Ask Slashdot: What OS For a Donated Computer? 360
chefwear writes "I am thinking of donating retired computers to a local charity for kids. What OS do you think would be best for this? From reading tips regarding the donation of computers, it's widely recommended to keep with the currently installed OS (which is Windows XP in this case). Since XP will be unsupported in about two years, I'm not sure I would be setting the little ones up for success. Would anyone suggest donating a computer with a Linux distro like Ubuntu to a local charity for kids?"
Dualboot? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Depends for what (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of games and educational software is Windows only.
Then I wonder what exactly is installed in Edubuntu - which is a linux distro specifically designed for education
Re:Depends for what (Score:3, Interesting)
Does not compute... He didn't say there's NO educational software available on Linux. Only that most such software (and games) are Windows-only. Which is certainly true.
And while it may be fine to say that there are Linux alternatives for some educational apps, good luck having a kid find the Linux alternative to the particular app that comes with the book used in the class or the one which his school/teacher requires that he use. But let's say the kid does find the Linux alternative. Unless that alternative is 100% compatible with the Windows version (which the teacher is likely to use) vis-à-vis the files/output it generates then it's practically useless.
But only practically. Through the wonders of the GPL we can tell the kid to fix the app and commit the changes back to the community and everyone will be happy. Especially the kid who will make a dead-on Homer Simpson "Oh, look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!"
Re:Depends for what (Score:3, Interesting)
A) office. Libre office works PERFECTLY as long as they save a
B) online through a browser, so no problems there.
Posting anonymously for my sister's sake.
Re:Also in the case of Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Most charities that accept computers (at least in this city) will wipe the hard drive and install their own anyway... they need to make sure they aren't being presented with pirated software or viruses, and that's the easiest way to do it. The licenses that MS offers to charities are dirt cheap (in some cases free), so it just makes sense for them to install their own.
Re:Depends for what (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not that old (graduated form uni this year), and the only software we had that was 'needed' was avaliable in linux (with some exceptions such as Visual Studio).
We had people who came to uni with macbooks, and they did ok.
I don't know how common it is for young children to REQUIRE certain software - which isn't a webapp. Even many of the companion cds/websites came with stuff which opened with everything.
Similarly, I hardly expect the teacher to expect homework to be done using some particular software.If the pdf/doc comes from LO or MO it makes no difference.
So when they said "Educational software" I thought he meant "Stuff your kiddies use to teach themselves". What I mean is, if you want software to teach kids something, you'll find one on linux. If you need a PARTICULAR piece of software, that's different. I admit that.
Re:Depends for what (Score:4, Interesting)
My sister is the Principal for a small private school, ~80 students or so. With the exception of a few (2 or 3) students who have Macbooks, the staff and students all run Linux for their primary OS. This came about after one of their Windows boxes got rooted and became a spam relay, resulting in Time-Warner shutting down their net access with no warning in the middle of a school day - and net access is something which is absolutely a requirement for schools to have these days.
My sister called me, I found the rooted boxes, wiped/fresh installed them, and got TW to restore their access. Then I cleaned the rest of the Windows boxes on site, and set them all up as dual-boot machines. I used to have to go to her school 3-4 times a year to clean up some Win system that had become unusable, but not in the last 2 years since they've gone all-Linux. Showed my sister how to install with a LiveCD, and when a student gets a new computer, she installs Linux alongside whatever Windows is on the laptop, and the student understands that they are forbidden to use the Win partition while on the school network.
The *only* reason Windows remains on any systems at the campus is that there is one testing site which uses Active-X; it is accessed once a year on testing day, under supervision in their 'CS lab'.
Number of rooted boxes since Windows was replaced: 0
Number of times TW has shut down the schools net access since Linux became the primary OS: 0
Number of times I have had to travel an hour to clean viruses. trojans, worms, etc from the Linux machines: 0