From 0 To 70 Computers With No Money And Open Source Software
from the when-'for-the-children'-actually-means-something dept
For today's children, an education is not complete unless it comes with some form of computer interaction. In order to become fully functioning adults, these kids need to learn basic computer skills. Unfortunately for many schools, this goal runs in opposition to slashed budgets and bureaucratic apathy. What is an educator to do when he realizes that the computers that kids need are not going to be part of any budget the school has to offer?Thanks to I Love Ubuntu, we have at least one answer answer. Robert Litt, a 6th grade teacher from Alameda County, faced just such a predicament. He needed to provide his students with computers but had no money and little support from the administration. So he set about building the computer lab his students needed using donated computers and the Ubuntu Linux operating system.
Why go with Ubuntu over the much more common Windows? Cost.
Most of the computers’ problems could be fixed by wiping the disks and reinstalling the operating system—but buying new software for every donated computer would be prohibitively expensive. So Robert began to research more affordable options. An acquaintance at the Alameda County Computer Recyclers suggested he use a free operating system, such as GNU/Linux.This is one of the key issues of those hit with budget constraints. Computers can be expensive and having a proprietary operating system such as Windows can add to the cost. By going the Linux route, Robert was able to stick to his $0 budget and still provide the neccesary computers for the students. His early success in bringing in 18 computers led to additional excitement from both students and staff. He was then able to expand the computer lab to 70 computers through these means.
This success in building a quality lab has expanded the ability of the teachers at the school to teach meaningful computer skills to the students.
“The digital divide is growing in a hidden statistic,” Robert says, “the actual teaching of technology in a meaningful way.” He shows students how to do math on spreadsheets, how to make simple websites, how to put together slide presentations, all on free software. These are the computer skills that, students tell him, they are later expected simply to know.By going this route, Robert was party to keeping the cost of education down, something that many people are trying to accomplish. It also brings in a fresh approach to teaching in the digital age. By stepping outside of his comfort zone when it comes to computers, Robert was able to expand his skill set. He now has an opportunity to share that new knowledge and skill with the students and hopefully expand the way in which they interact with technology. Something these kids and and future kids will be doing far more frequently.
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Filed Under: computers, labs, linux, open source, ubuntu
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Now, my major issue is that with this teacher having no knowledge of setting up a secure network or safe guards, I'm a bit worried. I'm sure the last thing parents want is their kids running to school to surf porn, create user accounts on questionable websites, etc...
This is actually were the linux community could really help him out, and I hope that he's done his homework.
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too bad
sad to say this but, if you are not up on windows/ms office, most companies dont consider you to be an experienced computer user.
now, its great he kept the budget low, but, im willing to bet good money that most of those systems came with xp(if they run modern ubuntu, they have to at least be xp level hardware), as such they could have just used the windows license the system came with and still kept the budget at zero dollars.
I am also not a fan of ubunutu.....I personally would have used either pcbsd or Vector linux....(pcbsd being first choice) both are supperior to ubuntu in many ways....but neither of those are going to lead to jobs in your average "computer experiance needed" job.....when you see that, they mean Windows or rarely mac...
a little note about that, I have a few friends who went to schools that where 100% mac, and they had to take classes on how to use windows to get jobs that required computer experiance.
for better or worse, windows is the more mature and accepted OS in the business world.
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Most programmers learn multiple programming languages. why? Because learning the ideals of programming is the tough part, learning the language itself is relatively easy. The same can be said for learning the basics of computers and Office suites. Learning the basics is the tough part, converting that from one flavor to the other is relatively easy.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: too bad
That's a fact. I learned my spreadsheet skills on Lotus 1-2-3 in the early 80's. Those skills have easily transitioned through all the Excel versions and into OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
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Actually, I did at one point in the late 90's. I built a custom Btrieve to Access/Excel interface.
I honestly didn't care for VB that much, probably because I was already entrenched into C/C++ and was comfortable with it and I could find compilers that didn't cost an arm, a leg and my firstborn to use. (like LCC-Win32 which at the time was free for personal or commercial use - I still have a copy of that version that I use occasionally)
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Re: Re: Re: too bad
OTOH, it may be exactly what one will experience in an office environment over time. For example, in every forced upgrade of ms office the menus, options, preferences are rearranged such that one wastes a lot of time relearning its use. Some even feel the need for special "retraining" classes. It is good for one to learn the underlying functions and realize that they can figure shit out for themselves.
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Besides which, a document is a document. A spreadsheet is a spreadsheet. A slideshow is a slideshow. So what if the kids need to spend a minute or two getting acquainted with a slightly different interface years later? All the Windows people will need to do the same thing. If you went through school learning Windows XP and MS Office 2003, you'd still need to adapt to a new interface if you go to work at a place running Windows 8 and Office 2013.
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Re: too bad
I personally am a network engineer. BSD/linux is the choice for computers. For example OpenFlow, Quagga, BIRD, MicroTik, pfSense, etc are all great choices for routers/switches/firewalls both high end IXs and low end endusers. Most utilities are also written for *nix, so OS of choice is usually OSX, BSD, or a linux variant.
Now I know I'm in a very specific field, but general knowledge is always better than specifics and you can see that from most computer science graduates that you interview for a job.
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Re: Re: too bad
and you work as a network engineer ?? you of all people should know in your game it is ALL specifics, without specific knowledge how on earth can you expect to do your job ?
ofcourse you need a great deal of general knowledge, like what a keyboard is, but you do your job by specifically knowing exactly what to do, in your specified system.
not that I have anything against linux, it has it's uses, in what is really quite a narrow application set, it is really not 'desktop' standard, and does not look like meeting that spec anytime soon.
I would assume these kids are using the computer not to learn spreadsheets or WP, but are using it for learning apps like math tutoring or DP type things, and possibly net access for educational material (web casts etc).. im sure they would only be used for porn in the lunch breaks..
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Ummm, my definition of "narrow application set" would be most versions of Windows really.
I can run Win3.1, Win9x, XP, Vista and 7 applications on my one Debian install using Wine. I can also run native Linux apps. I believe that there is a emulator to run Mac software (have never tried this - was never a Mac fan). It can recognize and read ext2, ext3, ext4, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS-3G drives (and more I think).
As for the desktop itself, you have Gnome and KDE which for all intensive purposes look very similar to and act exactly like the Windows GUI's do.
Perhaps it's been awhile since you last explored the Linux world.
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Re: too bad
An individual can get away with that sort of thing, but the fact that he was making the computers 'officially' part of the classroom teaching would have probably caused the lawyers to start frothing at the pen and drafting shakedown letters quick as they could.
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Second, even if we accept your claim that windows experience really is necessary for a job, that would be true now, but you can't extrapolate to 10 years from now when these sixth graders would be looking for jobs (assuming college; six otherwise). The same expenses that prevented the teachers from using windows apply to companies, and many would love to remove that expense from their budgets. As open source software becomes more polished and more accepted, who's to say that having years of experience using the free alternatives to office and the like wouldn't be a huge plus for companies looking to bring in new hires?
Third, Linux experience is a huge plus for developers; some 70+% of servers run a Linux variant, and surprisingly little work is done specifically for windows anymore.
Finally: really? Linux distro snobbery? I agree that pcbsd is an excellent distro, but seriously, the guy built a computer lab for students while learning this stuff on the fly. Ubuntu is an excellent choice for people trying to start out using something that comes as close to "just working" as possible, and it has a very strong community built around it. Again, when the alternative is nothing, arguing about the finer details of what you have instead is pointless.
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Sure it is more processor intensive then some other GnuLinux distros, but the students are not going to care about the couple of extra seconds it takes.
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Re: too bad
They are NOT looking for jobs yet, far from it, though what they are (and this teacher was) is looking for basic computing skills, and *nix absolutely allows this in all avenues.
Talking about different flavours and how you think one is better than the other is ridiculous when looking at the ages of the children. Ubuntu (with its new Unity display) is the closest to what the new Windows 8 and Apple OS is/willbe like. They don't need to know anything else yet and I could probably hazard a guess that the teacher has locked out a lot of things and would most likely never give them anywhere near root access.
Have OpenOffice or LibreOffice on them, Firefox, Thunderbird, Moodle, GIMP, etc and numerous educational programs and you have a brilliant educational tool that is easier and more secure to network than Windows ever is.
When these kids get to high School (9-12) then they might be better informed and more knowledgeable than their counterparts in the actual workings and fundamentals of computing, then they can start using windows or MAC OS or even, heresy I know, *nix (maybe Fedora, Slackware, or Mint.. pcbsd??? Really??? Not for schools!)
Honestly having worked in the ITC Industry as an emplofor over 20yrs If someone has Linux experience wth networking I will employ them and push others to employ them above anyone with same experience running Windows Unless it is specifically for Windows (Active Directory, SQLServer etc). In fact I recommend all my uni students to take Cisco courses instead of Microsoft for networking.. And Industry worldwide is now asking for same
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Re: too bad
sad to say this but, if you are not up on windows/ms office, most companies dont consider you to be an experienced computer user.
For me, 6th grade was actually the first year in school when I had a computer in the classroom (which the teacher -- Mr. Mann, bought himself). It was an Apple II and we used it to play Oregon Trail. I also learned to do some basic programming and built a wider appreciation of computers which carried over into Jr. High and High School where I learned numerous other things related to computers.
According to your logic, because I didn't learn Microsoft Word/Excel (which didn't exist then) in that 6th grade classroom, I wasn't prepared to go out into the work world a decade later when I graduated from college. As if at no time in the following years could I possibly have picked up that other stuff.
This lab isn't to train 6th graders to be desk jockies a decade from now. It's to make them computer literate in general. Specific skills come later.
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...
You have died of dysentery.
Good times ;)
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We had to settle for a Commodore 64 that our 6th grade teacher purchased and brought in on his own...
Games, those were in the back of magazines in either BASIC or Machine Language, and to play them, students in the class had to first enter them into the computer...
Who didn't love typing in thousands and thousands of numbers in 3 digit series to create a space invaders type game???
Obviously these early computer experiences didn't prepare me for the real world where I work with computers and spreadsheets on a daily basis....
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Before that, checking dozens of lines of ML was a royal pain. I actually wrote a joystick controlled BASIC program that would use SAM (Software Automatic Mouth) to speak each number from memory. I could then lie on my bed with the magazine and follow along as it read out each number. It had options to step forward, backward, repeat the current number, etc.
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I fondly remember being able to write
10 print "hello, I am a computer"
20 goto 10
as my first EVER program. Things went downhill from there I think ;)
The only other place with a PC was a local Tandy store with a Trash 80 (Co-Co TSR-80 for the young ones) but they wouldn't allow the likes of us to touch Ze perty blinken lightens ;(
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But I had already been hooked on computers before this -> Star Trek for the win! So i had used my Grandpa's Apple II prior to that and some little computer that used cassette's for data storage(albeit with the crappy tape player we had never got that to work properly).
The game of choice at the time was Cross Country Canada(there was a USA counterpart). Didn't play Oregon trail until 2-3 years later.
I was first intro'd to spreadsheets/word processing on Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordperfect. Picking up MS Excel/Word was easy.
My home computer jumped from my grandpa's old Apple II, to as Laser 128(with 128K RAM - an apple clone). Then years later to a used 8088(yup an 88 not 86) with 2 5 1/2" floppies, later upgraded with a 40 MB HDD, and an orange VGA screen. Then years later, finally to an 80486SX running DOS 6 and Win 3.1 and 4 MB RAM. I had to read both manuals cover to cover to figure out how to get Master of Orion to work which required like 600K of the 640K lower memory to work. And then in university, going for my Comp Sci degree I had no computer of my own until after my first coop term in year 3.
Each one of those added more knowledge and experience towards where I am now which could be anything from a Win/*NIX SysAdmin, Programmer, to a network engineer. And well technically in my last job I was all of those plus was team lead and the only one with *NIX/network experience. None of which directly related to my first computer use, but it was where it all started.
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But never attiribute to shilling what is more easliy explained by lack of critical thinking skills
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sad to say this but, if you are not up on windows/ms office, most companies dont consider you to be an experienced computer user."
What kind of jobs? Other than an actual IT job, I'm having trouble seeing this. If maintaining, or setting up the OS isn't part of your job, it's mostly invisible.
I'd say that the vast majority of jobs that require computer literate people, the Employers don't care what OS you used before. They have their own Applications that they will teach you. ... they just don't want to start with 'This is a mouse'.
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Many of today's start-ups (and larger companies but especially start-ups) use web based SAAS applications like salesforce, google apps, dropbox/box/gdrive/..., amazon storefront/big commerce/..., Zoho, basecamp, MailChimp, Postini (merging with Google Apps), and several others. Even Microsoft's money makers (office, great plains, dynamics) are available as SAAS. Almost all of these support multiple browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome being the big three).
Basically OS familiarity is less of an issue and application familiarity is more of an issue. Today, I rarely ask if someone has Windows or outlook experience and more frequently ask if they know salesforce or google apps or eclipse. We have mixed desktop environments today (Win XP, Win 7, Ubuntu).
Yes, MS office is still somewhat of an issue but less so every day. In fact, we are converting off MS office and moving the entire (small) company to Google apps soon. While that will not completely eliminate all MS office usage (Excel is still Excel in the financial industry, some Execs still like Word), it will greatly reduce it.
I have also helped setup several small charities, businesses, and other entities over the last few years using Google Apps and OpenOffice/Libre Office. Cost for Basic Google Apps for companies of under 10 staff, zero. Cost for Google Apps Business for 10 staff 500/yr. Cost for 10 copies of MS Office Home and Business, $200/copy list or $150/copy street, $1500-2000 for a startup. Cost for 10 copies of OpenOffice/LibreOffice is zero.
Most applications written for in-house use are now written as web based applications to reduce maintenance costs (desktop roll-out and local desktop help desk support cost).
From a start-up/small company perspective, use of Google Apps (or other SAAS office environment) implies my email and my calendar are available on my desk, my phone, or a public/borrowed computer; use of MS Office on MS windows (Non SAAS version) does not. Many small companies see that as a big advantage.
The same applies for in house applications, people on the road with locally installed software are hard on help desk staff. Ditto work from home staff and other non centralized operations. Today's companies might be 5 guys spread throughout the entire US, hard on the IT guy to do upgrades. Host in house apps in an 'official location' where IT is located, let staff on the road access them. Remote staff now need a working browser, not twenty different applications.
In a decade (those 6th graders will be about half way through college) I expect this will be even more the 'usual manner' of doing business.
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Re: too bad
Fundamentals, problem-solving, and critical thinking is what these kids should be learning. Given those skills, they can learn to use a certain tool in very short order, and on their own. This guy is a hero to these kids, and you are part of the stubborn, luddite culture that believes that teaching kids tools and formulas instead of fundamentals is somehow the "right way."
As to your friends who learned on Macs...I'm sorry they had such crappy computer teachers that they didn't learn any transferable skills. That's an instructor problem, not an OS problem.
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Re: too bad
Learning basic computer concepts primes your mind to accept the way computer programs work. If you know excel back and forth and were to sit down in front of just about any spreadsheet program in the world you'll realize just how damn similar they are. There are just basic rules of how things are done, you won't be as efficient at first since every program has it's own quirks.
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Re: too bad
These are 6th grade kids. Nothing they are doing in school right now is going on a resume. They are learning the foundational skills they need to be able to learn higher-level, more career-oriented skills later.
These kids are learning to use a computer. The differences between Linux & Windows are not so great from a user's point of view, and the most important parts translate easily between the two.
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The 80s called. They want their FUD back.
> office, most companies dont consider you to be an
> experienced computer user.
Then you better not ever set foot in a school computer lab. Your head just might explode. They don't believe in your FUD. They probably can't afford to.
This isn't 1985 when you had to memorize the codes for Word Perfect. They invented this thing called the GUI. It makes the learning curve for one particular brand of tool pretty low.
Schools exist to teach skills and concepts, not product brands.
This is true if it's an elementary school or a University Computer Science program.
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Re: The 80s called. They want their FUD back.
yeah ok.. I'm old.
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Anyhow, using linux actually helps these kids out a ton, I wish I had exposure to it when I was younger.
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It wasn't until I got to high school that I was introduced to PCs, DOS, Windows, and a bit of Unix... never really looked back.
Outside of work (software development), FOSS is my first choice. Mostly for philosophical reasons, but also due to cost, longevity, and security.
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FTFY
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Want to share files from home? Good luck.
Want to know how to allocate memory and setup a startup file for unix? You are at the right place. Too bad the demand for that isn't very high.
Oh, and I doubt the zero cost very much. The computers aren't free, someone paid for them.
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Read, then comment.
'So he set about building the computer lab his students needed using donated computers and the Ubuntu Linux operating system.'
Someone did indeed pay for them, but it wasn't him, hence with regards to setting up the computer lab they were essentially free.
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Oh wait, no, that NEVER happens.
Right.
Another linux nut trying to poison the minds of the young.
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Linux is on the majority of servers across the world so if you want to be an IT administrator, Linux knowledge is essential. Get your head out of your arse, for once.
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You don't think that people could donate their old computers WITH windows on them?
Another linux nut trying to poison the minds of the young.
Well, at least those minds seem to be functioning, which is more than can be said for you.
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how do I know all of this? Working for the state, we donated our PCs to local schools to help out. I would then donate my time to help them get them working to be used in their labs. He probably actually had 100 computers donated but had to use some as parts to fix up others. When you have a group of elected officials trying to look good by cutting money from areas that are already strapped rather than from their over paid pet projects, you do what you can to teach those kids and hope that some of them remember when they get old enough to vote.
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I bet you a nickel this guy's IP address is from Redmond, Washington.
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As far as Microsoft Office (which IS what you were talking about without saying it outright) OpenOffice/LibreOffice can open/save the Office formats, and has a very comparable functionality to Office.
Sharing files is using ANY OS isn't difficult either, as learning to do network troubleshooting in a *nix system gives valuable experience that is easy to transfer to Windoze, and actually gives them more insight to the underlying system and HOW THINGS WORK. Try that with any M$ OS out now. They hide any real functionality behind LAYERS and LAYERS of obfuscation and "you're not allowed to do that" functional blocking.
So.... here's you a shovel ... you wanna keep digging?
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And even better... NO FREAKIN RIBBON BAR!
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Re: will teach kids few skills they need in the real world.
It was a disaster.
So now we are all trying desperately to reverse the damage, and introduce something with more real technical content, and less dependence on Microsoft products. (Not) coincidentally, it also puts more emphasis on Linux and other Free/Open-Source software.
You may have heard of the Raspberry Pi project. That offers a full-function PC on a credit-sized motherboard, at a units-of-one price that is basically pocket change. Kind of like what this guy has managed with his already-fully-depreciated elderly PCs, only in a smaller package.
In short, please stop repeating the same old discredited bullshit. It just shows how out of touch with the real world you are.
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Re: will teach kids few skills they need in the real world.
It was a disaster.
So now we are all trying desperately to reverse the damage, and introduce something with more real technical content, and less dependence on Microsoft products. (Not) coincidentally, it also puts more emphasis on Linux and other Free/Open-Source software.
You may have heard of the Raspberry Pi project. That offers a full-function PC on a credit-sized motherboard, at a units-of-one price that is basically pocket change. Kind of like what this guy has managed with his already-fully-depreciated elderly PCs, only in a smaller package.
In short, please stop repeating the same old discredited bullshit. It just shows how out of touch with the real world you are.
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Once you know how to mess around in a computer you don't need further teaching for other software. Microsoft Office nowadays is a completely different thing from the first versions I used on Windows 3.x (I'm not mentioning DOS based text processors, I refuse!!!) and yet it doesn't matter if it's a new M$ Office, Libre Office, Apple Office software I can easily port from one to another. GIMP, Photoshop, Corel is pretty much the same thing if you get the basics (and if you know basic English to read the help files). I even learned html and visual basic reading tutorials. Once you have the basics you can build for yourself.
Same for your memory woes. You won't learn those by staring at the screen but once you have basic knowledge you will know where to go read for help. Oh and it's much easier to start using Windows after learning on a Linux environment than the opposite.
Want to share files from home? Good luck.
Wait what?
Oh, and I doubt the zero cost very much. The computers aren't free, someone paid for them.
Yes, they were gonna be disposed and then ppl donated. Since Linux is very lightweight you can use pretty much any computer.
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DreamSpark
Is that not affordable?
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Even redistributing FOSS is pretty straight forward. Basically if you include or make available the source code you are golden. You can modify it, change it and even sell it if you want - just include the source code so others can enjoy the same rights to modify it as you have.
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Re: DreamSpark
I guess, in the same way that "the first hit's always free" is affordable.
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I can just imagine an alternate headline:
But seriously this is a great story. I'm not against Windows - I dual boot - but when you can't afford Windows (and can't get away with pirating it) there are some great free alternatives. More importantly I'm glad the community supported the initiative with donations of hardware. This is actual good news, am I in Bizarro World?
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Alameda county?
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Re: Alameda county?
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Lucky with Ubuntu
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Re: Lucky with Ubuntu
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Re: Lucky with Ubuntu
It's Linux. There really is not much 3rd party support to speak of. Either it's supported out of the box in an automagical fashion or it's likely not supported at all.
Your comment demonstrates a total cluelessness about Linux, how it's put together, and how you would deal with it as an end user.
Something like "legacy driver support" for some ancient machine that likely can't even run XP would be achieved by using some older version of Linux that is perhaps intended for the purpose of running on a 32M 486.
Although I've run Ubuntu on the original AppleTV which wasn't much of a machine.
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Re: Lucky with Ubuntu
I have several parts that are not supported by anything younger then win2000 in my ubuntu box, just chugging right along. Though there was the video card I put in that i had to click the notice because it wasn't using open source. It was just so hard I thought I would cry.
I tried to put xp on it, that just made me mad. Have you tried finding drivers for equipment more then 10 years old?
On the flip side I have a brand new top of the line pc(personal computer, not windows) that was maybe a 15 minute install with debian.
When i need to reimage my laptop that i need to run software that only runs on windows, it is a two hour excursion if I am lucky
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Re: Re: Lucky with Ubuntu
The one feature I simply adore with Debian is the ability to partition your Home directory separate from the OS. If I need to reload my OS because I have installed waaaay to many applications or development libraries or whatever it's a simple wipe and reinstall without losing any data or even most of the custom system settings since they are saved in Home. Try that with a Windows machine.
Heck, I even upgraded from i368 to amd64 and didn't backup or lose single thing, including all the Windows programs I run under Wine since I keep them in their own individual sandboxes on Home.
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Re: Re: Re: Lucky with Ubuntu
Just some older linux flavours never did it by default but it was always recommended. Same as \var should be as well.
Though I understand your point and the whole migrating problem with Win (and AppleOS) is to do with the ubiquitous "Documents Settings" folder and how it is always by default on the main C drive.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Lucky with Ubuntu
"Should" being the keyword.
Most of the recent desktop distros (Ubuntu, Debian and a couple others I tried) lumped everything into one partition by default. Probably to keep the installs easier for first-time users.
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Re: Lucky with Ubuntu
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I installed Ubuntu on my machine, a modern laptop, and it was HOPELESS !!!! are real piece of crap.. put win 7 on and it works great..
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Sorry for your luck. I have a modern laptop which is setup for a dual-boot with Debian and Windows Vista. I haven't actually booted into Windows for over a year now. When I get some time I will be removing Windows from it and re-partioning the hard drive to reclaim the space Windows takes up.
put win 7 on and it works great..
Works great - that is if you like you machine phoning Redmond every now and then. Or pre-installed DRM. Or having to shell out more cash every time a new version is released.
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