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<metaname="description"content="Blog on 2021-10-25 00:07:31 EEST - Schools should exclusively use free, open source and in general libre software, here's why">
<p>Windows and macOS limits you to one option, but on linux for example you can let users pick their own desktop
session, them to have their files isolated, better permissions, safer logins, etc. nobody could tinker or
laugh at students because of their work or could mess it up or anything similar.
They can also pick a distro depending of what they want, though they should remember that
not all linux distros are FOSS, maintained and/or libre.</p>
<h2>Better administration, security and permissions</h2>
<p>The school cannot allow students to do anything they want, like removing the root system or in general
getting root access, but for that linux has good permissions and in general good system management,
you could even disable root access and only be able to access root with an SSH key or something.
You can restrict people a lot from messing up anything, which is a good thing, sometimes. Also
with linux you get a package manager, which means school computers will not get as infected with nasty malware.</p>
<h2>Teaches students more about IT</h2>
<p>You know how IT lessons now are close to useless and all students do in them is make microsoft word
documents, paint images and excel spreadsheets? With linux students could learn system administration and
management, server hosting, scripting and automation and programming,
even though some IT lessons in schools are them learning programming, linux still is better supported
in the programming world and with linux you get much more access to programming tools and programming languages.</p>
<h2>Easy modification</h2>
<p>If schools need a certain feature in the software they use, FOSS software is fully and easily modifiable,
so schools can add the feature themselves or hire someone to do it for them and a good thing about FOSS
software is that they cannot implant any spyware or spooky features without being noticed as FOSS software is
usually released under the GPLv3 or at least under the GPLv2.1 license which says that people who modufy
the software have to release it under the same FOSS license.</p>
<h2>Freedom</h2>
<p>Schools are usually restricted to what they teach just because they're using software that limits what to
show and teach students.
Schools could introduce what they're missing themselves and customise everything just how they like it and
fully FOSS and libre
from the desktop environment, the window manager to the kernel (see: <ahref="https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/">linux-libre</a> which keep in mind can also be hardened.)</p>
<h2>Doesn't change much</h2>
<p>Linux, BSD, etc; their distributions distributions, DEs and WMs don't change as much as windows or macOS so schools can
be assured that they will get a constant and reliable experience, by that I mean the visuals don't change
that much, but linux and stuff themselves get security updates and optimisation changes semi-often.</p>
<h2>Updates</h2>
<p>Even though updating is good, sometimes teachers after booting their computer will have a windows update
for like 20 minutes and then they're not as able to teach students, with for example linux you pick when to update.
The administration could teach teachers how to update their systems or just set up a cronjob and linux
updates usually don't require an instant reboot, it can be easily upgraded in the background and you could
easily just boot into the new kernel on the next boot.</p>
<h2>Good documentation</h2>
<p>Linux including other FOSS OSes are documented to great extents so if you face an issue you can easily figure out what's wrong and fix it,
unlike on windows with its meaningless blue screens, so the administration could easily just fix
the computers school has.</p>
<h2>Linux and other FOSS OSes support a lot of devices</h2>
