So when they didn’t have Linux drivers, what was their quality?

Didn’t you say school “is a community of learners and teachers preparing the next generation for life” or something like that? But it’s now suddenly A-OK to turn it into a Xerox’s environment?

The last place I taught, the copier maintenance guy installed a print-server for us to increase our monthly copies instead of the school having to pay for an expensive “remote printing” option. This meant we could junk all those troublesome inkjet printers scattered about.

Says the guy who bought 20 printers for 8 clients each.

Also, Xerox’s environment.

http://www.openprinting.org/printers/manufacturer/Xerox/

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html

The last school I was in with Xerox photocopiers was 1980. I did buy Xerox printers for Easterville, however. Most schools use the least expensive photocopiers they can find. I have seen lots of Sharp, Konica, Canon and OKI photocopiers in schools but few Xerox. There is lots of competition in the field and the digital copiers with simplified paper-paths seem to be wonderful. I was at one school where there was a shelf near the copier with user-swappable parts and a squad of teachers was shown how to swap any moving part on the machine. Downtime was minutes instead of days. That’s great for fly-in communities. The only downside was that the damned things were so fast a teacher had no break “waiting” for the copier. I could print from my desk and the copies were done by the time I reached the copier. The last place I taught, the copier maintenance guy installed a print-server for us to increase our monthly copies instead of the school having to pay for an expensive “remote printing” option. This meant we could junk all those troublesome inkjet printers scattered about.

Obviously the school you were at didn’t have a machine shop either, because CNC milling software is pretty much only written for Windows. There is literally no open source alternative, yet I’m sure you’d try and install Debian anyways.

Better the machines didn’t work at all, right? Because why would students want to get their work done when they can know their lathe has finally been purified by your software holy water.

Really? Did you ask the contractor responsible for the construction of the school building about the origin of the rebars they used?

Did you also ask the publishers of the textbooks about the printing process they used?

And did you check inside every teacher’s drawers to see if they have sneaked in some naughty Blend 43?

Don’t forget to throw out all the photocopiers as well.

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Apr-07.html

Or do you have Miguel de Icaza too?

Schools I have worked in have had none of those. So, you’re right. Schools also don’t need that other OS.

You sound like someone who has read Fight Club too many times but just does have the guts to take up Tyler Durden’s nilhilistic life. You don’t need building materials provided by BHP Billiton, photocopying technology provided by Xerox, color systems provided by Pentone or coffee and chocolate powder provided by Nestle, you know? Heck, go the good ol’ Maoist way and have your teachers and students mine their own quarries, hand-copy and illustrate their own textbooks and notes and grow their own cups of joe. Don’t just talk the talk – walk the walk. Can’t do that? Then stop complaining about Windows on school computers, you hypocrite.

Where M$ got in by default, I have never seen an IT system running smoothly.

Not with you around. That’s for sure.

When I installed GNU/Linux, the system ran indefinitely.

That’s strange since it never occurs to me that you have stayed in one place for long – let alone indefinitely.

I repeat sir, do you, Mr VAR who sells himself as an expert, know Powershell.

Or is your windows expertise limited to cleaning viruses of off desktop systems?