From: Christopher Dawkins
To: Schools List Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Linux in schools letter Date: 19 September 2000 20:43 I agree with Dave Foster on this, as it echoes the point that I was
My three ha'pence worth... ---------- trying
to make several months ago, about the useability of Unix in general by
non-technical users.
Perfectly usable if it has been configured by a technical user first, but I agree, good technical backup is essential.
It is actually one of our pupils who sets up the Linux systems here - OK, just a couple of workstations and our secondary server (all of the public-access files on the network). Yes, he is an excellent techie, but he makes the decisions on how to implement my requirements, while I nurse the Win'95 client systems and coax them through the latest failures.
They ... need a system which is easy to use NOW. I don't think there is any such system.
Most systems are easy to use till they go wrong or need expansion. At
that
stage they all become difficult.
According to Becta some 500 out of 27000 secondary schools are using open source in some way.
and some in a big way.
We aim to migrate 30-odd systems next summer (hopefully).
What are the costs and time involved in pampering a MS based system to actually work?
and to keep working in the teeth of usage from male teenagers - that's
the
rub.
The main reason for going over to Linux - and the main cause of systems failures (not including the several Jinxes who sit down and immediately get a blue-screen! :) Just how are we supposed to deal with half a dozen boys who's career ambitions are to "be hackers"? (With sufficient nouce to make life difficult under Windows, but too daft to be really criminal!) - Maybe a new HowTo would be in order <g> ... or even a man page called acles (then you would type the command 'man acles'? - sorry)
Our 51 Acorn NCs average perhaps one visit each per year, so far only to fix mouse, keyboard or screen, or to upgrade RAM from the inadequate 8MB originally fitted. Our seventy discless X stations require a little more attention, partly because they are based on older hardware, maybe 15 minutes each per year. Our forty RISC OS machines need their network numbering reconfigured locally whenever we change the numbering system, which seems to average once a decade.
Our thirty Windows machines seem to need an OS reload on average once every six months, plus substantial amounts of other attention.
Whilst Linux can be free, the machines are not.
Yes, you are right, it is a pity we have to pay money for the hardware.
pay about 25 pounds each for the base units, plus 30 for cheap monitors or 150 for good 17" ones. The result is generally between 100 and 250 pounds each for discless workstations capable of Netscape, StarOffice, GIMP & email. Plus expensive server machines of course - about fifty
We pounds-worth
per station. And network infrastructure - again about fifty pounds-worth per station.
I assume that we are not going to ask 5 year-olds to use the Linux command line.
I agree, here it's not till they are 8, when they get a shell account accessible from VT100 terminal windows, and pine for their email. It's not till their teens that they get into things like altering their .cshrc files to customise their prompts (from 8 to 13 they have a menu shell front end, and few know anything of what they can get at behind it).
Linux gui at a reasonable speed a fast Pentium is required (my 500 MHz
Toshiba is slow running the Linux gui). Fast Pentiums cost a lot of money
Yes, agreed, we are going to buy a couple of 750MHz servers to replace the two 500MHz Athlons that are currently sharing the load of 70 discless stations. We are also going to upgrade our central p166 server - it is definitely a bit strained handling over 1,000 shell logins, 1,200 emails and 12,000 intranet web requests each day.
Sorry, I have to DISAGREE STRONGLY - I have 2 workstations at home - an optimised 500 (256MB RAM) running Win'95 and a 300 (128MB RAM), and far from optimised running SuSE 6.4 (& KDE)- any guesses which is quicker? (Clue, not Windows.) - some of the larger apps (Star Office is the worst for this) are painfully slow at times, but most run well enough. Even a 166, here, runs acceptably when compared with its Win '95 equivalent.
I find the Linux gui complicated to use, so what chance a 5 year old?
They seem very confident with the Acorn one, and they graduate from that to KDE remarkably well.
Most of our users have expressed a preference for the KDE desktop to Windows - and claim that it makes more sense than the Win desktop (I think they just like the configurability - most of them like to tinker)
This evidence that Acorns are still useful machines seems to be in contradiction to your earlier assertion that a feeble machine with a command line is of no practical use.
Feeble machines with command lines work very well as our main servers, anyway. The Acorns have an optional command line which most users never see.
If the Linux community is intent upon getting Linux into schools,
perhaps
it should look at the possibility of getting Linux installed onto the existing RiscOS machines, which are not costing anything to the schools.
I think most schools have more PCs than RiscOS machines nowadays.
We don't possess any RiscOS systems, and few local schools seem to, either.
which one presumes they chose because of the many fundamental design features that make these machines so appropriate both for schools and for networking. It's presumably never the case that a school has chosen these machines for reasons such as "everyone else has them" or "there's no alternative"?
-- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-820527 or 07798 636725 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk
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