Jumped off the Cliff & in Freefall

That’s how I addressed my e-mail message to Paul Gilster, my neighbor and Linux guru, when I installed Ubuntu Linux on an OLD Dell (P2) desktop computer last week. Don’t know why I did it. Certainly didn’t have time. I just felt like having something running in the background while I worked on the code for Son of Citation Machine.

My first foray into the world of Linux.

I downloaded the install file onto my Mac, and then burned an install CD with the Mac Disk Utility. Had no idea that would work. Then installed the operating system. As it Installed, I Googled with the Mac, references to Ubuntu and the particular Belkin USB wireless adapter on that computer, and found references to some real compatibility problems. Most advice said, “Go spring for a different network solution.”

So I wrote to Paul, saying that I was in freefall, and couldn’t see the bottom. I just knew what a pain in the “back there” it was going to be to download the adaptor driver from the Belkin site, burn it onto a CD with my Mac, and then tweak the settings until I finally got it to work. This had been my experience every time I had to reinstall Windows on that machine, because my daughter kept using Kazaa, and the popups were threatening to catch fire from the friction.

At any rate, when the install was complete, the wireless adapter worked like a charm — no extra driver needed. Too cool for school! I can’t say how astounded I am at the ease of use this operating system affords, and the software that installed along with it, including a very fine productivity suite, Open Office, an extremely feature-rich graphics package, Gimp, a suite of other image and multimedia applications, Internet tools, and a digital Library of Congress of resources and help available on the Internet — and it all came one on CD and it was free.

I must confess a good deal of skepticism about open source in the classroom, thinking it the rantings of the geekarati. Yet, the ease that I have had in reviving a $1,200 computer that was all but useless to me, with tools that are more than relevant to today’s information work, is a compelling opportunity to bring more access in our classrooms to digital networked information and facilitate 21st century learning for our 21st century citizens.