Re: [seul-edu] Linux in Universities

["paul" <psutton@uklinux.net>]

Given the popularity of Linux in film making how is Linux used in parts of
the uni interested in say graphics and animation,  Linux is on the way to
becoming industry standard,  due to cost,  and the open source ness allowing
it to be optimised and tweaked to suit,  if we are not careful and go the MS
route we will produce MS only graduates in this area who are totally useless
to the industry,

Just a thought.

Lord of the rings, Starwars episode 2,  shrek, and the stallion animation
(not sure on title),  and of course titanic all done with the aid of Linux.

Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan Hlavacek" <jhlavacek@sf.edu>
To: <seul-edu@seul.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 4:57 PM
Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Linux in Universities


> On Tue, Aug 27, 2002 at 09:12:11AM +0100, Scott Wheeler wrote:
> >
> > Quoting Dan Kegel <dank@kegel.com>:
> >
> > > Eventually I hope to make this a useful resource for anyone
> > > trying to convince their local university that Linux should be
> > > (a) supported by their IT staff,
> >
> > Few Universities do this, which honestly, I think is fine so long as
they do
> > not actively oppose Linux or require proprietary software to access
certain
> > resources.  Fortunately most universities have LUGs to help people
along.
>
> Actually, there is a huge number od small 4 years colleges that
> completely sold their souls to Microsoft.  They usually don't even have
> CS departments, or if they do, they view CS as "business", their CS
> curriculum consists of PowerPoint and Visual Basic, and ASP if they are
> feeling creative.
>
> What should concern us is the fact that these colleges usually have a
> lot of education majors, and produce a lot of local teachers.  Those
> students graduate from college and go to teach thinking that Microsoft
> is all there is.  I think there is a huge potential here, if we can
> somehow educate the teachers even before they become teachers.  The
> problem is that there is a huge resistance.  One of the problems is that
> business or "CS" departments at these schools mostly consist of a bunch
> of MSCE's who are affraid of Linux, and since they often managed to
> convince the rest of the school that they are the true computer experts,
> everyone listens to them.  Often the only Linux users at such school are
> couple of math profs, and, if you are lucky, some of the IT stuff, who
> have Linux boxes at home.
>
> > > (b) used for infrastructure,
> >
> > I've worked for two university IT departments -- both of which used
Linux
> > extensively.  I think you'll find that this is more of the standard than
the
> > exception.
>
> Again, a lot of the small colleges signed up for some sort of Microsoft
> Campus Agreement and use Windoze exclusively.  Their intranets and
> administrative software are only accerrible from windoze boxes (that's i
> have two computers on my desk).
>
> > > (c) used as part of the undergraduate cirriculum,
> >
> > Again, *nix has typically dominated computer science departments, well,
> > forever.  Linux has become a much cheaper replacement to proprietary
systems
> > and as such is again, becoming the standard.
>
> Again, you are talking about large schools that actually have real CS
> departments and faculty that knows something about computing.
>
> > At any rate I think the reason that you probably haven't found many
studies on
> > this is that Linux is more popular in the "university" subculture than
> > anywhere else.  Typically advocacy stems *from* uni students rather than
to
> > them.  ;-)
>
> Again, at most small colleges and universities, you would probably have
> hard time finding a Linux user among the student population.  Maybe few
> geeks here or there, but that's it.
>
> > I would even guess that universities that do not do at least half of the
above
> > are in the minority rather than majority.
>
> These days every stupid small community college calls itself university,
> and what's important, they do produce a lot of teachers.  In some parts
> of the country, small local schools like that produce majority of them.
> People who manage to get to a bigger better school often don't come
> back.
>
> --
> Jan Hlavacek                                            (219) 434-7566
> Department of Mathematics                             Jhlavacek@sf.edu
> University of Saint Francis               http://www.sf.edu/jhlavacek/
>