[K12OSN] Given this situation, why bother continue with LTSP?

[Rob Owens]

Could this member of the congregation be convinced to
donate something other than Windows machines?  Point
out that you can have an operating system for free,
and that instead of 5 P4's and 5 seats of Windows XP,
you would prefer 6 P4's.

You should try to take advantage of this guy's
generosity and be careful not to hurt any feelings. 
Teach him a little bit about linux and maybe he'll see
things your way.  

One thing that is irritating to most people I know is
Microsoft's forced upgrades of Office versions.  As
soon as somebody you work with starts using the newest
version of Office, you need to upgrade your software
in order to read his stuff.  Besides the arguments
already stated by other posters here, I would mention
this to people who need to be convinced that MS is not
the answer.

-Rob

--- The Prof <joseph.bishay at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> How is everyone doing?
> 
> I have, for the past 1.5 years, been running a small
> k12ltsp lab (12
> machines plus server) in our church and affiliated
> school.  During
> this time I have, thanks to many people here and on
> IRC, been able to
> have a nearly fully-functional lab up and running
> with minimal
> problems.  There have been issues of course (not all
> clients have
> sound for example) but given the requirements for a
> small elementary
> school, things have worked out great.
> 
> Now, the major problem with the lab is the mentality
> that this is not
> Windows. And it has been a huge hurdle. Parents
> stressed that their
> children will be at a disadvantage at high school
> and beyond.  Staff
> and admin members of the church who are turned off
> from the system
> because it doesn't "look & feel" like Windows
> (currently running Gnome
> because we have the bandwidth) and everything from
> Open Office to
> Xpdf, while still functionally the same, gives them
> an uncomfortable
> feeling. Many would rather use an old Pentium 2 with
> Windows 98 than
> use the K12ltsp lab. And so on.
> 
> Whenever I am faced with these people and their
> negative comments, I
> can usually sway them to look at the benefits by
> citing the costs
> saved by using LTSP vs. having to go upgrade all our
> Pentium 1
> machines we are using as clients and buying all the
> XP licenses and
> Office XP licenses and the MS Server 2003 licenses.
> Once I tally up
> all the costs of that, and compare it to the costs
> of the LTSP, they
> do understand, but it is always a "too bad for that"
> sort of comment
> and "hopefully in the future we can afford a real
> lab" attitude.
> Arguments like viruses, security, spyware,
> centralized updates, and so
> on are ineffective because, as end-users and not
> admins, they do not
> care about that - off their radar.
> 
> Now, a new situation has arisen.  A member of our
> congregation can
> provide us with nearly-new pentium 4 machines (our
> LTSP clients are
> Pentium 1s) and all the necessary Microsoft software
> (XP, Office, and
> server 2003) legally and at next to no cost for us.
> He has done it
> with other organisations like ours and they've loved
> it.  He has
> offered to do the same  for us.
> 
> Given that the major driving force which helped me
> discover LTSP was
> the ability to afford Windows, with that roadblock
> gone, what reason
> is there not to go with Windows?
> 
> Thank you.
> Joseph
> 
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> 

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