Help me choose linux's best option for public school lab (distro, desktop, etc.)

I apologize if my english isn’t perfect in how you would say it daily, but I hope it’ll help with Linux popularity and as a reference for future days.

For this post specifically I want opinions regarding what would be best for school lab of tech vocational high school (for both computer networking and software engineering).

  1. Package update frequency:
  • A. Years per update (Debian, OpenSuse Leap)
  • B. Every 6 month (Ubuntu/Fedora)
  • C. Rolling Release (Debian Sid or Arch but update whenever (every week/month/semester/year))
  1. Desktop environment:
  • A. Gnome
  • B. KDE Plasma
  • C. Cinnamon
  • D. Lightweight DE (XFCE, LXQT, etc.)
  • E. Other DE (Mate, Budgie, etc.)
  • F. Stacking Window Manager (Fluxbox, IceWM, Openbox, etc)
  • G. TIling or Dynamic WM
  1. Community or Company Distro?
  • A. Community Distro
  • B. Company Distro
  1. Display server protocol:
  • A. Xorg
  • B. Wayland
  1. File System:
  • A. EXT4
  • B. BTRFS
  • C. Other
  1. Immutable?
  • A. Not Immutable
  • B. Immutable
  1. Functionality
  • A. General Purpose (Debian, Arch, OpenSuse)
  • B. Specific Purpose (Debian Edu, Parrot Linux, AV linux, etc.)

Let me know your opinion, perhaps I missed some critical question or maybe some question above isn’t that important to consider.

loops,

There are also distros that are meant specifically for educational settings:

itsfoss.com/educational-linux-distros/

Note that I don’t think that Endless OS restricts it’s usage.

barbara,

deleted_by_author

    •
    CameronDev,

    I use Arch, but it probably is a completely wrong distro for a school computer lab. One botched update/upgrade and the entire lab is broken. There is also no kickstart support, so deploying lab full of machines will be a very manual process.

    possiblylinux127,

    I think it there are many wrong choices. Most of them revolve around long term management

    sepulcher,

    Debian, honestly.

    vipaal,

    OpenSUSE newcomer here, from decades of Debian and Debian derived systems.

    I vote Debian with Xfce4 for the base system with Nix or Guix to let the kids freely install and play with software as required without requiring root. Stable release should be good. Testing release if time and resources to keep up with the updates are at hand.

    Along with teaching the kids computers and software, please also consider teaching them how the Debian packagers, maintainers, developers, testers, admins, etc work and might never meet others in the project whilst releasing a great system every couple of years.

    miquerinus,
    @miquerinus@fosstodon.org avatar

    @Fint0034 For those who have never used a Linux distro I would recommend first installing a VM to test a distro without damaging the local system. My suggestion is to always start with well-known and friendly distros like Ubuntu or MINT.

    pastermil,

    Linux Mint

    ricdeh,
    @ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar
    1. C
    2. B
    3. A
    4. B
    5. A
    6. A
    7. A
    machineLearner,

    Ubuntu LTS with gnome or linux mint. Most available documentation, easy to use, hackable if needed. Make sure it doesn’t crash on the kids!

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