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So are they basically just replacing windows with linux on a bunch of these laptops? It seems like that is where the biggest success came from: a linux install

So are they basically just replacing windows with linux on a bunch of these laptops? It seems like that is where the biggest success came from: a linux install with a lightweight DE.

nols 11y ago
I think a major factor to its success was the Google backend making everything substantially simpler and cheaper. People have been putting linux on old hardware to give away for years, but Chromium letting students keep everything "in the cloud" means they can keep the computers secure at the school while students can still access all their files wherever using Google's easier to use infrastructure. It's certainly possible to create something like this using linux and not Google products, but it would be much more expensive and require higher level staffers and better trained users.
- gravypod 11y ago
  Well, why is that? You could have just installed chrome, locked down the OS and everything, and purchased google apps. It would have been the same thing, with more features. (You could install IDEs for programming classes)
  - nols 11y ago
    Those are all things someone would have to do, or (more likely) used a management system to do it automatically, while this company does it for a $60 lifetime license. It simplifies things and thus makes it cheaper. It seems like this company originally did what you're suggesting with a server and thin clients, but transitioned to Chromium because that's what the schools want.
  - rtkwe 11y ago
    > Dan Davenport, the director of technology for the area schools, had looked into using Chromium, the open-source version of Google’s Chrome operating system, but was stymied by the complexity of supporting a range of different drivers on a mishmash of old computers. This seems to be one of the major reasons for going for the product offered by Neverware. Going with Chromium through them they got a working setup with limited configuration and support should anything not work. School IT works on a shoe string budget at the best of times and much less in poor districts so the time costs of figuring out how to install and configure the laptops they had isn't trivial. Then they have to be able to support them and setup processes to restore them easily.
    - gravypod 11y ago
      I guess your and nols response do make sense from a operations perspective.
paulmd 11y ago
Being right up front: this article smells like an advertising piece. But, taken at face value this desktop environment sounds like a good match because it's both user-friendly and easy for their IT staff to manage, which is not a trivial thing for Linux. I've had good luck with lightweight Linux DEs too. I have a crappy Compaq CQ56-115DX that I got from the NVIDIA chip settlement a couple years ago. It's got 2GB of RAM and what amounts to a single-core Athlon 64 3200+. Win7 obviously ran like garbage, but a SSD and Lubuntu made it very usable for basic productivity stuff. It was never fast, but it went from painful to usable. The problem is that Ye Olde Linux Desktop isn't something you could hand to a random student and have them manage by themselves. Having a centralized management system is a very relevant feature there.
- rjzzleep 11y ago
  why not? my mom was using it. only reason i had to put her back on windows is because of shitty silverlight drm, doesn't even work in a vm. oh, and she's non technical and over 60. people commonly mistake the concept of familiarity with usability. just like android isn't more unusable than ios. it's completely different and it has 3 buttons.
  - dsp1234 11y ago
    shitty silverlight drm, doesn't even work in a vm. I've had good success with pipelight[0], including DRM'd sites (Netflix, etc). The biggest issue being user-agent sniffing (so I just set it as IE9 and leave it). [0] - http://pipelight.net/cms/installation.html http://pipelight.net/cms/installation.html
    - gravypod 11y ago
      I setup something like that for my laptop a while back. I ended up switching to chrome, not chromium, as netflix supports HTML5 video streaming through it instead of silverlight.
      - dsp1234 11y ago
philippnagel 11y ago
This is off-topic, but I just stumbled upon this Ask HN you've submitted 26 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10958687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10958687. I am currently tinkering with betavoltaic cells as well. If you'd like to chat, my E-Mail address can be found in my profile.

So are they basically just replacing windows with linux on a bunch of these laptops? It seems like that is where the biggest success came from: a linux install with a lightweight DE.

nols 11y ago

I think a major factor to its success was the Google backend making everything substantially simpler and cheaper. People have been putting linux on old hardware to give away for years, but Chromium letting students keep everything "in the cloud" means they can keep the computers secure at the school while students can still access all their files wherever using Google's easier to use infrastructure. It's certainly possible to create something like this using linux and not Google products, but it would be much more expensive and require higher level staffers and better trained users.

gravypod 11y ago
Well, why is that? You could have just installed chrome, locked down the OS and everything, and purchased google apps. It would have been the same thing, with more features. (You could install IDEs for programming classes)
- nols 11y ago
  Those are all things someone would have to do, or (more likely) used a management system to do it automatically, while this company does it for a $60 lifetime license. It simplifies things and thus makes it cheaper. It seems like this company originally did what you're suggesting with a server and thin clients, but transitioned to Chromium because that's what the schools want.
- rtkwe 11y ago
  > Dan Davenport, the director of technology for the area schools, had looked into using Chromium, the open-source version of Google’s Chrome operating system, but was stymied by the complexity of supporting a range of different drivers on a mishmash of old computers. This seems to be one of the major reasons for going for the product offered by Neverware. Going with Chromium through them they got a working setup with limited configuration and support should anything not work. School IT works on a shoe string budget at the best of times and much less in poor districts so the time costs of figuring out how to install and configure the laptops they had isn't trivial. Then they have to be able to support them and setup processes to restore them easily.
  - gravypod 11y ago
    I guess your and nols response do make sense from a operations perspective.

paulmd 11y ago

Being right up front: this article smells like an advertising piece. But, taken at face value this desktop environment sounds like a good match because it's both user-friendly and easy for their IT staff to manage, which is not a trivial thing for Linux. I've had good luck with lightweight Linux DEs too. I have a crappy Compaq CQ56-115DX that I got from the NVIDIA chip settlement a couple years ago. It's got 2GB of RAM and what amounts to a single-core Athlon 64 3200+. Win7 obviously ran like garbage, but a SSD and Lubuntu made it very usable for basic productivity stuff. It was never fast, but it went from painful to usable. The problem is that Ye Olde Linux Desktop isn't something you could hand to a random student and have them manage by themselves. Having a centralized management system is a very relevant feature there.

rjzzleep 11y ago
why not? my mom was using it. only reason i had to put her back on windows is because of shitty silverlight drm, doesn't even work in a vm. oh, and she's non technical and over 60. people commonly mistake the concept of familiarity with usability. just like android isn't more unusable than ios. it's completely different and it has 3 buttons.
- dsp1234 11y ago
  shitty silverlight drm, doesn't even work in a vm. I've had good success with pipelight[0], including DRM'd sites (Netflix, etc). The biggest issue being user-agent sniffing (so I just set it as IE9 and leave it). [0] - http://pipelight.net/cms/installation.html http://pipelight.net/cms/installation.html
  - gravypod 11y ago
    I setup something like that for my laptop a while back. I ended up switching to chrome, not chromium, as netflix supports HTML5 video streaming through it instead of silverlight.
    - dsp1234 11y ago

philippnagel 11y ago

This is off-topic, but I just stumbled upon this Ask HN you've submitted 26 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10958687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10958687. I am currently tinkering with betavoltaic cells as well. If you'd like to chat, my E-Mail address can be found in my profile.