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Robert Pogson reports:
Recent news about the popularity of Chromebooks with schools may seem puzzling.
Schools in Hillsborough, New Jersey decided to make an experiment out of its own program. Beginning in 2012, 200 students were given iPads and 200 students were given Chromebooks. After receiving feedback from both students and teachers, the schools sold off their iPads and bought 4,600 Chromebooks.
After all, a keyboard is a great input device and writing is one of the three "Rs" but why not just [buy] a notebook PC? The answer is that the high cost of maintaining the legacy PC is too great. Keeping content on the server makes the job easier and with Chromebooks, schools don't even need to own the server.
...then there's the malware, the slowing down, the re-re-rebooting with that other OS.
That makes the ChromeBook a winner in education and probably a lot of organizations large and small, even consumers. Of course, they could get those benefits with GNU/Linux but it would take more technical knowledge. Again Chromebooks win.
See iPad vs. Chromebook For Students
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:40PM
Lameframe-type thin client setups (can you tell I've used these?) are far easier to administer, but are quite crippled. Full-blown thick client computers are hard to administer. Using a thick client that has reduced capabilities (which both the ChromeBook and the iPad are, natively) is a nice compromise. The Chromebook would tend to be better for any task requiring creation of content, and the form factor is also better for long term use.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @03:33PM
Very much. I have a cluster of diskless systems that get their whole system and configuration as LTSP 'thick' clients. I maintain one system image. Anytime I can afford to expand the cluster, I only have to plug it in: DHCP tells it everything it needs to know. Same thing with MythTV clients at home. You only need to make sure you have the bandwidth to support it.
Which, I think is one of the big things contributing to the first death of the mainframe - people started wanting pretty graphical displays, and the network just wouldn't handle it. It'll be interesting to see what happens when all of those chromebooks start trying to watch the podcast of the lecture they're sitting in.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 14 2014, @01:07AM
Thin client setups are great. When they are used for a specified purpose and all participant has a choice in the matter. Like switching employer or doing private stuff on another computer because you know the implications. Kids don't get these implications.
The major issue here is that Chromebooks is in essence tied to a nationwide mainframe. That's a whole another ballgame than an in-house mainframe where you actually may meet and dine with the systems administrator.
Before students are let on to these data-collection-laptoys. They should be given a sufficient introduction into that they can't trust others with their private data ever. And that these devices store everything in a way that's available to most people around them and future employers and fucked up governments. And that too many people just can't handle actions or thoughts of others they don't personally approve of. Should they want to be private, they must be told to only use secure devices that are in their total control.