Mark Waddingham wrote:
Richard's repeated suggestion that such machines should be 'Linux-ised'
still always was and continues to be an excellent suggestion. Remember
that as as time goes by the amount of up to date software which *can*
run on them will dwindle to nothing - for the same reason as we have had
to look long and hard at our platform support and make changes.
There's another aspect of this worth considering as well:
One of the things Richmond noted, which we've all experienced, is that
as GUI apps and OSes evolve their hardware requirement grow along with
them. Over enough time, GUIs can become sluggish.
These days much of the computing we use is done on servers, machines
that have no GUI constraints since they need no GUI at all.
I've been meeting a lot of educators here in CA who've had great success
teaching server admin and even security skills to learners at the high
school level, and sometimes even in middle school.
Given that the role of servers is expected to only increase, and that
networking in general is now a ubiquitous part of most app development,
teaching these sorts of skills will only become ever more important
going forward.
Right now Linux sys admin positions are plentiful and pay well.
And those with security certifications can earn six figures by their
second year out of school. Right now there are some 300,000 infosec
jobs for US SMBs alone that can't be filled because of a shortage of
qualified candidates. We need more white hats in the field.
One of my friends organized a "capture the flag" competition at the
SoCal Linux Expo, and we see similar infosec exercises becoming popular
in a wide range of EDU contexts.
Best of all, these don't require great hardware. Unencumbered by GUI
requirements, servers really don't need much CPU power at all, and can
operate with a fraction of the RAM modern GUIs need.
For older machines, server applications can make an ideal role for
extending the useful life of older machines.
The cloud will only become an ever more pervasive part of our computing
world, and nearly all of the best software needed to learn and create
cloud systems is entirely free and open.
Server admin may not be for all learners, but for the "Computer Club"
types it's a natural extension to also learning client-side development.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Systems
Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
____________________________________________________________________
ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com
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