Re: Free GNU/Linux intro class for teens advice? Purchase box? Squeak/Smalltalk programming

[Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net>]

Ralph Katz wrote:
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> On 07/08/2015 10:18 AM, Bob Bernstein wrote:
> > On Wed, 8 Jul 2015, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> >
> > > > > I am still not convinced that $350 will be a major obstacle.
> > > > $350 sound quite a lot to me and buying a whole new computer for the
> > > > sake of this seems quite wasteful as well.
> > > Probably not in Newton, MA.  Probably unnecessary, but there will be
> > > plenty of takers.
> > The Newton resident (Miles) knows whereof he speaks.
> >
> > Bob Bernstein NSHS '62
> I'm also a Newton resident but disagree on requiring a new computer
> purchase as prerequisite.  Keep it free, accessible, and fun.  Will you
> spend too much time on installation/configuration?
>
> Lisi Reisz's comments above (Message-ID:
> <[🔎] 201507072145.10748.lisi.reisz@gmail.com>) are spot on.  Focus on your
> purpose, your audience, your objectives.  Kids have computers.  If you
> have them bring a wifi enabled laptop with PuTTY installed, your first
> class can have them ssh to a live system and off you go.

Not disagreeing about whether it's necessary as a prerequisite - just a 
comment on ability to pay :-)

Then again - depending on the audience and the treatment - there's a lot 
to be said for starting by installing linux on bare iron. Pretty much 
any teenager in a suburban school system has used Windows or a Mac (and 
probably owns one) - but it's been a few years since new computers came 
without a pre-installed O/S.  The process of installing from scratch is 
probably a useful learning experience - and I expect that the library 
might have some heartburn with installing on their general-use machines 
(though maybe less heartburn with installing inside a carefully 
controlled VM environment - and perhaps installing virtualbox would be a 
learning experience of its own).

Miles Fidelman


--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra