Edubuntu

This is just a quick note on Edubuntu – a variant of the popular Ubuntu that is rumoured to be part of the base for Google’s linux distro Goobuntu.

I installed it Friday and with no supervision it went in in about an hour, maybe more (I had to leave it) and for the few minutes that I’ve spent with it, it is certainly an impressive little package. I’ve got it running on a PIII with 256MB RAM and it’s pretty slick. This may be what many schools have out there, and now as they buckle under the cost of spyware and viri, I think this linux is a decent way to get the basics (surf, turf and a few games) in the hands of kids at relatively little cost. When I was looking for some info on it, I came across this blog and I agree that few will regret trying this over Windows – especially on the old machine that they are tossing.

Granted if you are doing video or some other application that is friendlier on MacOS or WinXP, that is the better place to do it. But most schools are barely into photography and this comes with GIMP installed – I’m sure FilmGIMP isn’t that hard to add – and with it’s small suite of games and need for an admin password to install applications, I’m sure you can drop it into a classroom and not have to worry about babysitting it too much.