We run a school program in Guatemala and have been using SUSE for the past 4 years. We really enjoy it, eventough we face some challenges with the hardware we can buy here.

Who else is using SUSE?

my 15 year old daughter has been using linux for 5 yrs now.she uses xp only for some games.all of my computers (4) at home runs Linux. suse,gentoo

I think that this will be a positive thing in all aspects. If you think about it in a 'geek' point of view so to speak, this is just one more step closer to stopping microshafts monopoly and giving them some competition. Personally, I think all users should learn to run linux just because it is the best os/distro source out there.

That's pretty sweet. I wish my high school had had at least a few workstations in the labs that had linux on them. But nope, they were monopolist Windows XP Pro all the way.

It would have been nice to have had at least SOME linux experience before I made an idiot of myself at college :-p

Good job! Ladies and gentlemen, the next wave of hackers and virus writers for Linux are from Indianapolis Central High!

Hey,thats cool.
Computers software is becomeing cheaper all the time and so are hard drives.I looked in my crystal ball and saw a great vision.Ultra cheap computers with easy to snap in hard drives preinstalled with linspire.When the hard drive or operateing system craps out just throw it away and go down to the local Stop N Go and buy a new one,snap it in and your ready to rock n roll.Forget about all the wasted time downloading updates and the latest fad browser.

.....and you're drunk.

...and YOU are high. How about if the OS came on a memory stick or was firmware, or part of the motherboard somehow?

The rollout began three years ago! With 300,000 machines that is like 100,000 a year...Sounds like they are having an awesome time with Linux. [/sarcasm]

Schools don't need computers. Computers don't do anything more for students than books can do. Books are cheaper to buy and replace.

People get all "high tech" nuts just because they can.

Read "High Tech Heretic" by Clifford Stoll

What a waste of money. Price of computers, price of support, price of replacing bad hardware.....etc.....etc.....etc...

With computers you can save a couple of trees!

And most students will at somepoint in the future need to know how to use a computer.

I'm not saying PC aren't a waste of money, but some are needed.

umm...

Can books load an interactive model of the human body for Anatomy and Physiology classes?

Can books access the school's library and the literally millions of electronic articles contained there (not printed anywhere)?

Can books type up a paper or make a presentation (powerpoint or otherwise) for a school report?

Can books allow you to do research on the Internet?

Need I go on?

As a college student that attended a high school where laptops were given to each student I can say that they were an extremely useful tool for both students and teachers.

"Books are cheaper to buy and replace"

I spend more on books each semester than I spent on the computer I built last year. School books are completely over-priced - for all levels of schooling; not just college.

Hopefully this will win some more users to Linux once they see that Linux is not that bad.

Alister

Indiana is not pro-Linux.
Indiana is a broke a** state with a cheap bas**** as governor.

On the contrary. I live in Indiana and we are by NO means broke. Between the last school year (04-05) and this school year (05-06), my high school has replaced all the computer labs computers with brand spankin new Gateways with XP Pro AND the programming lab has Visual Studio 2003. Now the teachers are getting new computers and whatever few writing labs that lack new computers are getting new ones this year. So Indiana is by no means "a broke a** state with a cheap bas**** as governor."

That's why you are broke. Your school system wasted tons of money on useless computers when they could have just bought books. :)

Great idea!

Hmmm....

You are a moron. Indiana may be broke, but the government did not factor into this at all. Linspire teamed up with Wintergreen Systems, an Elkhart, Indiana-based custom computer company that produces systems that are exclusively preinstalled with Linspire, to deploy the program. The fact that this program is currently only running in Elkhart and a few other schools throughout the state shows that the Indiana Department of Education isn't in total control of this...yet. Hell, the program is actually setup through Linspire, and if you're a teacher/administrator interested in using it, all you have to do is contact Linspire at a special address and they'll set it up. If it proves successful, then the statewide rollout will begin, but until then, its very much a private program. And as for your comment on Mitch Daniels being a cheap ba$tard...if by cheap you mean approving a $900-million+ bill to build the Colts a new stadium and provide Indianapolis an expanded convention center, then yeah, he's one cheap piece of sh*t. Pull your head out of your a$$ and leave the political bashing to those who actually know what they're talking about.

how old are you?

seriously.

hah, congradulations, your school just bought a bunch of computers from the worst computer manufacturer in america, i think id rather get an acer or some other brand no one's ever heard of, the last gateway i had was the worst computer i ever owned and i would never buy another gateway in my life.

Dude wake up and join the rest of the world in the year 2005 not 1905 kthnxbye.

Seriously I think all schools need computers and if some of the states and school systems can put a computer in every students hand along with every teacher either public or private then so be it. I wish I had the oppurtunity to use computers on an everyday basis like you can now when I was in school.

Also pipewrench I seriously think you need to get off the book bandwagon and bashing computers kick specially since you MUST be using one of the evil little things to post your crackbrain comments on this board.

I have never seen you post one posistive or supporting post for anything on this site.

I know I know quit feeding the trolls.......

I think gateway is better than dell, but besides that, most name-brand computers are all pieces of $#!+, however, it is in most schools best interest to have name brand, throw-away computers rather than build them all themselves, I would never buy (a new) name brand computer in my life either, so...

When I was in school it was fun to figure out the password or work-arounds for that silly Fortres program.

Bravo Maestro!! Bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo!!!