[BALUG-Talk] Progress at the school with Linux

[Bill Ward]

What Windows apps did he need?  Could he have used WINE?  Or perhaps run
windows in a VM?

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com>wrote:

> hi,
>
> I wanted to let you all know of some decent progress that we made at the
> school project in SF.  The 7th grade science teacher had a Windows virus.
> Crashed his notebook.  Wouldn't boot up.  heh.  So he asked me for help.  I
> told him we could install Linux and all would be well.  He said he needs a
> couple of Windows apps.  I said we could dual boot Windows and Linux for
> him.
>
> I got the notebook from him.  I wiped the drive by installing Intrepid
> Ubuntu.  I then tried to install Windows XP over it.  No luck.  Daniel G
> figured it out and installed XP and then installed Intrepid.  Now the
> teacher is happy as a clam, and is using Ubuntu as his primary OS.  I told
> him that he should try to note use Windows very much, or he will just get a
> virus again.  He understands.
>
> This is a rather important step for this school.  Until now, no
> mission-critical functions were being carried out on Linux, just student
> computer use, which is not considered mission-critical.  (Odd, huh?).  This
> school considers only teacher computer work to be mission critical: grades,
> lesson plans.  Student use of the Xubuntu lab and the Linux computers in the
> classrooms is considered important, but ultimately expendable if need be.
> Only teacher work on computers is considered non-expendable.
>
> So here we have one teacher who has actually solicited help with a Linux
> install.  He specifically came to me (as opposed to me pushing him) because
> we have been talking about a dual boot solution for him for more than one
> year.  He felt that this issue with the virus crashing his Windows machine
> was the last straw.  He knew it was time to get serious about getting Linux.
>
> If this pilot project works well, other teachers might consider coming to
> me for similar help when the inevitable happens and their Windows machines
> are crashed by malware.  We could experience a mini digital tipping point at
> this public middle school, which would be nice, for a couple of reasons:
> first, this school's computing experiences are being followed by the city
> legislator responsible for this district.  Second, we get lots of visitors
> to this school from other schools, so stuff that happens here could spread
> to other schools.  In fact, another school is coming to see our Xubuntu lab
> on Thursday.  This person has been trying to get Free Open Source Solutions
> into other schools.  She is visiting with the hopes that she can show this
> model to other schools.
>
> I know a lot of people on this list have helped out a lot with this school
> project, not the least of which is Daniel G., so I wanted to thank you all
> for helping out and to give you the good news.
>
> c u
>
> Christian Einfeldt
>
> _______________________________________________
> BALUG-Talk mailing list
> BALUG-Talk at lists.balug.org
> http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-talk-balug.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-talk-balug.org/attachments/20081203/ef9be122/attachment.htm>