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The European Union's interoperability page reports:
Using open source in school greatly reduces the time needed to troubleshoot PCs, [as indicated by] the case of the Colegio Agustinos de León (Augustinian College of León, Spain). In 2013, the school switched to using Ubuntu Linux for its desktop PCs in [classrooms] and offices. For teachers and staff, the amount of technical issues decreased by 63 per cent and in the school's computer labs by 90 per cent, says Fernando Lanero, computer science teacher and head of the school's IT department.
[...] "One year after we changed PC operating system, I have objective data on Ubuntu Linux", Lanero tells Muy Linux [English Translation], a Spanish Linux news site. By switching to Linux, incidents such as computer viruses, system degradation, and many diverse technical issues disappeared instantly.
The change also helps the school save money, he adds. Not having to purchase [licenses] for proprietary operating systems, office suites, and anti-virus tools has already saved about €35,000 in the 2014-2015 school year, Lanero says. "Obviously it is much more interesting to invest that money in education."
[...] The biggest hurdle for the IT department was the use of electronic whiteboards. The school uses 30 of such whiteboards, and their manufacturer [Hitachi] does not support the use of Linux. Lanero got the Spanish Linux community involved, and "after their hard work, Ubuntu Linux now includes support for the whiteboards, so now everything is working as it should".
[...] Issues [with proprietary document formats] were temporarily resolved by using a cloud-based proprietary office solution, says Lanero, giving the IT department time to complete the switch to open standards-based office solutions. The school now mostly uses the LibreOffice suite of office tools.
[...] "Across the country, schools have contacted me to hear about the performance and learn how to undertake similar migrations."
As I always say, simply avoid manufacturers with lousy support and FOSS is just the ticket.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 26 2015, @02:04PM
"man" ... Bwahahahahahahah. Oh, boy thanks for that. I need a good laugh.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @02:19PM
Well, it does require an IQ above 10 to understand it.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 26 2015, @03:03PM
*Fail Horn*
Nice try. Next time a newbie tries to learn how to use FOSS and rage quits because some jackass tells them to use man, I'll remember your little jab and have a snicker. A newbie will not be able to properly glean anything from man unless that man page is very verbose which they often arent (ntfsclone is one of the more straightforward man pages). This is why a search engine is the newbies friend because there is a wealth of verbose information with the steps and commands laid out in plain english (or whatever your language of choice is). man is akin to a service manual for the experienced technician, not a getting started guide for the customer.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:01PM
Actually, way back in the before time, I did learn to use Unix largely from reading man pages.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:12PM
Remember, you did. Everyone learns differently.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:29PM
Yes, I did, therefor it can be done. I'm not claiming it's the best way for everyone, just refuting your claim that it can't happen./
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 26 2015, @05:00PM
Fair enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @07:36PM
Secretaries used to use vi-like editors and were comfortable with LaTeX. Now, somehow we pander to the lowest common denominator. People like him will tell you that it's too hard for people like secretaries to run. I don't think people have gotten dumber. I think Windows treats you like you are a dumbass and people like him accept it as fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:25PM
I have a severe non-verbal learning disability. To me, man pages are the worst shit I've ever come across - little more than wall of text notes to people who already know how something works, as a reminder of how it works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @08:35PM
Wow, what an idiot.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by SDRefugee on Tuesday May 26 2015, @03:46PM
Agree... I'm a retired tech, supported windows since WFWG, been a big fan of Linux since 1994 or so, and now that I'm retired, I've pretty much given up on Windows, and run Linux on all my home machines. (Disclaimer: Am trying out Windows 10 preview as I'm *sure* I'm gonna be asked about it once it goes live...) My BIG gripe about Linux man pages are the fact that the vast majority of them are simply a list of the command line switches the program responds to... Which is just peachy if you use the program all the time and you've just forgotten one or more obscure, not-frequently used switches.. But.. say you've NEVER used the program before, you'd REALLY like a few choice *examples* of the invocation/use of the app... Not very many man pages have these, so your only course of action is to google for a tutorial on said app..... That being said, as far as I'm concerned, Linux trumps Windows hands-down....
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 26 2015, @05:55PM
Not very many man pages have these, so your only course of action is to google for a tutorial on said app.
Not all man pages are wonderful, and I'm sure most would welcome any contributions in editing. However, man pages really are there mostly to be reference tomes, to exhaustively list every command-line option available. For command-line programs, they're extremely useful that way. However, now that we have the internet, there's no shortage of tutorials for various things online, and in fact for any GUI program you certainly would not want a man-page tutorial, you'd want a webpage tutorial so you can see screenshots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @07:39PM
In the same comment, the insightful AC mentioned going online to get help.
I visit the forums of several distros fairly regularly.
It's rare that I see a problem that the assembled masses can't solve|hasn't solved.
Indeed, I an often irritated that the poster of the question didn't follow directions and search to find 1 of the dozens of times his question has already been asked and answered.
In addition, a bootable ISO makes it possible to get online--even if you have completely torched your Linux install.
Contrary to any claims that answers to Linux problems are difficult to find, I say that they are no more problematic and are often easier to solve than the payware OS that is usually held up as "the standard".
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @08:15PM
I missed where you had re-inserted the brand up in the text.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday May 26 2015, @08:01PM
gnu info
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:30PM
The GNU info pages I've come across remind me of two things. The first is the man page, because all the ones I've come across are a cut-and-paste of the man pages, and the second is this XKCD comic [xkcd.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @03:56PM
I've not seen a single GNU info documentation that was just a cut-and-paste of the man page (actually I've seen it the other way round, the man page being generated from a section(!) of the info file).
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday May 27 2015, @03:50PM
I find GNU info pages completely useless. The navigation mechanisms are too unintuitive, and too different from everything I use regularly, even though I'm an emacs user.
Perhaps automatic mechanisms to view GNU info pages in a mouse-based point-and-click browser could work. Anyone know of such a thing? Maybe a firefos or chrome extension?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @04:00PM
http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/tkinfo/ [uni-paderborn.de]
(Score: 1) by turgid on Wednesday May 27 2015, @07:16PM
That was what passes for humour where I come from.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].