Like many others I have been watching with interest the development of the $100 laptop. At work we were even fortunate enough to play with one for a couple of days.
The olpc is a great initiative with a fantastic vision and it is interesting to see that there are now companies seemingly building on that to make very affordable laptops for broader markets. Here’s one with a claim to costing about US$150. The Medison Celebrity has a 1.5GHz Intel Celeron cpu with 256MB of memory running the Fedora operating system. As a Linux home user with children wanting computers for personal and educational use this sounds great but…. here’s the problem for me. At home, in the past, we have had a PC and laptop running Linux. We now have a PC running Windows XP and Open Office. Unfortunately at the school our kids attend they use Windows and Microsoft Office. Consequently, the kids just aren’t interested in Linux/Open Office. It’s Microsoft or nothing with them. They do use Open Office for some of their homework but don’t like the differences and also report back some problems with compatibility at school. It looks like I am stuck with having to find more expensive solutions that can support bigger footprint operating systems and applications until the school starts considering Linux.
Cheers,
Jerry.
2 Comments
Jerry
I wonder if we’ll see a polarisation in the market-with opensource software and associated hardware being the reserve of nerds and ‘the low end market’ . Kids have a nose for products which have a good vibe-and want to be associated with. Try and convince most kids there are other MP3 players apart from Ipods.
I noticed in the West Australian a report on a possible OLPC trial in the NT. Are you aware of this or any other trials in Australia? I guess the moral here is that we don’t want the OLPC initiative to be seen as a ‘third world’ offering, as there is much more for all of us to gain here-even in wealthy North Shore schools.
Hi Tim,
I hope we don’t see such a polarisation. On a personal level, my kids are young enough that they haven’t really developed a Microsoft vs Linux/open source bias. At the moment they just want to use at home what they use at school (which is a pretty old version of Office at that). Like many schools they have a limited budget/IT expertise and seem to be running fairly old hardware. At home on the weekend we had a look at a trial version of Office 2007 and the kids didn’t like it at all because it wasn’t the same as at school. It does suggest to me though that the school will play a significant role in the development of their opinions on IT. If their IT Coordinator were to develop a passion for linux/open office I am sure that it would carry through to the kids.
I have heard of a trial in the NT and would like to find out more. I understand in SA they have had a look at the OLPCs too but I am not sure where.
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