----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Berry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 10:36 AM Subject: [c3] Linux comments
| At 10:19 AM -0600 1/29/02, Scott Fosseen wrote: | >Does anyone know of a school that uses Linux/Unix for a desktop operating | >system in a school enviromen? Some of our Technology Coordinators are | >curious. | in Area 12, only a couple of tech coordinators have experimented with it. I | have three servers running Linux in the agency, and a PC of my own at home. | I see the problem (of schools adopting) as more sociological than | technical. If two or three SIP (somewhat important people) in a district | encouraged it, an adoption could happen. One person alone pushing it would | seem an eccentric swimming upstream against the looming monolith of MS. | One major problem is that, like Windows(tm), very few PCs are really alike, | therefore every installation is different, and installations require you to | be more "computer-literate" than installations of Apple or Windows. | A second problem is that invariably you will receive documents done in MS | Word, and while StarOffice will read them, different font installations and | usage can still cause problems, just as it does between PC-PC, PC-Mac, and | so forth. For the parent who thinks one PC is just the same as any other, | he will blame the OS instead of acknowledging the variability in PC | installations. | A third problem is that if you are adopting Linux because of cost savings | issues, you probably have junk for PCs anyway; Linux, just like MacOS or | Windows, runs better and faster on a better and faster machine. Expecting | Linux to make your 286-16 PC run like Windows XP is a stupid expectation. | Put Linux on a good, current PC, set up the XWindow system to your desires, | and it is slick. StarOffice 5.2 from Sun is a good package (order one from | Amazon.com and try it on your PC). Try it and then realize that for the | cost of that one CD, you can deploy it on a hundred PCs around your | district... | As far as Linux, the distributions are cheap. Here's an article from | Infoworld | that may be useful... | | Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 11:09:17 -0600 | From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Subject: RUSSELL PAVLICEK: "The Open Source" from InfoWorld.com, | Wednesday, January 30, 2002 | Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | ======================================================== | RUSSELL PAVLICEK: "The Open Source" InfoWorld.com | ======================================================== | | Wednesday, January 30, 2002 | | | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | | TAKE NOTE, BEN AND JERRY | | Posted January 24, 2002 01:01 PM Pacific Time | | | A COUPLE OF years ago, the open-source community took a | lot of flack from some Windows buffs about the number | of distributions available. Red Hat, Caldera, | Mandrake, SuSE -- it all seemed so confusing. Of | course, because many IT shops now support mixtures of | Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/CE, the issue of many | choices doesn't seem so strange. | | Nevertheless, some organizations examining open-source | solutions are finding that the number of alternatives | can be daunting. Do you want Linux or one of the BSDs? | And which flavor? | | Keep in mind that choosing a distribution is normally | much closer to choosing a favorite flavor than making | a life-or-death decision. Most distributions can get | the job done, but some do make certain tasks easier | than others. | | Red Hat is probably the best-known Linux distributor in | the United States. Red Hat Linux is a robust server | and a decent desktop. It features such a strong array | of products and services that casual observers | sometimes believe Red Hat is "The" Linux company. I | think every Linux techie I've met has used Red Hat | Linux at one time or another. | | As does Red Hat, SuSE makes a distribution with a | strong server and a good desktop. The distributor also | makes several specialized business server products. | Based in Germany, SuSE is very popular in Europe and | has been steadily growing in popularity in the United States. | | Mandrake Linux is my personal favorite for desktop | usage. Once simply a version of Red Hat with an | improved GUI, Mandrake Linux has grown into solid | distribution with excellent usability features. My | nontechnical family members have been using it for | years. My wife even finds Windows Me difficult to use | by comparison. Distributor MandrakeSoft is based in France. | | Caldera has a long history of business-focused | solutions. Its key differentiators include the | proprietary Volution Manager for Web-based remote | system management and Volution Messaging Server, which | provides capabilities similar to Microsoft Exchange. | It owns the former SCO Unix and Unixware products as well. | | Appliance developers sometimes pick one of the BSD | variants, because the BSD license does not require | that all software modifications be made public. | FreeBSD is known for solid performance; OpenBSD is | renowned for its extremely tight security; and NetBSD | is the essence of portability with its support for 32 | hardware architectures. | | Some worthy Linux distributions -- such as Debian, | Slackware, and TurboLinux -- cannot be covered here. | Others are popular in particular countries, such as | Red Flag in China and Hancom in South Korea. | | Still confused? Let your technical people test and | decide. For the price of a good dinner, they can get | enough distributions on CD or via the Internet to test | everything in sight. | | Return to our | http://www.infoworld.com/tc/tclinux.html . | | Discuss your favorite versions of Linux or BSD on The | Open Source forum at http://www.infoworld.com/os . | Contact Russell Pavlicek | at [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | | | | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | THE LATEST IN LINUX FROM INFOWORLD: | | * Eclipse.org project pushes C/C++ development on Linux | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/01/29/020129hneclipse.xml?0130we li | * Vendor coalition readies 'carrier-grade' Linux | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/01/28/020128hnlinuxserver.xml?01 30we | li | | * Sun prepares iPlanet Application Server for Linux | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/01/28/020128hnlinuxapp.xml?0130w eli | * Platform Computing boosts clustering for Linux | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/01/28/020128hnplatform.xml?0130w eli | To join, or start, a discussion on this or any IT-related | topic, please visit our InfoWorld forums at | http://forums.infoworld.com. Here you can interact and | exchange ideas with InfoWorld staff and other readers. | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | QUOTE OF THE DAY: | | "But it's time for IT executives invested in the storage | world to give serious consideration to the intersection | between Web services, the network infrastructure, and | storage devices." | | _"Storage Report" columnists Mark Jones and Mario | Apicella. | | | http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/01/22/020122opstorage.xml?0130we li | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | SUBSCRIBE | To subscribe to any of InfoWorld's e-mail newsletters, | tell your friends and colleagues to go to: | http://www.iwsubscribe.com/newsletters/ To subscribe to | InfoWorld.com, or | InfoWorld Print, | or both, go to http://www.iwsubscribe.com UNSUBSCRIBE | If you want to unsubscribe from InfoWorld's Newsletters, | go to http://iwsubscribe.com/newsletters/unsubscribe/ CHANGE | E-MAIL | If you want to change the e-mail address where | you are receiving InfoWorld newsletters, go to | http://iwsubscribe.com/newsletters/adchange/ - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - - - - - | | Sign up for hands-on, highly interactive courses | covering topics such as HTML, DHTML, FrontPage, Java, | Visual InterDev, and more. 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