[PLUG] Linux, Portland Schools, and Costs

Michael Robinson michael at robinson-west.com
Mon Apr 21 15:47:02 UTC 2003


On Sunday 20 April 2003 03:47 pm, you wrote:
> I am currently running for Portland School Board, and one of my
> positions is that the Board needs to get the community involved to cut
> costs and strengthen the schools.
>
> Last year, many of you were involved in an effort to convert many of the
> systems in the schools and throughout the district from Windoze to
> Linux.  I am wondering if you might want to share with me your
> experiences -- for those involved -- with working with the District, how
> well-received you were, what could have been done to make things easier,
> and how much money was saved (if any).
>
> If you are currently employed with the District and don't wish to give
> your name publicly, you can contact my off-list and I will not reveal
> the source.
>
> Thanks.

Well for Scappoose School District I put a sound card into a machine
that I essentially donated and installed the drivers.  It was a 98SE system
and the driver tree was disgusting, but the part that bothered me the
most about the job was the proprietary nature of this Compaq.
I wonder if Linux could even be installed to it.  I am concerned that
XP is designed to be incompatible with LILO also.  I'm concerned about
integrated video cards in various motherboards that don't have that
great a set of features where their features can be matched in Linux
compatible alternatives yet they aren't Linux compatible.  The moral
of the story is that schools have computers that could be designed
to be Linux friendly yet they likely aren't and this is because these
machines are either offloaded on schools or they get in there by
other means, corporate donations perhaps?  If a manufacturer
puts something out that hasn't been ported to Linux maybe it should
be labeled so that those who don't want a non Linux ready machine
can more easily avoid it.  At first a soundblaster live which is supposed
to work supposedly on any PCI system was tried but it didn't work so
I put in an ISA card instead and upgraded my own system.  
Unfortunately, the system stopped working some time after I put 
the sound card in.  I volunteered to do this.

     --  Michael C. Robinson




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