Hello Joan, JL> --- digital_brahman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Being a Linux Freak, I was shocked to see almost every computer on >> campus with only Windows 98 or Windows NT (at the server). Why do >> you think that this is so? Because the people who buy computers and decide what operating systems to run are not computer techs, and make their purchasing decisions based on things other than which is the leading edge, in computing advancement. They are running operating systems that are quite old, so they probably have not upgraded their equipment in a long time. If the physical computers were new when the Windows 98 and NT OS's were installed, they might be early Pentium machines, which would be capable of running Linux, but probably not the latest, greatest versions, which can be pretty resource hungry, by 1998 standards. >> Linux if free and with flavors like Linspire, Red Hat and Mandrake >> - it's getting easier to install and use. >> >> Debian and BSD, according to me, still provide some of the best >> free development tool which is essential to a developer like >> myself. 'Free', as far as initial cost, does not mean 'free', in terms of implementation... especially on a platform as large as a major university. I am a single individual with a personal LAN, and am currently running Red Hat Enterprise, Debian HPPA (on an HP9000 PA-RISC server), FreeBSD, and Windows 2k Pro. While I am a serious student of *nix, and see Open Source as the wave of the future, I came from a DOS-Windows upbringing, and have some software, and a couple pieces of hardware, that are useful enough to me (or have nostalgic attachment, like some of my really old DOS applications), so that I will probably keep Win2k around indefinitely. Making the move from WinDOS to *nix was definitely not 'free'. I do use my computers to earn my living, and it has taken me a lot of time reading, studying, practicing, etc., to become even basically competent as a small LAN administrator, and me, being the only person using the LAN.<g> Don't get me wrong... I really love *nix now, which make the extra work/study a pleasure, more than a chore, but as a person who grew up with DOS, and then Windows (I was a DOS-Windows techie, too, not a raw end-user)... making the move to *nix, while at the same time keeping my small business running smoothly, was no simple matter, and I am still not completely finished with the transition, after roughly 3.5 years under my belt, working with Linux. I can only imagine how hard it might be for a university to make the switch for Windows to *nix, without interrupting the operations of the university. Friday, June 17, 2005, 1:28:29 AM, Joan wrote: JL> It's not just in India, it's in the state of Nevada, JL> too. The community college has classes in A+ JL> hardware/software, Unix and Linux, but we have to have JL> removable drives in those computer classes, plus the JL> rows of PCs have to be unlocked because of the Sentry JL> system they use to allow any OS to be installed. I JL> know they use Linux for the campus phone messaging. JL> They may be using Netware somewhere, too. JL> But at the 4-year college they don't have the classes JL> described like this. I know one of my teachers was a JL> System Admin in their computer center, and said you JL> better learn your BASH and VI if you want to be one. JL> I remember one Linux student brought his own laptop JL> and plugged it in so he could use Linux instead of JL> Windows when he could. He said he was going to JL> transfer to a school with more Linux classes. I think JL> our higher learning tuition dollars may convince the JL> schools in the end. Or the businesses clamber for JL> more of us to be trained. In my opinion, you people in university now, are the very first true generation of Linux Users. Your teachers and the folks running the universities grew up, as I did, with DOS and Windows (and Mac) on their PC's. So it is going to be *your* job to implement *nix and Open Source computing in the universities... not by demanding that the previous generation change (they were, after all, the ones who got computing of any sort onto the university curricula). You will probably wind up getting *nix and Open Source into the universities... and from there as the dominant computing model in the world, displacing Windows and Closed Source, not by bothering the teachers and administrators who are now in place to change... but by graduating, and taking their jobs over, and implementing the changes yourselves.<g> -wittig website: http://www.robertwittig.com/ weblog: http://robertcwittig.blogspot.com/ . To unsubscribe from this list, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] & you will be removed. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
