Penn State & Microsoft

[angryfirelord]

I will soon be attending Penn State Worthington in the fall for Information Sciences & Technology. I have done my research and found that Penn State is an excellent school to attend, but there is one glaring drawback; they exclusively use Microsoft products. Sure, students get a big discount, but I think that really restricts knowledge, especially since Linux is continuing to grow.

Anyone else agree with me on this?

[reckless2k2]

it has always struck me as amazing how schools are drawn to proprietary wares. i'm not saying that ms shouldn't be available as it is the standard in the market place but the ignorance going all the way back to something like ODF versus an ms proprietary format. MIT is a big unix/linux place.

[lamalex]

This is your chance to bring open source to them! I go to Temple, where they are primarily windows, but do at least acknowledge Linux and open source. I've managed to get open office installed on all of our computers, and am working on getting our unix lab (really linux, but they call it the unix lab) from red hat 3 to Ubuntu/debian. good luck! make a difference and help your school at the same time!

[ccw]

My old BS program was very platform independent...in the sys admin courses we did all the labs twice: once in Microsoft (Windows NT) and once in *NIX (RedHat 6.something).

http://www.it.rit.edu/it/index.maml

Anyone have experience with Drexel? I'm considering going for a masters and drexel seems to be closest to what I was used to.

Damn... typing that made me feel old.

[lamalex]

I hear mixed things about drexel, depends what you're looking for and who you ask. I personally am not a drexel fan.

[mikedep333]

I go to PSU worthington-scranton myself. I believe you are mistaken about PSU and microsoft

First of all, PSU has an open source mirror. It's not the best, but still.
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/

Secondly, they have a download center where open source apps are available such as OpenOffice and Firefox/Thunderbird.
https://downloads.its.psu.edu/

Finally, on the (Windows) workstations at PSU WS, there is some of this software available. I specifically noticed StarOffice (the commerical office suite based on OpenOffice.)

[iqag1060]

First of all, PSU has an open source mirror. It's not the best, but still.
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/

You beat me to it. As soon as I saw the thread I thought, "Isn't that OpenBSD repository at psu.edu?"

I find it hard to imagine that a school the size of Penn State doesn't have multiple Linux/Unix labs. They may just not be the ones for the general student body which is the same at most schools. (Usually the big computer labs will be mostly MS with a few Mac sections scattered here and there.)

There is/was also a LUG http://www.lug.psu.edu, though it was mentioned elsewhere on this forum as not being active, and the site doesn't seem to be up.

I think you just need to look at it as an advocacy opportunity. The university just wants t provide students with machines they are familiar with and can be productive on. The more students are familiar with Linux, the more the school will provide it.

[angryfirelord]

Well, I was more so referring to Linux in the classroom. Development is still extensively done with Microsoft products. I'm not saying to pitch Windows and load up a Linux distro, but exposure to it should be necessary, especially since Linux has a reputation of running rock solid on a server.

[andrewPCT]

Get involved and push for open software. During my first semester at my college (Fall 2004), the group that I was involved with was able to get Firefox on all computers, and Open Office on a large percentage.

[theox26]

I'm a student at main campus and I actually just found some interesting info. There is a PSU LUG and the site is here: http://php.scripts.psu.edu/clubs/up/lug/listserv

They also can be contact via IRC at #psulug on irc.freenode.net

Never done any work with them but I'm checking into them now.

If anyone else knows more, please share