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Ask HN: Seeking computers for kids programming class

by blackboxlogic on 6/7/23, 7:59 PM with 4 comments

My school bought new windows laptops designed “for education” and they are trash. They demand a microsoft account to sign in, don’t let you install programs (even as admin), restart in the middle of class for updates, barely enough resources to boot, CONSTANTLY harass students about oneDrive, the weather, updates, security, news, web browsers, games, and other microsoft crap. I’m sure they were expensive.

Maybe my mistake was connecting the computers to wifi, or I should have tried to put linux on them.

But I’m looking for suggestions for computers, could have linux (or windows xp?) pre-installed, don’t need a lot of processing power, needs a screen and USB ports (for keyboard/mouse), power supply, a couple GBs of extra storage, don’t even need wifi or a battery... on a budget. I’d rather not have to assemble/flash each one. There must be 100 different small companies or non-profits making something like this?

  • by b8 on 6/7/23, 8:04 PM

    Chromebooks, or GNU/Linux laptops/tablets. FSF wrote an article a while back about giving libre thinkpads to a Boston school. You might can contact them and see what they say.

  • by smoldesu on 6/7/23, 8:11 PM

    Have you considered just using live Linux? Buy some 16gb USB3 sticks in bulk, and flash it with a distro that runs well off the drive. That way you don't have to clean up after each session too, you can just shut off the computer and it will go back to a regular Windows PC.

  • by ddingus on 6/7/23, 8:39 PM

    Why not use the $100 Raspberry Pi 400 computers?

    They are pretty great for programming. I run VS Code on mine and use it for C and Python. One can build and run fairly demanding and or sophisticated programs for about $100 and some sort of display.