The use of Linux and open source software in our school: to be or not to be?
Good day, dear Habrovchane. Recently, I was worried about the question: how long will Microsoft’s monopoly continue in the market sector, which is responsible for software delivery to many educational institutions in our country (in fact, it has been occupied by the corporation since the 90s ).
I will give a specific example: I go to a relatively popular IT-circle for high school students at the local university N (this university is quite prestigious in my city), where we study a number of disciplines:
And now the criticism on most points:
1. Probably the only discipline that more or less suited me. Number systems, binary logic, etc. Here we have done without using any OS and software, so for my post is not directly related.
')
2. This is where the fun begins. Firstly, almost everything that we went through - the history and capabilities of MS-DOS and Windows (as many as all versions, however, on Windows XP, because the presentation was made at the beginning of the 2000s), in passing showed the existence of such systems as GNU / Linux, * nix and ... everything. I did not see a clear history and opportunities * nix in this presentation. Secondly, at the lecture, we talked for a long time about the differences between Windows 3.11 and 95 and 98; remembered the existence of IDE-mode; got acquainted with FAT12 / 16/32 and NTFS (although the lecturer didn’t say anything except decrypt the abbreviation "NTFS"), but I didn’t hear a word about EXT2 / 3/4, BTRFS, UDF, even about disk layout - silent! The same situation was with BSVV: the Legacy-BIOS function was explained, but they even forgot about UEFI, not to mention Coreboot and other BIOS implementations. At the same time, teachers told us about the "power of the newest" Pentium 4 and DDR2, the gradual obsolescence of floppy disks, and the advantages of Windows XP over ME and 98 (again, a report from 2003-2005).
3. Well, everything is pretty clear: everything is outdated and / or proprietary. I don’t find fault with the characteristics of the PC itself: 0.5-2 gigabytes of RAM and Pentium 4 / D are enough for a client computer, just like we have Windows XP and a central server file dump, which partially relieves the load on the system HDD. But I could find only a couple of hundreds of free programs on these PCs: Notepad ++ and a very old version of OpenOffice. Everything else: Google Chrome, MS Office 2007/2010 (non-activated), Adobe PDF Reader, antivirus, proprietary compilers, Turbo Pascal ... By the way, some (at least 1 GB of RAM) have Kubuntu 14.04.x ​​installed, since neither the system nor the repository was updated. Yes, and put it openly for the sake of a tick: I have never seen a single student who used Linux. Moreover, the people who installed the distribution did not specify a password for root and bootloader.
Therefore, you can easily find the Rescue Mode item in GRUB2, automatically get root-rights, remount the root in read / write and execute passwd. In fact, what your humble servant did twice. And all (all) OS at my complete disposal. Sense then to password Windu, put antiviruses, set up a proxy, if all this "protection" is not worth a damn? Moreover, when I told the teacher about this vulnerability, he replied that he was not interested in this problem. But how so? That prohibits usb-flash drives without antivirus scanning use, then ignore the problem lying on the surface. By the way, on these Kubuntu there is almost no software. Neither gcc, nor g ++, nor fpc, nothing but the base system.
If we talk about the office, then my use of Libreoffice and open document standards led to the fact that most .odt files were incorrectly opened in the Microsoft product, the reverse is also true. Although MS Office (IMHO) is a very convenient product, Libreoffice, especially as a free project, is also good. Principle, if it were not for the proprietary nature and closeness of MS Office, the meaning of the existence of its alternatives would be minimized (again, in my humble opinion).
Despite the fact that I agree with AV Stolyarov , I have an understanding that some important software exists only for Windows and in the next few years this system will not be exactly replaced in these areas (well, for example, from programming some microcontrollers to launching software for managing convergence stands), but every year such software becomes less and less. Moreover, these are quite rare directions, and * nix is ​​not for nothing considered to be good systems for learning the basics of programming.
Moral of this fable Conclusion: unfortunately, I state that in a local university (most likely, not only this), proprietary and closed products are preferred, even if they have to be used illegally. Other software is often ignored, since there is no incentive to improve as well as their real knowledge, and the students' knowledge of the teachers (“Teachers do not want to learn”). This suggests words that, in general, free software is ready for use by users, but users themselves do not want to use it and / or self-develop, if “it comes to that”.
PS:
I will give a specific example: I go to a relatively popular IT-circle for high school students at the local university N (this university is quite prestigious in my city), where we study a number of disciplines:
- "Fundamentals of computer science and computing" (already passed).
- "Device ... computer": OS, PC "inside" (completed).
- "Work on the PC": the basics of Windows Explorer, MD, MS Office (just completed).
- "Basics of programming": PascalABC.NET (thank God, that at least not Turbo Pascal).
And now the criticism on most points:
1. Probably the only discipline that more or less suited me. Number systems, binary logic, etc. Here we have done without using any OS and software, so for my post is not directly related.
')
2. This is where the fun begins. Firstly, almost everything that we went through - the history and capabilities of MS-DOS and Windows (as many as all versions, however, on Windows XP, because the presentation was made at the beginning of the 2000s), in passing showed the existence of such systems as GNU / Linux, * nix and ... everything. I did not see a clear history and opportunities * nix in this presentation. Secondly, at the lecture, we talked for a long time about the differences between Windows 3.11 and 95 and 98; remembered the existence of IDE-mode; got acquainted with FAT12 / 16/32 and NTFS (although the lecturer didn’t say anything except decrypt the abbreviation "NTFS"), but I didn’t hear a word about EXT2 / 3/4, BTRFS, UDF, even about disk layout - silent! The same situation was with BSVV: the Legacy-BIOS function was explained, but they even forgot about UEFI, not to mention Coreboot and other BIOS implementations. At the same time, teachers told us about the "power of the newest" Pentium 4 and DDR2, the gradual obsolescence of floppy disks, and the advantages of Windows XP over ME and 98 (again, a report from 2003-2005).
3. Well, everything is pretty clear: everything is outdated and / or proprietary. I don’t find fault with the characteristics of the PC itself: 0.5-2 gigabytes of RAM and Pentium 4 / D are enough for a client computer, just like we have Windows XP and a central server file dump, which partially relieves the load on the system HDD. But I could find only a couple of hundreds of free programs on these PCs: Notepad ++ and a very old version of OpenOffice. Everything else: Google Chrome, MS Office 2007/2010 (non-activated), Adobe PDF Reader, antivirus, proprietary compilers, Turbo Pascal ... By the way, some (at least 1 GB of RAM) have Kubuntu 14.04.x ​​installed, since neither the system nor the repository was updated. Yes, and put it openly for the sake of a tick: I have never seen a single student who used Linux. Moreover, the people who installed the distribution did not specify a password for root and bootloader.
Therefore, you can easily find the Rescue Mode item in GRUB2, automatically get root-rights, remount the root in read / write and execute passwd. In fact, what your humble servant did twice. And all (all) OS at my complete disposal. Sense then to password Windu, put antiviruses, set up a proxy, if all this "protection" is not worth a damn? Moreover, when I told the teacher about this vulnerability, he replied that he was not interested in this problem. But how so? That prohibits usb-flash drives without antivirus scanning use, then ignore the problem lying on the surface. By the way, on these Kubuntu there is almost no software. Neither gcc, nor g ++, nor fpc, nothing but the base system.
If we talk about the office, then my use of Libreoffice and open document standards led to the fact that most .odt files were incorrectly opened in the Microsoft product, the reverse is also true. Although MS Office (IMHO) is a very convenient product, Libreoffice, especially as a free project, is also good. Principle, if it were not for the proprietary nature and closeness of MS Office, the meaning of the existence of its alternatives would be minimized (again, in my humble opinion).
Despite the fact that I agree with AV Stolyarov , I have an understanding that some important software exists only for Windows and in the next few years this system will not be exactly replaced in these areas (well, for example, from programming some microcontrollers to launching software for managing convergence stands), but every year such software becomes less and less. Moreover, these are quite rare directions, and * nix is ​​not for nothing considered to be good systems for learning the basics of programming.
PS:
UNIX in the USSR
My grandfather told me that in 1986-1988 he, as the head of the organization UPRTSENTRZAPCHAST, together with other colleagues decided to transfer staff at their base in Stolbtsy and in Tashkent to the Robotron mini-computer and some other computers of our production , with a central server computer. Judging by his descriptions and Wikipedia, Unix was installed on this server, and on some of them was the Soviet edition. <Sarcasm> Therefore, so to speak, the potential for studying * nix remained. </ Sarcasm>
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/444432/
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