Re: School Computer Lab

School Computer Lab (Score: 1)

by dotdotdot@pipedot.org on 2014-04-17 21:04 (#140)

I have to replace about 40 Windows XP desktops in a charter school with almost no technology budget. I updated two of the desktops to different versions of Linux Mint to see if they were similar enough to Windows that the teachers and students could use them.

Would Edubuntu be a better option, or is there another flavor of Ubuntu that would be an easy transition from Windows?

Re: School Computer Lab (Score: 3, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-04-17 22:47 (#141)

If you are looking for familiarity, I'd suggest avoiding Unity or Gnome Shell (including Edubuntu) based versions. XFCE, KDE, and LXDE are far more friendly toward new converts. XFCE and LXDE have significantly "lighter" computer requirements. Since your computers have XP they are likely over 10 years old and may have limited resources. Also, all flavors of Ubuntu share the same base package libraries. You will still be able to easily download the same educational programs from the package manager.

Re: School Computer Lab (Score: 1)

by dotdotdot@pipedot.org on 2014-04-18 16:46 (#14A)

Well, I've got plenty of desktops to test with. I could almost put a different distro on every desktop in the lab and then just see which one gets the most use!

Re: School Computer Lab (Score: 1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-04-19 08:02 (#14G)

Wow, that'd be cool if done right. Have Ubuntu with Unity, KDE, Gnome 3 and Xfce each on 10 machines. It would be very interesting what students would prefer to pick over time. Neglect the first weeks as everyone needs to try everything though.

Apart from that, here are some thoughts: Mint has some weird update strategy that some called less secure than Ubuntu. I would certainly pick Ubuntu 14.04 LTS right now because you don't have to care about anything for 5 years update wise. You can install KDE, Gnome, Mate, Xfce or whatever else you like on top of that base system. Whatever distro you chose in the end, I'd also stay with a Debian base, it's well supported and documented and now even Valve deploys Steam on it which might get students more interested.

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