I go to a programming school, where there were computers running ancient windows 8 and some were on windows 10, they ran really slow and were completely unrelaible when doing the tasks that are required, those computers in question had either i5-4750 (I think?) or i7-4970 so running windows 10 with all its bloat was not going to be an easy task for em, so long story short I decided to talk to the principal about it explaining why linux is so much better than windows and gave him reasons why linux will be better for us for education and he agreed after considering it for a bit, he let me know that some students play roblox or minecraft in middle of the lesson and he asks if linux would stop em from doing that, I stated that as long as they dont know how to work with wine/lutris or know any specific linux packages that run windows games on linux they should not be able to play in the middle of lessons. he gave me the green light to do it, so I spent like 3 days migrating like 20+ computers to linux (since I had to set them up and install some required applications for them) in the last day where I was doing a last check up on the PCs to make sure they are in working order, there was a computer having a problem of which where it didnt boot, I let the principal know about this to get permission to work on it, he said yes, so after some troubleshooting I realized the boot order was all screwed, so since Ive worked with arch before I knew how to fix it, I booted up linux mint live image, chrooted, and fixed the boot order and computer went back to life, prinicipal came in checked on everything to make sure everything works, told me to wait for a bit, and then came back and paid me for his troubles (was a bit of a surprised since I expected nothing of the sort), the next day I came to school, sat down, turned PC on, noticed something was in the trash bin, opened it, found “robloxinstall.exe” on it, told the principal about it, he was pleased with it, so now 2 weeks later he seems now to be confident about linux, as he told me there is another class he is considering to move to linux.
so my question here would be: does this mean linux now is ready for the education sector?
(considering now, that I got a win win situation, I get to use an OS that I like in school, students gets to focus on the lessons instead of slacking.)
I believe soon will a kid learn to install roblox、Minecraft and teach other kids ☠️
you’re lucky to have an open-minded principle
They’re often having to juggle with very low budgets, old equipment, low skill and zero support. And that’s before you add children…
I don’t doubt they jumped at the chance of someone helping out.
true, normally people would be too afraid
There is way to do this that works with even older computers and is easy to manage.
That’s with Edubuntu and thin-client computing using the Linux Terminal Server project, LTSP.
In that model, you install Linux once on a server. Each computer in the lab is set to boot over the network from the server.
This way there is one computer to maintain, the users can’t access root and all the storage is centralized.
Even old computers with low CPU and RAM and no hard drive can make good thin clients.
A number of schools have been using this approach for 15+ years.
15+… I was there, Gandalf… We had these kinds of setups 25+ years ago. How time flies.
Before that, it was often XTerm style systems. The local machine only booted an XServer and then connected to a central UNIX system. All programs ran on the UNIX server, and were rendered on the XTerm/XServer you were sitting at.
The original XServer systems were efficient enough to run over serial lines, not just Ethernet.
Another setup was to put multiple monitors/keyboards/mice on a single UNIX/Linux tower and have it launch multiple XServer sessions so you could have a single computer with up to six people sitting at it.
I also managed a Rembo lab for a bit. It used a PXE shim OS to get a menu from the Rembo server. From there, you could boot the main OS, or download a new hard drive image from the server. I would build new drive images and upload them to the server, then updating the lab would mean rebooting the computers and clicking a “grab latest” button. It actually worked very well for distributing OSes. We had both Linux and Windows images students could pull down.
Lab management at scale is a continual struggle to keep everything functional and patched.
now i’m sad that this is (afaik) impossible in the future with everything switching to wayland
I haven’t looked into it too hard yet. I saw some design that would allow remote GUI rendering for Wayland, but it likely won’t be the all in design for network transparency that X11 had (has).
I use SSH with X forwarding for all kinds of system maintenance and demos in my CS courses.
I didnt know this actually! thanks!
You could also set up one machine with all the required software and clone the OS simultaneously to all computers over LAN with Clonezillla.
lol I thought this was a guerrilla IT warfare post where you snuck in and did it, but you actually did it with permission… 😂
yeah, I don’t want trouble xD
Could you imagine the stories that would circulate in the playgrounds? “I heard the Linux fairy is close. Timmy can’t play Roblox in class anymore.”
this is actually so insanely epic, good job!
pretty cool of the principal too to allow you to do stuff like this
ikr, didn’t expect him to agree
Just a funny story, but, I use an Ubuntu laptop as my work computer as a teacher, and once, while I was helping another student with work, a student opened my laptop and began trying to install Roblox. She got far enough to figure out it wouldn’t work, and started searching for how to install it. When I came over she was trying to figure out how to set up Wine. She got pretty close to getting it working before I came over. I was secretly pretty impressed with how fast she figured it out. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.
that’s actually an interesting story, makes you wonder if kids nowadys do get exposed to linux first and not windows, would actually learn it faster than having to unlearn windows first?
Or they’re so used to smartphone that windows and Linux are equally alien to them
we dont have those people…yet, I fear for the day when we do though…
I wouldn’t even be mad honestly. I learned a ton of my early computer skills trying to get stuff running where I shouldn’t or get into things I had no business messing with. That’s how kids learn!
Teh kidz r al rite.
Are you now the IT support guy for these workstations, or is the school’s IT going to take over maintenance. I guess you have an internship or something if you are.
the school’s IT
I wonder if that even exists. A mix of Windows 8 (EoL) and 10 (almost EoL) running on Haswells with students freely installing Roblox… it all gives an unmaintained vibe.
I always assumed schools had at least one or two IT people who just are spread really thin or something. Never occurred to me that an organization would just have PCs with no admin, but it sounds plausible. I guess the instructors just have to fix things if they run into issues.
not yet, might ask if I could be
They probably are, At the UTP in Panama they will contact some students (based on what idk presumably on impressions of performance) to do IT for them, it’s not technically an internship it’s a regular job that’s part time
You just taught the next generation about compatibility layers! Well done my man
thanks!
This is a great story, and you should be really proud of yourself! Good job :). I used Linux through college and had very few issues (that I can remember!)
thanks, mind telling me what were those issues? I’m kinda curious, perhaps I should have a mental note for those if they are related to what I just did
It’s been too long, but seems like I had some problems with formatting getting wrecked between Word and LibreOffice. It probably works a lot better now, not to mention that you can just access Word in the browser if really necessary.
ahhhhh okay yeah I agree, my friend (who is also a long time linux user as much as I am one as well) does complain a bit about word processing apps on linux and I quote “basic word processing works alright on linux with libreoffice and onlyoffice, but once you put advanced stuff in it, its a bit difficult to work with”, he seemed to have problems with docx files (iirc) so he has a windows VM where he uses MS office for stuff that he is required to work on, and continue to use linux for everything else.
I used Linux in university also, and actually had LESS problems than my classmates - a few of our textbooks came with “homework” versions of industry software (made by the textbook writer, just coded to be good enough to learn some basic concepts and work with some provided example files) and for reasons unknown to man and beast, most of them worked better on wine than on Windows natively - for one, the “submit” button was basically off-screen on Windows but placed where you’d expect on wine, on another trying to connect to machines was a HUGE pain… Except the Linux networking interface had no issues haha.
I only switched because the forced upgrade to Windows 8 ate my first year midterm essays and I never forgave it.
Hey OP, regarding Minecraft: It’s a Java program that uses OpenGL for rendering. Therefore it’s not a Windows game, but inherently cross platform. Here’s the official .deb package https://launcher.mojang.com/download/Minecraft.deb
oh dang, that changes everything
Well for a .deb, the users would need sudo access.
Actually it’s just an archive. It can be easily extracted using
dpkg -x *.deb ~/.localfor example.I was today years old when I realized I can install packages non-privelaged if I leverage ~/.local/
So long as /home isn’t noexec.
How would I check that?
Edit: actually, Lemme just rtfm
TIL but that makes sense. What else would it be. It also contains some setup logic that is executed when installing, right? I wonder whether the launcher would just work like that
You’re right, apparently amongst other things there are some hooks that are ran during the package’s lifecycle in something that is called the control archive.
Roblox in the trash AHAHAHAHA
Beautiful effort!!
yeah! was funny to me too!
I’ve actually been using linux with older customers for years. It solves several problems. First, it lets them get more life out of their older machines. Second, its free. Third, the kind of malware that targets linux systems isnt really a factor for little old man on facebook. Finally, when scammers call, they cant establish credibility with my customers. They get in, remote access barely works thanks to wayland not liking their tools yet. The entire system looks different and the commands are different so they dont understand how it works but the customer does. So the scam falls apart where they try to prove they know what they are talking about because they cant use the terminal properly. It always ends the same way. My customers get suspicious and say “I’m going to call my computer guy” and the hang up.
This trick has been successful for years and my users are very happy not to have to deal with microsoft’s bullshit. The fact that it confuses the hell out of scammers is just a nice bonus.
its always funny to see scammers struggle with bash, I remember seeing a video about that and its so funny
Cool story bro.
Except the story is actually cool, and you’re a real bro!
thanks man, you’re a real bro too!
I don’t know how developed your school system is but, I would advise the principal into blocking the websites via DNS that way the computers won’t resolve them.
AdGuard, PiHole, OpenSense are free open source DNS resolvers however, chances are your school already manages its own DNS so I would obviously consult with them first.
Idk tbh, but the principal seems experienced I think, he might figure it out
I love Linux. I’m running Linux and love the experience.
But…
i7-4970i7-4790 so running windows 10 with all its bloat was not going to be an easy task for emWhat in the world are you talking about, man??
Even ignoring the silliness of the “bloat” - i7-4790 eats Win10 alive and asks for seconds.
I stated that as long as they dont know how to work with wine/lutris or know any specific linux packages that run windows games on linux they should not be able to play in the middle of lessons
So… No, you didn’t stop them from doing that. All it takes for them to get back to playing games is to google “linux roblox how to” and 20 minutes later they’re good to go. Windows has AppLocker, and GPO to prevent running unwanted software - have you researched alternatives for Linux?
does this mean linux now is ready for the education sector?
Well, depends on scale. The setup you did is fine for, what, a single classroom? Two classrooms? It’s completely unusable for a larger school - for that you need an MDM solution, ideally with some form of IAM. In the Windows world that’s SCCM/Intune with AD/EID (local/cloud). Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s only bare-bones equivalents in the Linux world for that, which would be the bigger a problem the larger a school you’d be dealing with.
Wow you really went out of your way to yuck OPs yum.
Yeah, I guess I sound a bit aggressive. That wasn’t the intention. I just get an allergic reaction when I see the “Linux is just better than Windows now!” stuff. It is - in some scenarios. In others it’s worse. Someone who wants to do IT (and it kinda’ sounds like OP’s heading there) needs to understand that.
SCCM is on life support. Microsoft wants everyone to use autopilot now and many places cant or wont use cloud shit. I actually worked for a place that couldn’t use it for legal reasons.
We set up a FOG server and that was that. Fuck the cloud.
Just FYI - SCCM is not the Autopilot equivalent, it’s the Intune equivalent. Intune’s Autopilot is, kind of, what Task Sequence is in SCCM.
As far as “life support” goes - it’s full featured. Security updates are still coming in, not much else they can add feature-wise in there.
As for the cloud - everything has its uses. Cloud is great if you don’t want to deal with all the bare-metal stuff. It allows one person to do the work of four, with the trade-off being that you lose some of the fine-tuning, control, or optimisation. As the saying goes: “the ‘s’ in 'Intune” stands for ‘speed’".
Don’t fuck the cloud. Just use it when it’s better than on-prem.
The cloud has one plus in modern infrastructure. It gives you someone else to blame for shit breaking. My old boss told worded it best. “I want just one throat to choke”
There are many ways to skin the cat for centralized login in Linux, including using Samba-AD or just LDAP.
Patching is IMO less fun. Landscape can work for Ubuntu but it’s finicky, and I haven’t really found anything satisfactory (FOSS) for patch management if multiple Debian systems. Setting up “unattended-upgrades” does tend to handle most of it but that doesn’t give centralized control or visibility.
It’s honestly extremely surprising to me that there aren’t still any proper FOSS solutions that handle this. Is it because it’s super difficult to do? I’ve no idea, but it’s definitely something that’s preventing a lot of businesses to switch over.
A lot of people use automation systems etc. They work, but don’t provide the same GUI/reports you might see from RHS or Windows patching systems.
I too was surprised at how sparse or apparently kludged-together the pickings were.
