Trying to get School to use Linux

[Trogdor]

First of all, I have a great slogan for a t-shirt:
fsck /dev/you

Now for the real stuff. As the title implies, I'm looking for a business plan for my high school to replace windows 98 on its 24 computers, with Linux. Can anyone help me with reasons, or a good business plan?

I have these reasons, so far:

- cheaper
- doesn't require as many hardware upgrades
- allows students to understand what actually goes on on a computer
- Less licence restrictions
- allows students to see source of their favorite programs
- sets a new paradigm for separation of school and business

Thanks in advance.

[trc]

as much as i would like the idea, it just isn't very sensible. kids would be wondering how to do simple tasks such as open browsers/mp3 players/editors, and i don't think any (save a few) would really care to look at source code. not to mention you would have to spend money to train at least one teacher how to use/administer linux. besides that, i think it is the decision of the school board to make such a change. liscensing restricts schools from putting certain software on machines, at least thats how it works here in alberta. you can try to convince your school to change, but i don't think installing linux would prove to be a benefit for them.

[DerekKraan]

That would be interesting, but I do believe that it is a school board decision. I know computer policy in Ontario s dictated by the school board. The computer admins all come from the school board as well.

I disagree with what trc has to say. I think the advantages are broad and wide. Openoffice.org is sufficient for all digital office tasks. I'm sure that there are marking book programs for linux as well. The real selling point should be making hardware that is useless in the windows world useful again.

I know a big issue in schools is security. I speak from experience when I say that it is all too easy for students to disable computers and also plaigerise(sp?). The solution to this is to implement proper folder permissions. Ensuring that no two students have write permission to the same folder(or that one student doesn't have read permission to any folder that another student has read permission to) is crucial. This is achieved so much easier in linux than it is in windows.

The only place that I admit Linux is lacking in that would affect schools to any degree is in CAD programs. While they are lacking now, they most certainly will not be lacking in the future. I feel that with the exception of CAD, Linux is ready for the school.

[APwrs]

I think one of the very simple reasons for this would be stability. Back when I was in highschool, I can't tell you the number of times the computers crashed or had a blue screen. Any school computer system would benefit from having less downtime, and from having the computers more available to their students.

[trc]

linux lacks a good powerpoint software suite. i know, i know, i will get flamed for that. sure there are alternatives, but none are as near as good as m$ powerpoint. as for OO.o, from my experiences, office 2000 runs a lot (a damn lot) faster on a p3/athlon 800mhz with 256mb ram than OO.o does. don't get me wrong, i wish my high school had a few linux systems while i was attending, but i wouldn't hold my breath.

[CaptainPinko]

talk to your CS department head about setting up a few linux boxes and perhaps a whole linux lab, move on from their

[UID500]

unless you have a large amount of geeks, it just wouldn't fly....Most kids just want to get on the web and play games. Very few give a crap about source or how a computer works....I work at a school with over 800 students. we have almost 1000 computers. 3 of which are linux (servers).

[twilli227]

quote:
as much as i would like the idea, it just isn't very sensible. kids would be wondering how to do simple tasks such as open browsers/mp3 players/editors,

Your kidding right? I am no computer wiz, and I did not have any troubles figuring out the icons when I switched from window to linux. My 13 year old daughter had to be shown once how to use KDE and she has no problems, and she grew up on Macs and windows.

[pezplaya]

That would actually be really awesome if a school decided to switch to linux, but I doubt that would ever happen. There are just too many kids and adults that lack the knowledge to even run windows properly.. At least if you come to my school. Yes I know linux isn't hard to use, but it would make people have to change what they have been learning to adapt to a new system. I have to agree with trc on a point. Office does run quite a bit faster the openoffice from what i've noticed, and there is also no good powerpoint replacement software that I know of, and we use powerpoint a ton to present stuff when we have presentations to do.

We have about 1400 students in my school, and it is loaded with computers. They are 1.4ghz p4 Dell machines and they all run windows 2000. I would say we have about 15+ computer labs with about 25-30 computers per lab. The system administrators are really picky, and if I even tried to talk to them about changing just one lab to linux, they would probably go crazy and try charging me for some computer violation(they are too strict.) They won't even let you use flopies, and I almost got suspended once for using my usb flash drive. I was able to argue my way out of it. They are all paranoid about viruses... Maybe thats another reason to switch over.

I'm in cisco right now, and maybe I could convince my teacher to let me install linux on at least one of the lab computers connected to a fake network we setup in the back of the room. Ill try that and see what happens. I really doubt it, but Ill try.
For right now I use knoppix at school sometimes, but its not the same as having a disto installed to a local hard disk.

[trc]

Originally posted by twilli227

Your kidding right? I am no computer wiz, and I did not have any troubles figuring out the icons when I switched from window to linux. My 13 year old daughter had to be shown once how to use KDE and she has no problems, and she grew up on Macs and windows.

unfortunetly i'm not. last year i worked at a high school doing IT work and we switched default browsers from IE to mozilla for security reasons. you wouldn't believe how many (high school) kids would complain about 'losing' the internet. now i was overexagerating when i said that about not being able to find any applications, but think about the kids who haven't used computers a whole lot, or that don't have access to one outside of school would be completely lost. i just think it more trouble than its worth.


edit: bad spelling

[twilli227]

trc, I see your point. Maybe using computers just comes easy for me, and most of the kids that I know are computer savy. It would be good if kids did get a chance to see something else besides windows. Linux, one of the BSDs, or Macs, just to understand that there are alternatives.

[DerekKraan]

Originally posted by trc
linux lacks a good powerpoint software suite. i know, i know, i will get flamed for that. sure there are alternatives, but none are as near as good as m$ powerpoint. as for OO.o, from my experiences, office 2000 runs a lot (a damn lot) faster on a p3/athlon 800mhz with 256mb ram than OO.o does. don't get me wrong, i wish my high school had a few linux systems while i was attending, but i wouldn't hold my breath.

You want to know how to speed up OOo?

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112135&highlight=Openoffice+speed+up

[DerekKraan]

Originally posted by UID500
unless you have a large amount of geeks, it just wouldn't fly....Most kids just want to get on the web and play games. Very few give a crap about source or how a computer works....I work at a school with over 800 students. we have almost 1000 computers. 3 of which are linux (servers).

Another advantage to running Linux is that it's very unlikely that people would install games on the computers. It is also possible to not allow people to install the flash plugin for example. Since there is no shockwave plugin, there are no shockwave games. The Ernie Ball guy had it right when he said that there is no need for web browsers on some computers. Productivity in some sections of his company went very far up when he switched to Linux for that simple reason.

[carbon-12]

The best way to convince the school to consider using linux is to run a demo. Ask for a spare computer and install/configure a distro like MDK/RH/SUSE/ETC. Then impress them with your 1337 skills. It worked at our HS. We'll have an entire computer lab( ~50 comps) with linux running starting next semester.

[o0zi]

At our school in the UK (which is a grammar school), I set up a Linux machine. People were quite interested in it, mainly because it looked different! I got a few "what the hell is that" questions, but eventually everyone got used to it.
I talked to the IT teacher and he told me that he would be happy to put Linux on a few machines, as dual-boot, just for the maths and science software. There were several problems that restricted him from installing Linux on everything, however:

You'd have to train the teachers who weren't computer-savvy
They had enough Windows licenses so if they didn't use them it was a waste of money
If they ever upgraded then the hardware would have to be Linux-compatible
DTP software isn't at the standard it is on Windows
The school uses a Novell network, and there aren't any decent GUI administration tools for Novell networks on Linux, only console tools

He did agree with me that the school would probably use Linux in about 2-3 years though.
Now I'm writing some Novell GUI tools in Perl/Tk to fix one of the above problems:)

[hard candy]

There was an article in the Linux Journal about 2 years ago. As an experiment, researchers placed regular pc's with linux loaded in sealed kiosks without mice and with sealed keyboards. These kiosks were placed in Indian cities in the poor sections. The kids were the only ones to use them and by the end of a short while were reprogramming and altering the OS on the machines and started asking the researchers by IRC and email why "they" were watching them. These were kids with no previous experience with computers. They had time and opportunity.
I think if you leave a computer available that wasn't controlled by adults and was running linux, you would have a very different computer by the end of the month.
Try putting them in the cafeteria or make them accessable outside of a structured environment.

[Modorf]

Trogdor,

A few things came to mind while reading the replies.
1) What are the computers currently used for?
2) What is ALL of the software that is run on them?
3) What software do you forsee the school buying?
4) Of all the software listed, is there Linux versions or equals?
5) Hardware restrictions (is any of the computer hardware not listed on compatability lists)?
6) Follow up for current uses, are there any forseen uses that aren't currently tapped?
7) Support for hardware and software (current configurations & future purchases)
8) Security model that the school wants to run (how tight does the admins want control)?

I feel answering these 8 questions will help evaluate if the school is going to be able to migrate to Linux succesfully.

I'm remembering the different types of software packages I used in high school.
Office Productivity Suit (ie MS Office)
Programming - Pascal, C, C++, VB IDE (ie VisualStudio)
Assembly
Web Browser
HTML development - gui editor (ie Dreamweaver), text editor (ie notepad)
Photo editing suit - (ie photoshop)
page layout - (ie pagemaker)
sound editing
video editing - (ie premier)

N.

[pezplaya]

Ha, today I went up to my cisco teacher and tried to convince him to change just one of the computers in the cisco lab to linux. It would be good to know how to setup other OS's besides just windows, because in the real world there is more then just windows. He could have cared less. He basically knows nothing about computers, but somehow he managed to get the job teaching cisco... He basically just blew me off and said even if the top computer admins said ok, he wouldn't want to install it. I guess its not even worth trying to go to the high comptuer people... they are all uptight paranoid people.

[Nu-Bee]

I'm looking for a business plan for my high school to replace windows 98 on its 24 computers, with Linux.

High Schools have enough problem trying to teach teenagers the basics, let alone disrupting normal scholastics so that someone can play computer geek/guru at school.

Do your teachers and yourself a big favor & leave the curriculum & tools to the adults' decision processes. That is unless you have a lot of spare time on your hands to go door to door, and otherwise advertise to try to get a school levy passed to fund the milllion or so $$$ that will be needed to buy all new software to replace the stuff they already have.

...then teach people how to use it all over again.

Use High School for what it is intended for..."learn".

Then, later when you are in college...if you ever get that far...you might even get some credit for trying this.

Learn what you are supposed to now, and things will go a lot better for you in the future.

Yes, you might be doing fine...but don't make it unbearable for those who aren't doing so well. They have enough problem as it is, there is no profit in making it harder for them.

[mart_man00]

Im kind of late here but i was working on this for awhile, sorry for any repeats.

Responsibility Whos going to fix it? Students dont count, most teachers wont either. Guess who does? Your 'friendly' windows admin.

Ease of Use MS is king in this area. Even if you think Open or K office is just or good some one wont. Some ones something wont open/work and with the odds being theres alot of Pro MS people thats all they need.

Classes Teachers dont want to change, students want something familar so they can get out of work. CADD goes to windows, Cisco and alot of networking goes to windows(for some strange and scary reason). Plus theres the dorky 'Graphic design' and stuff classes were the books use only MS Office. Screenshots and videos make Windows the best choice.

Crossover would be pretty tricky to win over. Sure, i bet it would work great, but im not one of the people that makes these calls. Titles dont me crap(knoledge wise)...

Admins Guess what most of them are? MS admins. There job is for Windows so the more respectable one just want to work and be done with it, decent enough.

The annoying ones will tell you have this UNIX stuff is just a fade and windows always has and always will have the market. Then they will mention security, performance and cost. And spend thousans of dollars on a firewall and other basics(i think 40k was mention for a few for my school, along with 'designer ibm blades').

People Whats Linux? New program? Why do I need it? Expect it all. MS is defense, you have to prove it


This sounds very pretty synical im sure, not going for that.

That fact is not alot makes sense, you really cant fight it. The list is nice but finding out who the real nerds are is what will get something done.

Ive had some pretty horrible admins before, some of the biggest discraces to IT. I got a scream out for my 'hacking', aka installing a printer and some apps needed(by a class). I was told my Linux box at school(isolated from schools network with class routers with no connection) is a security threat and it could 'challenge the NT servers'(something was mention about network services and junk, to be honstest i zoned out).

But later on i met a guy whos idea of fun is watching american pie and working on a sparc. He gave me a hand with some C apps and gave me a bunch of (cisco) disks. But my favorite part is hes the admin. Look for some one like that.

Besides from him i have a teacher that did stuff like that(kind of funny, hes a mac guy....). Thats what you need. You can scream about security, stability and junk like that all day.

Coming up with a excuse also help. Im working with 'it helps with cisco' and 'NHS really needs a website', they both mean i want to play with servers during lunch.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Personally, I'd like to see Linux on school's desktops.

Remeber Apple's AtEase software? It turned the Mac desktop into one giant folder, and the only things you could open were the big, goofy looking buttons that were inside of the folders. The software could only be unlocked by the system admin (well, that's the only legitimate way...)

If we're talking about using the computers, not learning about the computers, I'd like to see some type of Linux AtEase solution. If you just had three or four icons with big letters that told what the icons were, like WEB BROWSER or, WORD PROCESSOR, that would be all you'd need. There'd be very little learning needed-- anyone can be taught to click on an icon. If a Linux box were set up to boot like this, that would be ideal.

If a school district hasn't already spent the money on Windows machines, or they're looking for a change, I think that Linux could be a very good alternative if properly configured.

But, as others would mention, there is the average high school computer person (not admin, person) mentality. Usually, they're selected because they can make the neatest flyer in Word, or because they know how to send funny emails. Basically, many are selected because out of the lacking talent pool, they're comparitively the most computer savvy. In my high school, our library's computer person would go nuts if your machine froze, forcing you to reboot. I mean, "YOU MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING TO IT!!!! AAAHHHH!!!! :mad: :mad:" was her response to any out of the ordinary question. Teaching a person like this how to edit a config file using a text editor is pretty much out of the question. As far as Linux GUI tools have advanced, it's still my opinion that you can't completely administer your system using GUI tools.

edit: Woo! 2200th post!

[hard candy]

Usually, they're selected because they can make the neatest flyer in Word, or because they know how to send funny emails. Basically, many are selected because out of the lacking talent pool, they're comparitively the most computer savvy.
One bright side to the slumping IT job market is that the more talented computer people may end up taking those school jobs. And maybe the technical expertise level will rise. And down the road the student will get better instruction.

[mart_man00]

Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379, sure school is for learning, but we want more :)

Even teachers want AIM installed, most will look the other way with a game or too. Sometimes you really need a outside program. So its not that easy.

Usually, they're selected because they can make the neatest flyer in Word
The sad part about that is its true....

[terribleRobbo]

Originally posted by Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379
Remeber Apple's AtEase software?

All too well. Fortunately, they forgot to get rid of the 'finder' option available in the one of the menus on the top-right. If you opened that, you got access to everyone's files.

Dumbarse admin.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by mart_man00
Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379, sure school is for learning, but we want more :)

Even teachers want AIM installed, most will look the other way with a game or too. Sometimes you really need a outside program. So its not that easy.


Yes, school is for learning. My example would best be suited for a lab environment, where students would just be doing work. If they wanted AIM installed, heck, we could install it. There's no limit to what programs could be installed in the menu, but the point is that you follow the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle. My point was to make the icons and the names blatantly obvious so there's no mistaking how to use them. Heck, there could even be a whole games folder. I do realize that teachers often don't care if students play on the computers in some free time.

You would have to have someone who was competant enough to install outside programs. But since there are programs like synaptic and RPMDrake installing new programs is getting easier.

[APwrs]

As far as teachers wanting AIM installed goes, there is a version of AIM for Linux. Also, someone mentioned money, that if the school changed over to Linux they'd have to spend a lot of money. Let's say all the school wanted the computers for was to run office productivity applications and to do web browsing. They could download Mandrake for free, or buy the CDs from some website for $10 and install them on all the computers with no licensing fees. Then they could install OpenOffice.org on all the computers for free (it comes on the Mandrake CDs) and they could install Mozilla Firebird on all the computers for free. Total cost: $10 at the most.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by APwrs
Total cost: $10 at the most.

Before El_Cu_Guy jumps all over this one, you're not counting the time that you have to pay the techs to do all of the work and stuff. If the techs were formerly Windows-only (common in schools), you'll have to pay them for training. So, it comes out to be more than just $10, but I'm still thinking it will come out less than a bunch of Windows licenses.

[o0zi]

The computer people at our school are great; they had a spare machine, so they didn't mind me installing Linux on it. They didn't even mind if I tried to hack the network card, as long as I had their permission. Fantastic admins.

To me it seems that what we need for schools is a Linux distro that has a "Windows" option to it, so people can either use something similar to XP, or use KDE/GNOME/IceWM or whatever. Perhaps a Knoppix remaster would be good...:)

[JThundley]

I was having something of a Linux LAN party, when I wrote a diagram to illustrate my idea of getting a Linux machine to work in a school environment, replacing DeepFreeze. I can't believe nobody mentioned DeepFreeze, because kids would be screwing things up left and right. I'll digitize my paper and pencil drawing and get it to you guys somehow.

[APwrs]

I wasn't taking the cost of time into account because I was assuming that whoever was working on the computers would continue to just be payed their normal salery and therefore be making just as much money as if they were working on Windows computers or sitting around on their thumbs all day.

I have more experience with Mandrake than with any other Linux distro, so what I would do in that situation is install Mandrake on one computer using the simplified installation method where you just chose the overall groups of applications you wanted installed, such as office applications, Internet applications etc. and then I would save that particular setup to a floppy so I could just go and clone that installation on all the other computers in the lab.

After it was all installed, I would remove links to any programs I didn't want the kids getting into so the only options they would have would be the programs that you wanted them to use. Then all they would have to do to use the computers would be just point and click, what they're already used to.

[o0zi]

The Linux security model is great when dealing with kids trying to get into systems. As a normal user, they should only have write access to /home/user or whatever, so they shouldn't be able to muck around with the PCs. The only thing you've got to remember is to remove the "single" user, which is a gaping hole in your security.

You could use PartImage to clone your Mandrake installation onto a CD and install it that way.

Why not ask the IT person if you can install Linux on one machine, and then give the IT person a play with it?

[APwrs]

That does bring up a good point. There are multiple ways that an installation could be quickly cloned to all the other machines in the lab, whether it be by using Mandrake's built in cloning feature or a different program that can help you do it as well.

[o0zi]

If you have some smartcards you can always just set the master to a Linux image and the slaves will then be Linux machines as well.

[APwrs]

You could also clone across the network, if all the computers were networked together. But personally, I prefer the waving a magic wand technique.

[DerekKraan]

When you are considering cost, you can't miss the fact that by going with Linux, you're not only saving the school money on the current batch of Windows licenses, you're also saving them money down the road when it comes time to upgrade. Then you'll have the staff trained, and it won't cost you very much money at all to upgrade. Or you could stick with windows and kiss a lot of money goodbye.

[mart_man00]

DeepFreeze, haha. After 2 days of that crap i personaly took it off a entire lab(cadd room). Its only good if the admins are.

Atease was funny. If i remember right the early ones had a huge bug where if enough crap was running it would actually ask if you wanted to close Atease to free up ram, i loved it.

What i dont get is why school servers arnt Linux. Thats a more resonable goal too.

[o0zi]

But if you think about it, why should schools use Linux if Windows is perfectly acceptable for them? A better option would be to wait until Linux has a wider acceptance and people such as teachers start using it, and then upgrade.

[The Linux Kid]

I'm surprised that no one has said anything about Karamba here for making something like atease. For those of you that don't know, Karamba is used for making pretty looking panels. I think that we (or I) could make an at ease theme and then the kpanels could be removed and then we would have our fully configurable atease for linux!!

Also, the cost issue is what nearly won my IT dept away from win 95. Yep ur reading right w95. They are about to spend a fortune getting new computers when they could just install linux and they will be as good as new. I personally think that linux could be used quite well in a school environment.

Just my $0.02

The Linux Kid

[Trogdor]

Originally posted by Modorf
Trogdor,

A few things came to mind while reading the replies.
1) What are the computers currently used for?
2) What is ALL of the software that is run on them?
3) What software do you forsee the school buying?
4) Of all the software listed, is there Linux versions or equals?
5) Hardware restrictions (is any of the computer hardware not listed on compatability lists)?
6) Follow up for current uses, are there any forseen uses that aren't currently tapped?
7) Support for hardware and software (current configurations & future purchases)
8) Security model that the school wants to run (how tight does the admins want control)?

I feel answering these 8 questions will help evaluate if the school is going to be able to migrate to Linux succesfully.

I'm remembering the different types of software packages I used in high school.
Office Productivity Suit (ie MS Office)
Programming - Pascal, C, C++, VB IDE (ie VisualStudio)
Assembly
Web Browser
HTML development - gui editor (ie Dreamweaver), text editor (ie notepad)
Photo editing suit - (ie photoshop)
page layout - (ie pagemaker)
sound editing
video editing - (ie premier)

N.

1) Web browsing, Word Processing, Spreadsheet making, C++, Visual Basic, Flash (damn!)

2) Internet Explorer, M$ Office, M$ Visual Studio, Macromedia Suite MX, DeepFreeze, Partition Magic,

3) Updates

4) Mozilla / Konqueror, OOO, gcc/gpp/perl/python/bash, (linux is a multi-user OS), fdisk

5) Standard stuff, all supported (I tested with Knoppix)

6) No

7) No

8) 666*Evil Librarians*666 who keep on deleting my stuff

With the sole exception of Flash, it seems like we're set.

[Trogdor]

Nu-Bee and mart_man00, what the hell are you doing on a LINUX forum?

Stuff it.

[o0zi]

The latest version of Crossover Office has Flash support, AFAIK.

[mart_man00]

Nu-Bee and mart_man00, what the hell are you doing on a LINUX forum?
some one has to say the f***en truth sometime.

MS != Evill
Linux != Perfect

Live with it.

the 35 year olds in their parents basements felling special from bash are really anoying and the last thing you want a school to see.

[Trogdor]

Originally posted by mart_man00
MS != Evill
Linux != Perfect

I agree with you that Linux isn't perfect. It's far from perfect. But in many cases, including, in my opinion, the desktop, it is much better than the alternatives.

I don't have some religious belief that Microsoft is "evil", but they have harmed the computer industry more than anything else, in my opinion. For more info, please read this: What's So Bad about Microsoft? (http://www.microsuck.com/content/whatsbad.shtml)

EDIT: By the way, what the hell is "felling special from bash"?

[Trogdor]

Originally posted by o0zi
The latest version of Crossover Office has Flash support, AFAIK.

Neat. I forgot all about WINE[X], Crossover, and all that jazz. How could I overlook that? :eek:

[mart_man00]

Steve Jobs only backrupted acouple people from NeXTStep... Atleast Gates screwed peoplte to their faces and wrinting.

"Every car has a steering wheel but no car company trues to say the steering wheel is their invention"

By the way, what the hell is "felling special from bash"?
Being so thrilled that every one else has a real useful desktop while your practicly typing binary and proud of every minute. Guess you had to be in IRC awhile ago....

The latest version of Crossover Office has Flash support, AFAIK.
Maybe im missing something here. The Cisco disks use flash and i use it in linux with mozilla just fine. Theres a plugin. Problem with it?

[Trogdor]

Originally posted by mart_man00
Maybe im missing something here. The Cisco disks use flash and i use it in linux with mozilla just fine. Theres a plugin. Problem with it?

You crack me up. I am not talking about the flash plugin, I am talking about flash. The program that makes flash movies. *sigh*

[mart_man00]

meh...

[trc]

its ridiculous for people to think that just because linux can be obtained for free that it will magically reduced software/hardware costs by 500%. if that were the case, then every company would be stupid not to switch to linux. obviously those who make this assumption have never worked in the IT industry, or haven't for very long. think of this; about 90% of desktops are powered by windows in some shape or form (9x, ME, 2000, XP...). it would make sense for a school to introduce windows as the primary OS to students. now about 90% of people in north america speak english, so why would schools teach anything other than english as the primary language? now i know that its a pretty broad analogy, but why would a school consider changing systems when windows already works for them? sure linux is free and its easy to ghost all the harddrives after a successful install, but who is going to implement security, govern users, set up samba, cups, etc... unless the schools admin has previous experience with linux/unix systems, they are going to be clueless. if they already know how to *secure (i say secure implying that MOST of the students actions are controlled) their win 2000 systems, why switch to linux where security would be new to them? as for your example of restricting write access to /home/user, almost every win2000 network ive worked with does not even allow reading of the c:\ let alone write access. most programs are accessed through mapped drives pointing to a server somewhere. now i apologize if i come off as being some ignorant windoze lover, but sometimes the best business solution is to use m$ windows. people that fail to see that and still believe that linux == perfection will have a hard time in the real world.

trc

[bproffitt]

Flamage is getting a bit high on this thread, ladies and gents, let's try to keep this civil.

Has Trogdor's original question been answered?

Peace,
Brian Proffitt

[mart_man00]

its ridiculous for people to think that just because linux can be obtained for free that it will magically reduced software/hardware costs by 500%.
No more:
[list=1]
Windows Licenses
Office Licenses
Server Licenses
MSCE Network mokeys every where
[/list=1]

Its a nice idea but theres too many apps now. In time im sure.

Work on a IT club or if your in a fighting mode go after the server room, atleast you have a chance there. Just look in weird places, the admin might be a jerk and by a ms monkey but theres normally some decent around, either to baby sit or a former IT guy.

[Trogdor]

Originally posted by trc
its ridiculous for people to think that just because linux can be obtained for free that it will magically reduced software/hardware costs by 500%

Money has to do with trust. If some random guy walked up to you at the street and guaranteed you that you could get all the food you needed for free, you'd probably make a cross with your fingers and back away. But you pay for the same the grocery store sells. Or maybe I'm just being irreverant.

By the way, trc, we are neighbors! :p

[o0zi]

Well, what I meant was Flash MX, the program you use to create Flash animations. I should've thought that was self-evident.

[Trogdor]

Originally posted by o0zi
Well, what I meant was Flash MX, the program you use to create Flash animations. I should've thought that was self-evident.


Yup, yup, yup. I can download Flash 6 (the plugin), but I have to buy Flash MX (the program). No way to get Flash MX without buying it. Nope.

[JThundley]

.

[dboyer]

i used to attend/work at a school district, and i think you guys are missing something...

When a computer crashes (and they do, running linux or windows or macs or whatever... especially school computers) or fubers, or whatever... what do you hear? "stupid office", "stupid internet explorer" or various other explenatives...

but people blame Microsoft for the problem, they blame Dell . I'm not sure if thats what MS intended, but i think its working for them. If the tech admin stood up and said "OSS is the way to go", and Linux or Openoffice crashes, guess who is going to be looking for a new job...

Although, I do have to admit, Active Directory is pretty swank.