[geeks] Q: Regarding Linux in K-12 education

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 04:19:28AM -0500, Nate wrote:

>What I was trying to get at, but failing to explain clearly, is that I've seen
>a homogenization of the GUI computing experience over the last 20 years, to
>such an extent that for the basic productivity-type work most people do on
>computers, I don't think there is a significant difference from Windows to Mac
>to Linux.

I don't see that at all. Sitting here in front of a Mac, with 3 ssh tabs in
terminal into Linux servers and one into my Mac, plus VLC into two of the
Linux servers running UBUNTU GNOME (which is why it is VLC, not native
X Windows) and a Windows XP or Windows 7 virtual machine, I see major
differences between them. 

It is likely I see it more, having them all in front of me at the same
time and all being used at once.

>In fact, I think it might even be possible that the Windows 7 experience could
>be closer to the OS X 10.6 experience than it is to Windows XP.

Again I don't see it. It's closer to Vista than XP, but it's still very similar
to the Windows XP Home GUI that everyone loved. Seriously, there was a Windows
XP Pro GUI that was closer to Windows 2000, that drew so many complaints over
the Home version that it was replaced before it was in general useage.

Note that you can set Windows 7 to use the same XP GUI if you don't want the
"Vista improved one".

>
>Certainly (and sadly for me) the deep differences between the GUIs of Mac OS
>7, Windows 3, IRIX, NeXTSTEP, etc. are no longer present in the marketplace.

I've never used IRIX, except via telnet, NextStep until it became OSX, but
I have used Windows 2(86), Windows 3(86), 3.1 and up, SunOS, Solaris,
CDE (on an NCR computer), Solaris, Amiga, Mac (original) GUI's on a regular
basis over the last 25 years. 

Before that I used the CP/CMS and TSO GUI's (which were really glass TTY's).

Before that I used real tty's, and had one in my bedroom (with a modem)
around 1970.

They were all very different, and yes I do see a convergence, but not a close
one.

>And all this is being further eroded by the amount of stuff people do on the
>web (and 'cloud computing' as it's own type of platform, certainly something
>Google is going to be trying to push even more in the not-too-distant
>future...)

Surprisingly I find the  minor differences in UBUNTU customized FireFox 
versus the "stock" OSX/Windows versions annoying. FireFox is very close
on both platforms, but not on UBUNTU. IE is of course Windows only, but
many applications and websites (especially Hebrew ones) are IE only.

I was surprised last week that I could pay the renewal fee for my
Israeli amateur radio license on-line under MacOS using FireFox, a year
ago, when I renewed my Israeli passport, I had to do it under Windows.


>Sure, when you get under the hood, there are some significant differences
>still, but so much of it is abstracted away into something which is becoming a
>sort of lingua franca, and the general computing resources in terms of
>hardware available to most platforms is now the same and at a much higher and
>in some ways consistent average level, so most skills are very similar or at
>least easily transferrable across platforms.

Now that Open Office has moved to a Java front end, I wonder how much more
will follow. How many different processors are there anyway? Desktop computers
have all become Intel X86/X64. 

The PS/3 and XBOX/360 have impressive processors but (almost) no one
programs them or uses them for general computing. Their big brother the
RS6000/POWER is not available at any kind of reasonable price for the average
user, nor is the 390, and SPARC.

ARM is fading fast as a user platform IMHO, due to the iPhone and the android
there are lots of them, but they are so abstracted, you could be using a 
HAL 9000 and not know the diffference, Dave. :-)

X86 handhelds have not taken off, which is very much my fault. Mea culpa.

>My personal gripe as someone who uses different operating systems every day
>both at work and at home is that when I try to be a 'power user' and use
>keyboard shortcuts, I have to do some significant mental adjustment, much more
>so than when mousing around.

Interesting. There is a whole school of psycology about touch and being touched
all around that. People need contact to feel "connected" and when mice first
came out people had problems due to the connection being broken when they
removed their hand from the keyboard to go to the mouse and vice versa.

Most people have become settled on one or the other.

I use both, which is why I have lots of ssh/shell windows, and 8 "spaces"
(virtual desktops) on my Mac. When I am typing, like I am doing now, I use
keyboard shortcuts, when I do things that don't require typing, my hands leave
the keyboard and often one rests on the mouse. 

So for example, I play a video by typing in a command shell "play (a shell
script  wrote to invoke VLC) <full path to file>", I hit enter and let go,
then I mouse over to the volume control, the full screen/window control, 
and if I get bored or just want a break, mouse to a different space, check
my email, see if there is a skype IM waiting, etc. 

>Also a side-note regarding computers and education - there are days where
>sometimes I wonder if everyone should be receiving a better practical
>computing education so they can gain the knowledge to protect themselves from
>adware, viruses, scams and bad software, as well as understanding basic
>network security such as firewalls, port mapping, DHCP, and wireless security,
>encryption and packet sniffing.  Maybe it could be reinforced with a license
>or somesuch (like a driving license), something people could get re-tested for
>so everyone stays up-to-date.  That way, the botnets would have a really hard
>time taking root in the first place, and the black-market platforms of
>compromised systems would dwindle because people would know how to protect
>themselves.  Of course, I'm not sure I have faith in our elected officials,
>most if not all of which are ignorant of these things themselves, to implement
>such an educational reform on a large scale...


Look up European Computer Driving License. 

Note that at one time I wrote an email to Bill Gates suggesting that they
had the whole Windows Genuine Advantage system backwards. If you don't
have a genuine copy of Windows, IMHO it should automaticly install
antivirus, firewall and antispyware software and not allow you to turn
them off.

If you have genuine copy, you get the option of uninstalling or disabling them.

This would make the world a safer place IMHO. I received a very nice
email back from a VP of Microsoft, but they were not interested.

Geoff.


-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. 
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.