May 3rd, 2007
When discretion really is the better part of valor
When you successfully triple boot XP, Vista, and Kubuntu, discretion is most definitely the better part of valor. Tread lightly here, folks, says the man overconfident in his Grub-fixing, partition-resizing, uber-geekness.
Suffice to say, XP is gone (although I actually was trying to do that), Vista won't boot, but at least it's there, and, after a quick reinstall, Kubuntu is screaming away on a much larger partition. Will I bother reinstalling Vista or is it time to break out VMWare server and try to get Vista running in a virtual machine? Hard to say…I've spent too much time on this laptop for now as it is - scheduling is calling to me
The better question for Ed Tech, though, is why am I bothering with Kubuntu in the first place? Everyone knows I like Windows and Office 2007, despite their flaws. The real reason is that over the next few years, if operating systems like those that Canonical is cranking out now continue to evolve at lightning speed, then Windows, even for a fanboy like me, will have a real run for it's money on the K-12 desktop.
I'd love to save music and physical education in a school for a year by killing licensing costs if I can meet my users' needs. I know that the elementary schools in my district will continue to be funded at silly levels, leaving little or no room for technology and forcing us to extract every ounce of solid tech we can from very little.
Is Linux the answer? Maybe…But if it is, I'd like to be pretty adept in a variety of operating systems (both server and client-based) so that I can make informed choices over the next couple of years. I can't very well lead a paradigm shift (if that's what's coming) when I hose my system every time I fiddle with a partition or two (by the way, Vista isn't too fond of partition resizing with GPartEd).
I also can't help but wonder why Michael Dell is running Ubuntu on his laptop or why my students keep asking me for live CDs of various distros as they decide whether or not to buy Vista.
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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