram) especially compared to the engineering department where I had to run catia on a computer that seemed to have 256 mb ram. (it might have been 512, but it took 5 mins to load catia)

[Brainfart]

It's a programming class. If they fear the CLI (even on Windows) they shouldn't be computer science majors.
I fear the WIndows CLI... that thing's useless.

The CS department at my school (University of Washington) is pretty well mixed. Our lab machines are split about 50/50, but the Linux boxes have nice 24" widescreens compared to the 19" for the WIndows machines. Lots of our classes require at least some usage of a Fedora server to turn stuff in (though they recommend doing our work on the server as well). Our OS class specifically deals with the Linux kernel, mainly 'cause it's so handy; on the other hand, the DB class uses MSSQL. For the most part, though, the program is pretty platform independent.

[macogw]

Brainfart, I don't know any DOS, but I meant that if you fear all CLI in general, you should either get over that or not be a computer scientist. Like, if all Unix shells AND DOS scare ya and you need your clicky mouse, probably not your category

[Brainfart]

Brainfart, I don't know any DOS, but I meant that if you fear all CLI in general, you should either get over that or not be a computer scientist. Like, if all Unix shells AND DOS scare ya and you need your clicky mouse, probably not your category
Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the case. If you want to develop for Linux, yeah, the CLI is quite handy (still not required). If you want to develop for Windows, there's plenty of clicky-mouse tools that'll get the job done. And for those who actually care about their code, they can still use IDEs just fine. Just 'cause it's cool to do everything on the CLI doesn't make it better to do it that way... ;)

[ubageek]

If you live in the UK then you may of heard of this school that was in the news, if you havn't I'll give you a brief report. The BBC is at the moment looking into schools and there IT support. They visited a school that had an IT suit that cost around 1/4 of a million pounds, I would realy like to know how much they spent on Microssoft software prehaps we sould sugest that they switch to Edgy, it would be so much cheeper, and they its a primary school so they don't even use that mush 'specialist' software. Also if they whant to upgrade to Vista andthe new service pack, it will cost them an extra £50,000 which is just outragous. Linux will have its day in the educational sun very soon.:D

[randomnumber]

If you live in the UK then you may of heard of this school that was in the news, if you havn't I'll give you a brief report. The BBC is at the moment looking into schools and there IT support. They visited a school that had an IT suit that cost around 1/4 of a million pounds, I would realy like to know how much they spent on Microssoft software prehaps we sould sugest that they switch to Edgy, it would be so much cheeper, and they its a primary school so they don't even use that mush 'specialist' software. Also if they whant to upgrade to Vista andthe new service pack, it will cost them an extra £50,000 which is just outragous. Linux will have its day in the educational sun very soon.:D

does the 50000 include hardware. I use $ so I am not entirely sure of the conversion but I think £ is just a little more than the $. Your money is confusing and ours is beginning to look like monopoly(the board game) money.

Oh, one question that I admit is off subject. We had a guy come to our pub who claimed to be from england. He commented that we have all kinds of things here that are not present in England. One of the these I can not believe is cheese in a can (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Cheese). This can not be true. You have to have these junk foods over there? <-Sorry to get off subject

[ubageek]

For a school to convert there computers to Vista it will cost them about £50,000 and for you in America thats $98,000. This is just for the software and not for any hardware.
for more information go to,
http://www.progbox.co.uk/wordpress/
this blog is written by a good friend (cbx33) of mine who is working on the edgy in schools project.:D

[mips]

does the 50000 include hardware. I use $ so I am not entirely sure of the conversion but I think £ is just a little more than the $.

That was a very long time ago. Now you might as well x2.



Your money is confusing and ours is beginning to look like monopoly(the board game) money.



It could be worse. For us it is x14. I hope the Euro starts becoming the world trading currency as it does not seem to swing/fluctuate as much as the US$

[randomnumber]

That was a very long time ago. Now you might as well x2.

It could be worse. For us it is x14. I hope the Euro starts becoming the world trading currency as it does not seem to swing/fluctuate as much as the US$

What do you mean? My income stays the same. Maybe I do not see the fluctuation because I am a college student and only buy tuition, books, computer stuff, video games and I only eat out. Besides, when I have extra money I go the pub.

[euler_fan]

My school has a network and website that play nicely with my ubuntu machine, but I also use IETab in Firefox :)

Then again, the school is 70/30 Windows/Mac at best excluding a few labs in the CS department and business school (thank the donor for that, not the IT department) that are remote desktops which can boot XP or Solaris.

It just blows me away that a school trying to contain costs would fail to switch over to Linux, OO.org, Firefox, et al as opposed to spending a fortune on windows software. It amazes me.

In terms of being isolated, I can't say I really feel it, but I generally don't spend much time talking to people who aren't Science/Math/Engineering/Tech majors so running Linux is a novelty but hardly unheard of. I did really surprise my physics prof when I went to his office hours and pulled up my notes (I use LyX for that) and he saw I was running (1) LyX and (2) Linux.

I will say though that most of the math department (I am a math major) uses Macs or Linux, and maybe 1/3 of the math faculty use a windows machine :)

[Brainfart]

It could be worse. For us it is x14. I hope the Euro starts becoming the world trading currency as it does not seem to swing/fluctuate as much as the US$
I hope there's never a global currency. But that's for another discussion, I suppose...

As to the topic of a school paying to upgrade their software, I'm sure (at least some) schools get a pretty decent deal. Even without the government funding, with the rate at which MSFT gives software away to associated parts of the school (e.g. MSDNAA) they're probably cutting a bit of the price of the software for large institutions as well. Hardware costs are usually fairly reduced as well, AFAIK.

[Polygon]

I go to the university of Arizona. Things are very mixed as originally different departments implemented things differently.

The CS labs are mostly windows, though they have a small section with 5 or 6 Fedora boxes (not sure what version) and a couple of macs. The main student labs have windows and a smaller mac sections. The engineering department has mac and windows labs. CS and Engineering both run linux and unix OSes on servers.

Overall, I'd say we are very windows. In residence halls, users must install spyware to get on the network if they use windows. Some of the labs still run windows 98. Apparently people would rather run windows 98 than switch them to linux, even though they acknowledge that windows 98 has security holes and stability problems. It's a sure bet that they'll never see xp, 2000, or vista. I'm told the reason we still have these computers is that faculty would leave rather than adjust to windows 2000, xp, vista, or linux. I don't think there are any plans to use vista as of yet, really, budget wise, I think most universities aren't able to consider upgrading.

The main reason IT people here seem opposed to linux is that they either a) think windows 2000 is the best OS ever existed, or b) Users won't people able to adjust to a slight change in user interface.

Among my friends I get harassed and take flak for using linux. I hear a lot of "it's not worth the time," that it sucks, that it's only for nerds, that more people use windows because it's better, that it doesn't run games, that it doesn't run app x, y, or z, and so on.

Really, the only valid reason I've ever seen is games. For gamers, it might make sense to have windows.

Most other reasons are because people would rather feel like MS is responsible for their computer problems, rather than them, personally. If an operating system actually worked, people wouldn't be able to commiserate about their computer problems because they would become more like badges of stupidity.

Oh, and the spyware our windows users must install, it can be worked around by virtual machines and other methods. I don't know about the user agent string. I haven't had windows in a while, so I'm really not up on working around the spyware.

my dad was talking about the University of Arizona when he was telling me about schools making you install checker programs to make sure you have anti virus and stuff before you can connect to the internet.

Cool that there is another tucson resident on these forums :D

[LKRaider]

At the federal university I attend to here in Brazil there is a mix between linux/windows in our labs. Usually they are setup to dual-booting, with windows being the default option and Ubuntu Dapper as the linux choice.

90% of the students boot directly into windows, but me and a few friends work at trying to expand linux awareness. It's funny how some people are really aggressive against it, specially by mocking it - and notice this is an IT course!

I always carry Ubuntu cd's with me to install on the pc's on the labs that don't already have it. And sometimes when other people see me using it, they ask about it and I give them a cd. They seem to really like receiving a linux cd like that, whithout having to ask/borrow/pay/etc.

Overall, even though linux awareness is not very high, it is increasing steadily, as more people realize the benefits of a free(dom) OS. OTOH, it still is really hard to battle against windows here, because 80% or more of it are pirate copies, so the cost to the user is very low or none. But as more and more anti-piracy locks/law/etc are put into place, the more conscious people get about it, and seek alternatives.

The government here in Brazil is commited to the use of free-software exactly to reduce total costs, also stronger security, no vendor lockups, open document standards, reduce the amount of money that leaves the country while creating more oportunities for national developers to deploy free-software products that are created or adapted locally.

[taxonrath]

I also like to carry Live CDs with me to give to the students at my high school. I have quite a few switching over to Linux beacuse of them. My high school is also moving to SUsE instead of going to Vista. It might not be ubuntu but at least its Linux.

[Jeffery Mewtamer]

I attend a small community college in my hometown, and while their labs are all Microsoft, most of there computers have Firefox, and most of the professors in the Computer department are quite familiar with Linux. I'm currently enrolled in a few classes that focus heavily on the Windows XP Command Line, and I'll eventual be given the choice to take a class dedicated to UNIX.

[ubageek]

Hey Everyone out there on the Great Network. Its great to see that my thread is still going strong.

This is a bit unrelated to the the thread but it is still a good story, I was approached by a man for Vista the other day. Actually go to my blog to read the story, trust my its good.:)

[macogw]

Hey Everyone out there on the Great Network. Its great to see that my thread is still going strong.

This is a bit unrelated to the the thread but it is still a good story, I was approached by a man for Vista the other day. Actually go to my blog to read the story, trust my its good.:)

uh, where's your blog? link?

found:
http://ubageek.wordpress.com/

[ubageek]

sorry for forgetting to put my blog in but you know these things happen.
anyway here it is.
http://ubageek.wordpress.com/

[MethodOne]

In my school (http://www.gotoltc.edu), the computers run mostly Windows XP, except the Linux class runs Fedora Core 3 from removable drives. The FOSS that I use frequently in my classes are Firefox (the copies on the school's installations of Windows are outdated), Wireshark, PuTTY, and FileZilla. For a project regarding VoIP in one of my current classes, I decided to use Trixbox (http://www.trixbox.org) to create a phone exchange. Since I'm the only student in the class that knows Linux very well, I had to give a tutorial on how to use it. One time in my Linux class, I gave some CDs of Ubuntu to my instructor and they went fast. Now it's time to burn a DVD full of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu isos for the next class. When I'm in the library or lounge, the school allows me to use live discs as long as I don't use any partitioning tools, installers, or install-only distributions.

[sloggerkhan]

Nice to see someone else in AZ. University mandated spyware is only a reality for windows users.