[SLUG] Re: why teach something else if everyone uses windows at
home...
woz
the_cheeky_monkey at btinternet.com
Mon Sep 10 20:24:30 BST 2007
I do agree entirely with what everyone is saying, I would not want to
give the impression that I agree with what my other half said is right !
I think schools would really benefit from using Linux even for everyday
situations. I also think children would learn alot more about computing
in general if their classes were Linux based.
I know that a lot of people dont use legitimate versions of Windows.
Alot of people I know would not be able to afford to buy a legal version
of Windows, so rely on copied ISO's with various key generators to
appear like a legitimate copy. I am not condoning Piracy. I think that
if people could 'afford' to legitimately have access to 'legit'
software, they would - those people should be converted !
Warren
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: Re: Scarborough Digest, Vol 191, Issue 5 (John Allsopp)
> 2. Re: One-keystroke abbreviations. (John Allsopp)
> 3. Re: Re: Scarborough Digest, Vol 191, Issue 5 (Chris More)
> 4. Re: Re:distro info (bob)
> 5. Re: publicity for meetings (bob)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:12:53 +0100
> From: John Allsopp <john at johnallsopp.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [SLUG] Re: Scarborough Digest, Vol 191, Issue 5
> To: Scarborough Linux User Group <scarborough at mailman.lug.org.uk>
> Message-ID: <46E4E065.4090908 at johnallsopp.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
> That's fantastic to hear.
>
> Isn't the school thing weird? AFAIK, there's a long history of schools
> teaching non-standard software because they didn't have the money to buy
> what industry and business used, and possibly also because they simply
> wanted to buy software just good enough to teach the module without
> getting overcomplicated. I can't think of a real example of that, but
> I've got that impression from somewhere. You wouldn't find AutoCAD in a
> school, I don't think. The BBC, perhaps. And Gem instead of Windows.
>
> So when kids were being taught on a BBC, schools would presumably have
> had an argument against the people who wanted them taught on standard PCs.
>
> And then he realises: the argument's the same argument. No-one in the
> school knows how to use the alternative so they can't change. There's no
> point putting in resources to bring someone in a school up to speed on
> Linux when every parent would have to ask 'why?'
>
> All of the preceeding barring the first line is written from a position
> of ignorance, but I did want to respond nicely. For a minute there, I
> thought we'd converted http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak
>
> J
>
>
> woz wrote:
>
>> Hello Everyone,
>>
>> I am a new subscriber to SLUG. I've been trying to get into Linux for
>> about 4 years or so but I felt completed locked out of getting anywhere!
>> I tried VISTA out of curiosity and although it worked fine and was
>> impressive, none of my usual programs would work under it. I think now
>> is a 'tempting time' for people who want a change - or perhaps dont want
>> to face the prospect living under Vista forever...
>>
>> With this is mind, it seems to me that a lot of friendlier information
>> is now about to help get into Linux as a real everyday alternative. I
>> use Fedora 7 on an AMD XP2000 chip (runs at 1.6hz); 1 gig of ram and a
>> Nvidia FX2000 GPU. My system seems to fly (you will all be pleased to
>> know I used the Livna driver aswell, instead of the official Nvidia driver!)
>>
>> I prefer my KDE (3.5.7-21) environment (everthing seems to work better
>> than the default Gnome - E.g K3Bjust works out of the box. I use Firefox
>> 2 with java and flash serve as my browser, I keep in contact with my
>> buddies using the aSM chat program. I try to put all my music in to OGG
>> format instead of mp3. I can also play any media format I encounter. I
>> use Thunderbird for all my emails - and Linux life is just dandy - I
>> even starting to play with GnuPG !
>>
>> All this would have been impossible for me 4 years ago - with the lack
>> of Linux support that seems to be now available. Im not sure if its just
>> things that are happening in my life at the moment, but its not just a
>> case of 'Swapping Linux for Windows'. Its more of the ethic and
>> philosophy behind Linux - choice and freedom.
>>
>> Out of interest I was chatting to my partner who works at a school in
>> Scarborough. I mentioned the Schools with Linux ideas put forward, and
>> although she see why it would be useful, especially of cost and support,
>> her criticism was 'Why teach all the kids Linux, if they are going home
>> to put into practice everything on Windows' machines..... mmmmmmm'
>>
>> Im still very new to Linux, but each day my knowledge is growing and
>> growing, and I find I want to know more and more.
>>
>> Warren
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:18:37 +0100
> From: John Allsopp <john at johnallsopp.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [SLUG] One-keystroke abbreviations.
> To: Scarborough Linux User Group <scarborough at mailman.lug.org.uk>
> Message-ID: <46E4E1BD.5000004 at johnallsopp.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Richard Lung wrote:
>
>> Tho I never had the old Amstrad word processor, I heard from a lecturer that
>> it had a one-letter one-word function or program. I dont know how common this
>> feature is in modern word-processing programs, but Open Office does not
>> appear to have it.
>>
>
> Sounds interesting. One of the things about Linux is: if you don't like
> a program, try another. There are lots of word processors and even more
> text editors. I understand Emacs is rather functional and given
> Stallman's sometime issues with RSI I bet it does some funky stuff in
> this regard.
>
>
>> Half of English consists of a hundred words used over and over again.
>>
>
> Do you happen to know where to discover which hundred?
>
> J
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 08:18:57 +0100
> From: Chris More <chris at staxton.com>
> Subject: Re: [SLUG] Re: Scarborough Digest, Vol 191, Issue 5
> To: Scarborough Linux User Group <scarborough at mailman.lug.org.uk>
> Message-ID: <46E4EFE1.8070709 at staxton.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>
> 'Why teach all the kids Linux, if they are going home
>
>>> to put into practice everything on Windows' machines..... mmmmmmm'
>>>
>
> But that is just where it is wrong! My 15 year old came home from
> school and asked which of our machines has microsoft Access on. She was
> not impressed by the response.
>
> C
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:56:25 +0100
> From: bob <bgarrood at tiscali.co.uk>
> Subject: [SLUG] Re: Re:distro info
> To: scarborough at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Message-ID: <200709101056.25855.bgarrood at tiscali.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Saturday 08 September 2007 12:15, David wrote:
>
>
>> If it's not too late can I suggest you include a business-card sized distro
>> as well. I am currently using DSL on my oldest computer (400MHz 128Mb I
>> think.). It runs like a charm entirely in ram or from CD and is very easy
>> to use. I also like puppylinux for this purpose. On a side note, I wanted a
>> silent PC so I unplugged the fans and HD and it's now virtually silent and
>> the CPU still runs cool with just the heatsink!
>>
>
> Yes, sounds good to me. If you can write it up and are willing and able to
> answer questions, it can go with the rest of the distro info material. We
> should try for a standard format, with the same headings for the paragraphs,
> and roughly the same length. If you want to argue about the headings we
> have time, as this is being set up to appear by the end of next month. I
> like DSL, but at our meeting we said we should aim to concentrate on
> installed Linux, rather than live CDs.
>
> If we can find someone to write up Ubuntu in the same way, we have enough for
> a website presentation.
>
> It would be good if you could work this up into a half hour talk for
> beginners. At the moment the topic list for the beginner's half hours looks
> like this:
>
> KOffice
> er,.. Computer hardware and Linux
>
> We need to have at least 3-4 topics in place before we start the meetings, and
> they need to be proper presentations, using say, Kpresenter, so they can be
> accessed by anyone who does not get to meetings, - criticism improves style
> and content as they say.
>
> I can out inverse snob you on machines. This is being written on a 6 y o
> Panasonic Toughbook. It has 128Mb and runs up to date Slackware 11.0 at 300
> Mhz. I did have to spend £25 on a new hard drive last year.
>
> Bob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:01:20 +0100
> From: bob <bgarrood at tiscali.co.uk>
> Subject: [SLUG] Re: publicity for meetings
> To: scarborough at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Message-ID: <200709101101.20560.bgarrood at tiscali.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Saturday 08 September 2007 12:15David wrote:
>
>
>> A prime area for broadening the group would be schools, IT dept and
>> students if only to raise awareness that there is another choice. Several
>> IT students I've spoken to don't even know what Linux is, many haven't
>> tried it. It seems all most are familiar with is Microsoft, Microsoft,
>> Microsoft...
>>
>
> I couldn't agree more. If we can get the meetings and the poster organised,
> we can send information to the heads of IT in all the secondary schools in the
> area. But we cannot afford to be naive about child protection issues. At
> our meeting we decided that we could not accept anyone under the age of 16
> unless they were with an adult. And we cannot influence what schools, under
> the control of government bodies which are rigidly blinkered towards
> M********, will choose to do with the information we provide. (They will
> probably bin it.)
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
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> End of Scarborough Digest, Vol 192, Issue 1
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