I go to a programming school, where there were computers running ancient windows 8 and some were on windows 10, they ran really slow and were completely unrelaible when doing the tasks that are required, those computers in question had either i5-4750 (I think?) or i7-4970 so running windows 10 with all its bloat was not going to be an easy task for em, so long story short I decided to talk to the principal about it explaining why linux is so much better than windows and gave him reasons why linux will be better for us for education and he agreed after considering it for a bit, he let me know that some students play roblox or minecraft in middle of the lesson and he asks if linux would stop em from doing that, I stated that as long as they dont know how to work with wine/lutris or know any specific linux packages that run windows games on linux they should not be able to play in the middle of lessons. he gave me the green light to do it, so I spent like 3 days migrating like 20+ computers to linux (since I had to set them up and install some required applications for them) in the last day where I was doing a last check up on the PCs to make sure they are in working order, there was a computer having a problem of which where it didnt boot, I let the principal know about this to get permission to work on it, he said yes, so after some troubleshooting I realized the boot order was all screwed, so since Ive worked with arch before I knew how to fix it, I booted up linux mint live image, chrooted, and fixed the boot order and computer went back to life, prinicipal came in checked on everything to make sure everything works, told me to wait for a bit, and then came back and paid me for his troubles (was a bit of a surprised since I expected nothing of the sort), the next day I came to school, sat down, turned PC on, noticed something was in the trash bin, opened it, found “robloxinstall.exe” on it, told the principal about it, he was pleased with it, so now 2 weeks later he seems now to be confident about linux, as he told me there is another class he is considering to move to linux.
so my question here would be: does this mean linux now is ready for the education sector?
(considering now, that I got a win win situation, I get to use an OS that I like in school, students gets to focus on the lessons instead of slacking.)
Using Linux in the university back in 2004 helped make the jump to Linux at home and I have been using it for 20 years now.
I was thinking of Pop!_OS but also heard about NixOS that could be even run on Mid-2012 MacBook Pro.
Man seriously aren’t you happy with the 2% of users that use Linux right now?, I m telling you for certain, if Linux bites a larger piece of that pie Microsoft is munching for decades, their coders will unleash an influx of any kind of viruses to show how “shitty” Linux are, I really feel safe to be on that 2%, let people find their own way.
Linux has been ready for some time within various educational programs, but maybe you are referring to relatively early education curriculum in public schools? The general anecdotes I’ve heard from teachers within a variety of grade levels in the USA (mostly elementary and high school levels, but some doctoral engineering/scientific as well) convey that the largest hurdles to overcome are:
- Teaching the teachers. Teachers are usually very smart and capable, but are often chronically overworked, overstressed, and underpaid for their labor. They have limited mental bandwidth in learning new tech workflows while having the added obligation of teaching these workflows to students which may be at an attention/interest deficit.
- Challenging the status quo at the administrative level. Schools often receive incentives, grants, steep discounts, etc, for installing certain types of hardware or software packages. The software baselines of some schools are restricted at the district level; many public libraries are restricted by the city/county. Perhaps the best approach here is to install Linux as a “secondary” option (similar to how a smaller number of e.g. Macs may be installed in a computer lab comprised mostly of Windows computers) until it’s more widely adopted.
- Advocating for equivalent Linux support for popular proprietary software. This is especially true for the creative design community, such as graphic design and professional music production. Adobe is usually the target of criticism here; Linux does not currently hold enough market share to capture Adobe’s attention while their patrons usually have unwavering brand loyalty or are unwilling to make any tooling/workflow compromises as to maintain their livelihood.
- FOSS-friendly awareness campaigns. Showing people that they can remain productive while not being at the mercy of Big Tech. Not using public funds for private industry.
- Feature parity case studies compared to proprietary options.
- Overcoming the stereotype that Linux is only for techy people, shrouded by gatekeepers, or subject to drama/infighting.
Now I want to attend your school!
I’ve actually been using linux with older customers for years. It solves several problems. First, it lets them get more life out of their older machines. Second, its free. Third, the kind of malware that targets linux systems isnt really a factor for little old man on facebook. Finally, when scammers call, they cant establish credibility with my customers. They get in, remote access barely works thanks to wayland not liking their tools yet. The entire system looks different and the commands are different so they dont understand how it works but the customer does. So the scam falls apart where they try to prove they know what they are talking about because they cant use the terminal properly. It always ends the same way. My customers get suspicious and say “I’m going to call my computer guy” and the hang up.
This trick has been successful for years and my users are very happy not to have to deal with microsoft’s bullshit. The fact that it confuses the hell out of scammers is just a nice bonus.
What about selling those PCs and letting students to bring their own devices?
Wish I could do that when my school computers had Dos and Turbo Pascal. Ah, the good old himem.sys times. Miles better than W11.
Liberation
Is there not some kind of RMM software you could be using to install the same setup on all of them simultaneously? How about monitoring? Firewalls?
You are doing the lords work and I ain’t even a christian
I love Linux. I’m running Linux and love the experience.
But…
i7-4970i7-4790 so running windows 10 with all its bloat was not going to be an easy task for emWhat in the world are you talking about, man??
Even ignoring the silliness of the “bloat” - i7-4790 eats Win10 alive and asks for seconds.
I stated that as long as they dont know how to work with wine/lutris or know any specific linux packages that run windows games on linux they should not be able to play in the middle of lessons
So… No, you didn’t stop them from doing that. All it takes for them to get back to playing games is to google “linux roblox how to” and 20 minutes later they’re good to go. Windows has AppLocker, and GPO to prevent running unwanted software - have you researched alternatives for Linux?
does this mean linux now is ready for the education sector?
Well, depends on scale. The setup you did is fine for, what, a single classroom? Two classrooms? It’s completely unusable for a larger school - for that you need an MDM solution, ideally with some form of IAM. In the Windows world that’s SCCM/Intune with AD/EID (local/cloud). Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s only bare-bones equivalents in the Linux world for that, which would be the bigger a problem the larger a school you’d be dealing with.
Well done! Protip: You can use double new lines to format paragraphs. And full-stops.
Nicely done! That’s pretty awesome :)
Though I should point out that it’s also not hard to lock down a windows install a bit more if you don’t make the default account an admin one. But moving to Linux is better imo for a whole host of reasons.
You just taught the next generation about compatibility layers! Well done my man
