The kids are all right with Linux

[ANTC]

we have something like this in our school called from Citrix, but its windows based terminal we pay for the terminals and the services on the server thats about it..

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Originally Posted by gamer11200

Oh. I thought that I was the only one that had problems with Wine. I tried playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 using my rig and it was like I was playing it on a 200mhz pentium...PAINFULLY SLOW!

Vista is better as long as you have 2GB of ram and a dual core processor.

For Vista see sig. It's just barely enough.

Originally Posted by UNIXgod

ALSA has many problems. It's not cross-platform for one.

From an end-user's point of view it doesn't matter if it's not cross-platform. It runs well enough on Linux and that's what matters.

[MrObvious]

I think Linux has it's problems but it is getting much better. The last few years have seen huge amounts of resolve to improve things. I can even sync a few basic things with my phone and in a year I'm sure I will have complete syncing of my WM phone.

The only reason I'm on Vista now (dual boot with Ubuntu Hardy) is simply because some software won't work and I had a shiny Vista Ultimate DVD from the WFP.

[gamer11200]

Originally Posted by MrObvious

I think Linux has it's problems but it is getting much better. The last few years have seen huge amounts of resolve to improve things. I can even sync a few basic things with my phone and in a year I'm sure I will have complete syncing of my WM phone.

The only reason I'm on Vista now (dual boot with Ubuntu Hardy) is simply because some software won't work and I had a shiny Vista Ultimate DVD from the WFP.

I've started using Linux back in late 06. I've used Ubuntu and tried out Fedora. Right now, I have Ubuntu 8.04 (dual boot with XP). Since I've first tried Ubuntu, I haven't seen much improvements in terms of performance but I have seen that it has taken a GUI change. I can use this desktop effects (???) thing that can make the windows act Mac-ish. And then the COmpiz 3D thing is pretty neat.

[UNIXgod]

Originally Posted by Th3_uN1Qu3

From an end-user's point of view it doesn't matter if it's not cross-platform. It runs well enough on Linux and that's what matters.

It matter enough to a freeBSD user like myself. writing software for linux specific systems really ends up being no different than M$ ideology. Cross-Platform software and porting should be a number 1 priority to the programmers. Look at the apache and mysql projects. Those programs run on everything.

I agree with you though. To the end user that has a kernel pre built for them loading every possible driver to make their computer work might not see a difference. Though I'm sure there is a performance and security issue there as well.

[hellraiser3108]

I'm gonna post here with a bit of a disclamer - First and foremost - this is going to be a long post. Second - I am a heavy MS Software user and administrator, and by 'MS software user and administrator' I don't mean only Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003 but also a wide variety of server applications (SQL, Exchange, TFS, MOSS, System Center products, etc.)

Unfortunately, I've had only a brief (about 4-6 months)experience with Linux server administration - It was mainly CentOS 4.x and RedHat Enterprise (back then it was almost the same as CentOS except for the support situation).

That being said I might be a bit MS biased, so please keep that in mind before flaming. Now onto the discussion.

After a few reads of the excerpt Jason posted I fail to see the real benefits of the Linux terminal server deployment. I fully understand that a given organization can look into and leverage whatever technology they see fitting their infrastructure best, but the blog post does not give one solid reason why a Linux Terminal server deployment would be better than Windows based terminal deployment (once again, I am sure it is better for the organization, else they wouldn't be deploying it, but i fail to see the real reason from the blog post).

From the responses of this thread I get the vibe that this is indeed a great idea - Unfortunately all of those responses are based on a blog post that doesn't state a SINGLE fact on why EXACTLY is the new deployment better (other than "Linux is great, the kids will get to learn Linux too!", a comment based on personal preference which also falsely assumes that all the kids already know how to work with Windows...)

I will dissect the passage Jason posted and will try to thread extremely lightly as I do not want to start a flame war. I am just up for a healthy discussion. Once again, I do not have much background in Linux server administration, so feel free to link me to any sources that will contribute to the discussion.

Here we go:

The new system should be more rugged than the old, the terminals are cheaper to replace, and the central system is physically inaccessible, so there will be less mischief. Before any kid can hack into it they have to learn some Linux.

We are not really given much of a background in the fist part of the paragraph. I will assume that the school/schoolboard cut a deal with a Linux partnered hardware (terminal) vendor who blew the MS prices out of the water (very real possibility). We are not given much specifics on the terminals either, but I will assume they are dirt-cheap, the latest and greatest, with full Linux integration. Again, I am assuming the best case scenarios for the deployment.

Based on my assumptions above I will give linux a point here - they are cheaper, provide better integration and all the other good stuff. The company has a good reason to move to them. It is not explained how they are superior to the Windows Server based products, however. I know what you will say - "SECURITY! They are way more SECURE!" - Please read on.

The physically accessible server part is rather funny. If the School's IT department has the habit of leaving their Windows based servers laying around in the common areas then they have a much bigger problem than a Windows environment.
If I leave my production RedHat Enterprise server in the school library right by the workstations would I have the right to complain that it doesnt get good performance/uptime given that any kid can kick it/cover it with something causing it to overheat/spill something on it?

The last sentence of that paragraph strikes me as an odd one. It's true, before you can hack into anything you need to find out how it works, how you can exploit it, etc, etc. The last sentence in the paragraph makes Windows-based security sound like a joke however, kind of like "Any kid can sit down and hack a windows environment" ... which is not true. If it were, then most corporate windows shops would be in a constant disaster situaion. What is true however, is that any kid can download a virus/trojan which depending on how well the system administrator prepared could end up being detected and discarded or causing a major disaster. Any environment is as secure as it's administrator's knowlege allows it to be. Having linux won't help you if your system administrator sets his password to 'root'. Also, CentOS used to have automatic updates. Unless someone came up with the ultimate un-hackable version they probably still have it. Just like Windows. Keeping your environment up to date will help you reduce the risk of bing hacked or your OS being exploited. There is no 100% security assurance anywhere however, no matter what OS you use.


Lets move on:

Our previous years’ experience with computing has been a terrible disappointment. A few teachers got themselves Web pages, where they listed assignments and grades. Most didn’t.

I am not even sure what to say about this paragraph. It almost makes me think that the person who wrote it doesn't really know what information they want to pass accross.

Unfortunately here I can't even assume anything - All I can come up with are questions. Was the environment slow beacause the Windows environment they had was slow? If so, did they have a terminal based windows environment before? Does the Windows based Terminal protocol suck compared to the Linux counterpart? Did they revamp the network environment as well or did they just install the new terminals and the server they connect to over the already existing network gear? We get absolutely no details and thus no real reason why Linux is so much better than Windows in this case.

The second sentence of the paragraph doesnt make any sence - Teachers didn't get web pages because of the Windows based environment?! Are all teachers in the school strictly 'apache-only' (or insert another linux web hosting soluion here) professionals?
Generally in an educational institution the ITdepartment provides a hosting solution (MS options can be the SharePoint and the CMS products) creates a page for the faculty members who need it, provides training and/or documentation on how content should be managed within the site and provides support when needed by the faculty members. I can absolutely see a problem if the IT dept threw a Windows box with IIS instaled on it at the teachers and told them to go ahead and each create their own site. I seriously doubt that's what happened though.

The school system is delivering more power to more kids, with less maintenance.

How exactly are 7 year olds getting more out of a linux environment than a Windows environment? Again we get no details.
Linux-only applications the schoolboard uses? Granted, the kids will gain valuable Linux knowledge.. but depending on what level you take it to Linux knowledge does not automatically translate into Windows knowledge. It does not grant you advanced knowledge in other areas either (just because you installed a Linux distro on your PC and got it up on your network does not make you a subnetting expert for example.. same thing with Windows).

There are also no details on the 'less maintenance' part either, but lets assume their Windows-based infrastructure was a mess before. This does NOT mean that intalling MS-based software in itself made it a mess ... It means the IT Admins failed at deploying, maitaning and future-proofing an investment that the company trusted in their hands at the time the decision was made to jump on the Windows bandwagon.


Again I do not wish to start a linux-windows flame war. This is supposed to be a friendly question-like post. I just don't understand how everyone in the thread is sold on the idea of the new terminals being great and all that based only on their personal Linux/Unix experiences and the quoted blog posting. I would take much more convincing than that if it my organization was to be converted. "Linux" is cheaper you might say - This depends. If you have the absolute know-it-all-linux-rock-star sysadmin then yes. In a coporate envrionment however, you better have a plan B, else you WILL lose money.. and sometimes it might be ALOT of money. RedHat's offering is here - https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/server/ . MS on the other hand gladly dock you the price of their software (for the initial key purchase) and then 250$ per support case. Either way you get what you pay for.


Again, my confusion might be due to the fact that I lack sufficient Linux Server administration experience. Please, if you do have some experience with terminal based linux/windows envronments, more details on the story, or any links in general that will help me understand the significant advantage of linux in this particuloar situation, send them my way.



Cheers!

[Zoomer]

Originally Posted by unclutchable

None of them know what operating system they're on. All they know is how it turns on, and how to press the little fox icon and then type in "hannahmontana.com".

Sigged. 50 Char.

[AntiNazi]

Originally Posted by hellraiser3108

<long *** post>

I think the reason they are aiming to get across for why it is easier to maintain and upgrade is that they only have to handle a handful of boxes now rather than one at every point of service that they previously had.

Additionally, you say the admin team must have left the servers out to allow physical mischief. Well when each terminal is a full box that is independently hackable/breakable, you can **** with it. I know my friends and I did at my HS. No where in the blog did he say that the kids where ****ing with the server.

Aside from that, as you mentioned price. If the dude they have is solid perhaps they are using a free (beer) distro with no support and the hardware is cheaper (again, less **** to be physically broken/stolen).

[IceDragon]

If they paid for someone to rip all these PC's out. Put loads of terminals in and set it all up, they can't be on that much of a tight budget can they?

The principal is nice, but anyone who now goes to that school and wants to go for a career in computers will now have no/little experiance with, what most places use, Windows (unless they regularly use a Windows PC at home.

[MrObvious]

That's why I suggested a VM environment before, boot to that for Windows if you need it.

In all honesty hell give Linux a few months and give it a try, learning CLI and everything (which is fun ). You can even run a VM environment to use the Windows tools you need. Ubuntu is a great way to start since it is well supported.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Originally Posted by MrObvious

That's why I suggested a VM environment before, boot to that for Windows if you need it.

In all honesty hell give Linux a few months and give it a try, learning CLI and everything (which is fun ). You can even run a VM environment to use the Windows tools you need. Ubuntu is a great way to start since it is well supported.

The CLI is fun, as a heavy DOS and windoze command prompt user i know that. The Linux command line is even more fun. But again, that's about where it ends.

If all i wanted to do was surf the web and listen to music, i'd run Linux. Puppy Linux to be specific. But i want to game a little bit too. My laptop's Trident video can't run much i know, but i couldn't get even Worms Armageddon to run in Wine. DOSBox worked fine, however the sound stuttered much worse than it did in windoze, and it made my video driver take a crap when i closed it.

And a VM environment on a PIII 933? Not possible. Even on a high-end computer, a VM still isn't a solution for demanding software. They don't even have 3D acceleration yet. And maybe i don't want a separate desktop and taskbar for my windoze apps, but seamless integration. Wine almost succeeds doing that, and i like that Adobe decided to support them and invested some dough to make Photoshop run well under Wine, but they need to get more stuff running on it.

As opposed to a VM, Wine is the "quick and dirty" approach. Unfortunately right now it's not too quick and very dirty.

[hellraiser3108]

Originally Posted by AntiNazi

I think the reason they are aiming to get across for why it is easier to maintain and upgrade is that they only have to handle a handful of boxes now rather than one at every point of service that they previously had.

I am absolutely sure they have a proper reason to do it. It's just that the blog entry mentiones nothing of it. The blog entry kind of sounds like me saying "Well, i ran an apache web server on linux before which hosted a demanding php site it was slow because all my client said it was slow. I revamped my infrastructure for cheaper with an MS-backed contract and its so much faster! Oh and let's not forget how people who didn't have internet couldn't get to my site - Linux must really suck!".
Nowhere do I say that maybe i ran the linux distro on a p3 450 with 256mb of ram, which cost me 4500$ when i purchased it back in 1999, and that now I run windows on a quad core Xeon with 4GB of ram that i bought for 3000$ .

I am not saying they made a terrible decision. I am just saying that no facts are presented in the blog entry as to why the chosen technology is so much superior than its MS counterpart.

All i get from the blog entry is "Linux is the greatest, windows sucked" without any hard facts telling me why.

Originally Posted by AntiNazi

Additionally, you say the admin team must have left the servers out to allow physical mischief. Well when each terminal is a full box that is independently hackable/breakable, you can **** with it. I know my friends and I did at my HS. No where in the blog did he say that the kids where ****ing with the server.

You are right - you can screw with stand-alone boxes that serve as Windows terminals. However, we are not provided any details on the linux terminals that are used in the school. In the blog entry it is mentioned that a terminal is actually rebooted and loading linux which lead me to believe they might have switched to smaller form factors. Or that the terminal boots over the network by connecting to the server (which is possible with Windows based terminals too).

Also in the blog it does say that 'the central system (which is what I assume is the terminal server) is physically inaccessible'.

Originally Posted by AntiNazi

Aside from that, as you mentioned price. If the dude they have is solid perhaps they are using a free (beer) distro with no support and the hardware is cheaper (again, less **** to be physically broken/stolen).

Running a medium-sized (i assume that's what the school would be considered) production environment with no support is asking for trouble. The sysadmin can be a god of all that is linux and can still get run over by a truck while coming to work in the morning. If a disaster strikes at that time it will result in loss of more company money that it was saved initially on the support contracts. I seriously doubt they are running without any support options.

If they struck a deal and got cheaper hardware then that is the winning point. Still, if somoene comes to me and says "I can revamp your whole infrastructure with linux for cheaper than what it would take you to upgrade and clean up your windows environment " he better have some hard facts on why that is and how it will be easier for me to manage. The blog entry seems to have sold the idea to almost everyone around here without any facts other than price and better performance (which i turned around with my Linux-to-Windows example above)!

[AntiNazi]

Originally Posted by icedragon999

If they paid for someone to rip all these PC's out. Put loads of terminals in and set it all up, they can't be on that much of a tight budget can they?

The principal is nice, but anyone who now goes to that school and wants to go for a career in computers will now have no/little experiance with, what most places use, Windows (unless they regularly use a Windows PC at home.

Do you know the principal?

Anyway, I'm sure that people that want to "go for a career in computers" really need the seat time using a locked down client to browse web comics in the computer lab...

Additional Comment:

Originally Posted by hellraiser3108

I am absolutely sure they have a proper reason to do it. It's just that the blog entry mentiones nothing of it. The blog entry kind of sounds like me saying "Well, i ran an apache web server on linux before which hosted a demanding php site it was slow because all my client said it was slow. I revamped my infrastructure for cheaper with an MS-backed contract and its so much faster! Oh and let's not forget how people who didn't have internet couldn't get to my site - Linux must really suck!".
Nowhere do I say that maybe i ran the linux distro on a p3 450 with 256mb of ram, which cost me 4500$ when i purchased it back in 1999, and that now I run windows on a quad core Xeon with 4GB of ram that i bought for 3000$ .

I am not saying they made a terrible decision. I am just saying that no facts are presented in the blog entry as to why the chosen technology is so much superior than its MS counterpart.

All i get from the blog entry is "Linux is the greatest, windows sucked" without any hard facts telling me why.



You are right - you can screw with stand-alone boxes that serve as Windows terminals. However, we are not provided any details on the linux terminals that are used in the school. In the blog entry it is mentioned that a terminal is actually rebooted and loading linux which lead me to believe they might have switched to smaller form factors. Or that the terminal boots over the network by connecting to the server (which is possible with Windows based terminals too).

Also in the blog it does say that 'the central system (which is what I assume is the terminal server) is physically inaccessible'.



Running a medium-sized (i assume that's what the school would be considered) production environment with no support is asking for trouble. The sysadmin can be a god of all that is linux and can still get run over by a truck while coming to work in the morning. If a disaster strikes at that time it will result in loss of more company money that it was saved initially on the support contracts. I seriously doubt they are running without any support options.

If they struck a deal and got cheaper hardware then that is the winning point. Still, if somoene comes to me and says "I can revamp your whole infrastructure with linux for cheaper than what it would take you to upgrade and clean up your windows environment " he better have some hard facts on why that is and how it will be easier for me to manage. The blog entry seems to have sold the idea to almost everyone around here without any facts other than price and better performance (which i turned around with my Linux-to-Windows example above)!

No doubt it's light on details, I was just trying to explain where the money savings seemed to be coming from.

[Clone of 501]

I have to agree with unclutchable on 1 part. Seriously there is a girl in my school who doesn't know what windows is or what version she is using. Less than 1% of my school knows what linux is. People are so computer ignorant it's painful to watch.

[gamer11200]

Originally Posted by Clone of 501

I have to agree with unclutchable on 1 part. Seriously there is a girl in my school who doesn't know what windows is or what version she is using. Less than 1% of my school knows what linux is. People are so computer ignorant it's painful to watch.

Some people don't care really. Aslong as they facebook and it doesn't crash, they don't care.

[Jason]

I think you guys are digging way too deep on this blog post... Yes, the details are extremely light and no specifics are given, so there is a lot of guessing.

hellraiser3108 - I too have to agree on how teacher's web pages was part of this issue.. It seems like it is just randomly thrown in there.

My best guess on their "old" system, was that it was a hodgepodge (no standardized hardware platform) of Windows based PCs with no central server for login / authentication. My guess is students surfing and clicking away on stuff (and poor AV software) probably lead to the PCs getting constantly infected with malware. Schools being on such a tight budget you can only assume the "IT department" (or probably just the teacher that taught the class) was probably overburdened and under-trained. Also who knows what the students were installing on the computers...

The "new" system (from what I gather) is a single central linux server with a bunch of "thin" clients / terminals. Just like if it was Windows Domain, you can control what your "users" can do and software they can run / install. Also maintaining software and keeping things up to date now only has to be done on one computer.

The school probably looked at their budget, took a RFQ for a new client/server based network, and yes, the Linux package probably blew away the Windows in cost. Going by cost alone would not suite everyone, but when you look at your user's requirements (high-school students for in-class instruction / classwork) then they can more than likely achieve their tasks using the linux machines just fine.

Also, I would have to say that just about any nerdy kid knows some trick with windows to compromise its security or a common application that is used on it. I'm not saying they couldn't do the same for Linux, but you don't just "come across" as much one-click tools for linux as you do windows. Also since there are so many distro's of linux that throws another level of complexity into the mix.

Back in college we had our routine to get the administrator password for the computer labs domain. Took less than 5 minutes... Never did anything (too) malicious with it... Mostly just screwing with friend's accounts, or killing the print job that some a-hole would decide it would be okay to print out a 500 page document during peak hours.

Anyone remember when you could telnet to a certain port on old NT 4 machines, smack the keyboard a few times, and that machine would then be pegged at 100% CPU usage? (A little OT, but it brought back memories)...


Okay, back to the original thing though... I think it was a good move for the school to give Linux a try and not feel like they had to be locked into Microsoft & Windows. Who knows, maybe at the end of the year they will have a report on how things faired... Maybe everything will go smooth and they will expand their network, maybe it will be a total failure and they will re-look at some MS solution...

[ythe1300]

Originally Posted by Jason

The "new" system (from what I gather) is a single central linux server with a bunch of "thin" clients / terminals. Just like if it was Windows Domain, you can control what your "users" can do and software they can run / install. Also maintaining software and keeping things up to date now only has to be done on one computer.

I'm thinking the same thing.

I helped a friend who is a system admin at a local private school get his system back together for this school year. It was a major pain in the rear. we would get computer back together everything would be running and then boom hardware issues ( HDD crashes mostly.... stupid maxtor HDDs... ) anyway we had to go to every computer and physically touch it to get the domain together, set up VLANs and other things to make it easier on him, so that he can just remote in and have it work. and everything is fine until windows crashes or the computer is turned off. plus we had to worry about all the windows licenses, have you ever thought about calling in 300 windows XP licenses keys it's scary. We figured out a way around it, but still. Anyways said all that to say that he's now thinking about making everyone use think clients.

Originally Posted by Jason

The school probably looked at their budget, took a RFQ for a new client/server based network, and yes, the Linux package probably blew away the Windows in cost. Going by cost alone would not suite everyone, but when you look at your user's requirements (high-school students for in-class instruction / classwork) then they can more than likely achieve their tasks using the linux machines just fine.

Also, I would have to say that just about any nerdy kid knows some trick with windows to compromise its security or a common application that is used on it.

I remember our high school used a program called fortress, it was a web nanny/system minder. To get around it you would just open task manager and quit the process tree, it never blocked it or reloaded.

Originally Posted by Jason

Back in college we had our routine to get the administrator password for the computer labs domain. Took less than 5 minutes... Never did anything (too) malicious with it... Mostly just screwing with friend's accounts, or killing the print job that some a-hole would decide it would be okay to print out a 500 page document during peak hours.


Anyone remember when you could telnet to a certain port on old NT 4 machines, smack the keyboard a few times, and that machine would then be pegged at 100% CPU usage? (A little OT, but it brought back memories)...

I don't really ever use the schools computers anymore but, I remember sitting in the lab on my laptop and watching a guy get really angry at the printers ( they never used to work right ) he used our favorite password retrieval program and within 4mins had the printers back up and running properly, they still work last I checked. This is a major State run U by the way. I'm not saying that he could not have hacked through a Linux network and done the same thing ( actually I'm sure he could have ) but at the speed in which it was done, that is what gets to me.

[Chillaxed]

actually we had a couple linux rigs because my highschool was absolutely obsessed with mac. and for enterprise a surprising amount of people run solaris or redhat enterprise. even as a student i ran redhat enterprise.

[Jason]

I ran redhat for probably over 10 years now... Back in college my friend was not a fan... he called it RootHat... lol... He was a debian fan (go figure)...

Yes, there are a lot of die hard solaris fans too... Mostly people who are fanatics of the sparc platform... Me, I'm indifferent.... Solaris has it's strong points (in the server area) and weak points (in the x86 desktop area)...

[UNIXgod]

BSD guy here myself. started running linux last year on my home pc. Freebsd works nicely on my laptop and is also good for desktops. I think the 64-bit amd64 ports have problems in almost most of the desktops. (works gret on my server though) Not to fond on dealing with the kernel in linux but I'm slowly getting used to it. bsd deals mainly with a single documented text file whereis the user basically removes the bulk of driver not used or needed and my add one or two they may be needed if desired. The kernel can be tuned via command as well. The linux kernel well... If you've ever compiled one maybe you could give me a hint. menuconfig seems like the only realistic option and it's just chock full of drivers and options in all sort of menus within menus. Though I realize I'm just starting to grock the new process it seems a bit painful.

This thread is an interesting thread. But it seem like the same "Year Of The Linux Desktop" blurbs I read weekly on /.

I do hope shuttleworth pulls of what he started with ubuntu. There is alot of tech moving forward nowadays. kde4 is on the horizon. compiz may become stable and one click eventually.

But one thing we will always have. Stable and secure web servers. apache and mysql + (name your glue language (python,ruby+rails,perl,php)) are still the diggity bomb. Pure implementation of the networking layer and protocols as well as it's source.Aside from the fact that we have a complete and license free programming environment with all the necessary tools at the tip of our fingers. Which was the original intention of the GNU foundation.