Convincing a school district to migrate from OS X to Ubuntu or Edubuntu

[Christopher Chan]

> Yeah. Here's another fun fact. Schools pay below average salaries. I 
> know! Sounds preposterous. Truth is that a comp-sci grad could get a 
> developer job or admin job for 40 to 50 grand a year within a year or 
> two in most corporations. Schools have IT departments paying anywhere 
> from 15 to 30, and you don't get big raises from that unless you have an 
> administrator (not system administrator, but organizational 
> administrator) title.
> 
> Good luck attracting a computer geek that is familiar with Linux, enjoys 
> digging into Linux-centric issues, while supporting Mrs. Jones who can't 
> figure out how to print from some Macromedia or flash program from the 
> back of a textbook. For twenty grand a year. Or thirty.

Heh. I watched that happen to schools funded by the Hong Kong 
government. Initial salary for TSS (Technical Support Specialist or 
something...can't remember...the new position for IT chums to be in 
schools when they decided they need to IT'ize the schools) was 17K (USD) 
but what happened? Schools started outsourcing it (while take a bit off 
the allocated salary) and soon that TSS position paid only 10K. Schools 
would run anything their chosen consultant throws at them (mostly 
Windows and a few would have servers/services on Linux) because they 
have to use the money for this new fangled directive. No bonus points 
for guessing what support from consultant is like after they've been paid.

Whoever gets a TSS job ends up being looked down on and they basically 
have zero input into the school's IT infrastructure/policy. What a way 
to hope to get good work out of the local IT chum eh? If TSS IT chum 
goes looking for work elsewhere...and they find out that he is a school 
TSS chum...guess what? In your face, "SO...what do you actually know or 
can do?"

 From what I see, the local school system in Hong Kong is basically 
racing those in the US for the prize of worst education system of all.

> 
>> If schools were able to run everything on Linux,
>> everything would work smoother, considering the smoothness that Linux
>> provides.
> 
> Linux itself may be relatively smooth. Good luck with applications, 
> though (you know, why you need the computer in the first place?). I ran 
> a Linux server with Metadot web portal server on it. Did an update on 
> the server, and the portal stopped working. Something with the way the 
> code was written it didn't like one of the newer modules. Took me over 
> an hour to get that unraveled.

Sorry, that kind of thing really depends on the sysadmin. Whoever 
updates a production system and then runs into a problem gets to eat his 
own dog food.

> 
> These things take skill to support. Generally you can't retain good 
> talent without compensating them for it...and most schools won't do 
> that. Even if they get someone to do this the talent moves on to greener 
> pastures, leaving them with technology they can't support. So they get 
> the people who generally are cheaper hire and more plentiful in the 
> pool...typically windows-using fresh-faced hires from college in search 
> of a job. First point of business...the moment that "Linux-thing" acts 
> up, replace it with something they know. Or something with a vendor that 
> will set it up and support it for them.
> 
> Which I can't blame them for since the IT departments in most schools 
> are understaffed.

Heh. So basically the problem comes from the school not appreciating IT 
in education.
> 
>> Clifford has pointed out that he has already gotten students using Linux.
>> This comes as a total shock to me, as I've always gone to school to Macs. I
>> still remember using very old versions of the Macintosh OS (definately
>> pre-OS X) back in kindergarten, and up into the first few years of
>> elementary school.
> 
> Again, as long as they can do what they need to do, the OS doesn't 
> matter unless the users are really stuck on using what they're 
> comfortable with from home. For basic stuff Linux gets to be a problem 
> when dealing with media...still can't watch the Star Trek trailer from 
> Apple on my Ubuntu system. Users spending large amounts of time playing 
> flash games and youtube videos as their "must-have" apps will run into 
> issues at times. So you're trading one set of common issues for another.

Yeah...bye bye shockwave.

> 
>> Clifford then pointed out how much work it has taken to move his school to
>> using just a few Linux machines and mostly Windows machines. If this will
>> need such dedication from everyone involved, then moving this school, which
>> has been on Macintosh since before I was born, will be more work than most
>> schools. People here are also very stubborn, especially IT.
> 
> Usually with good reason.
> 
> Schools preoccupy themselves with latest fads in education, not just IT. 
> They have issues from bullying to No Child Left Behind mandates to deal 
> with, and somehow a grudge against Windows or OS X isn't high on their 
> list of issues to deal with.

Boy, am I glad I am not working in a school under the local Hong Kong 
government. My son is in one of the better ones according to the HK gov 
but it really is just a homework and test dispenser.

> 
>> There's no question that Ubuntu would be able to work on these computers.
>> While some of them are old, they're still new enough to run Ubuntu. The
>> school has big metal carts that hold about 30 notebooks (these carts are
>> called 'COWs', short for 'Computers On Wheels'), which are usually filled
>> with rather new notebooks, but only because the notebooks are the first
>> things to fall apart, with keys falling out and plastic casing coming off.
>> Such new notebooks would be able to run Ubuntu quite well. 
> 
> So are you saying students can't be trusted to take good care of the 
> notebook hardware but you want them to be passionate about something 
> like operating systems?

He probably meant Grade/Primary school. However, it is the keyboards, 
mice and headsets/headphones that are routinely destroyed in my 
case...kids using laptops usually mean they are under heavy supervision.