How to Power Your CS Labs with PureOS

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David Hamner

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With PureOS and Librem hardware, you can build a premium CS lab without premium licensing fees. Using community-driven freedom-respecting software, schools can take learning beyond the classroom, into students’ homes, and ultimately into the industry.

Let’s learn how Free and Open Software like PureOS is a perfect choice for educational institutions.

Avoid Recurring Costs for Licensing

Many schools are dependent on proprietary licenses with short lifecycles. As a result, IT staff and teachers are compelled to upgrade at the end of a support contract. It also makes it hard for students to get their hands on the software outside of class.

At the same time, many proprietary offerings from Windows itself to applications like Photoshop will offer discounted prices for students just to get them familiar and trained on these systems that require a lifetime of licensing.

PureOS is built with GNU software at its heart and is professional software you can run entirely free for a lifetime.

Freedom by Design

PureOS software repositories are 100% free software and are reproducibly built. This means all of the software can be audited. This also means that you can modify any of the software in PureOS for your own uses, whether it’s just customizing it with school branding or adding new features.

With our open base, schools IT departments can easily set up a full local mirror or host a subset of software approved for use in the school. Because Purism is open, you can retro-fit your current lab into a PureOS GNU lab. Utilizing PureOS on the hardware you currently have can be a great way to save costs on hardware while still getting the benefit of using PureOS in the lab. Even if a new purchase or budget approval for our hardware isn’t the right fit for your lab, PureOS and the wider GNU project might be.Because PureOS is freedom-respecting, students, teachers, parents, and professionals all have access to GNU utilities without spending a monthly fee or even a one-time fee. This makes GNU the most accessible and affordable full-featured desktop operating system.

Instead of pushing proprietary software, We should be teaching the next generation to make our community as a whole better, instead of using big tech’s expensive offerings.

IDEs without Data-Stealing Telemetry

An IDE or Integrated Development Environment provides a user interface for code development, testing, and debugging features. While handy for learning to code, common tools like Visual Studio Code collect telemetry data behind a proprietary license, making protecting student data challenging for schools.

With Gnome-Builder, coders can do their thing, from debugging and testing to hosting. All without fear of leaking private data. For those attached to VS-code, an open-source compiled version is available for download from this website. While not in our repository, this offers the same tools as VS-code but without the bad licensing and data collection.

Building Compelling Video Games

Need a game dev class? Did you know you can easily make compelling games without leaving Blender? With the UP Blender Game Engine, students can learn modeling, edit games with logic nodes, or dive into coding.If 3D is too much, tools like Gimp, Inscape, and Krita combined with Godot offer a complete game creation stack. Animate your characters and add them right into your game.

Teach How Internet Servers Work Using Industry-leading Software

With a PureOS base, you have access to the same server software and tools that power the Internet. This means students can learn about Internet infrastructure using the same free web, database, and other servers, without extra licenses. Students can take those same tools from the lab back to their personal computer and run them on their own PureOS-powered hardware, or in a VM.

Manage Student Data

User data is uranium, and so is student data. PureOS doesn’t upload or analyze data for itself or for third parties. This puts student data fully under the control of the school. Out of the Box, PureOS does not upload your data or analyze it for monetization. Even our default browser uses Duck Duck Go and requires no online user accounts.As far as student data is concerned, PureOS is a protected haven perfect for learning.

Control

Having a systematic approach to classroom control is important, and with cross-platform tools like Veyon, you can easily see and control what your students do in the computer lab.

Familiar Before you Knew it

PureOS is designed to be intuitive, easy to use, and easy to learn. Major desktop operating systems have been sharing tools with each other for a long time and these tools are at your fingertips in PureOS. As a result, you’ll find quick access apps, an easy-to-use search menu, and even multiple desktops to keep organized. To install new software, head into the software store and browse around.

To help get you up to speed, we offer easy-to-follow videos and guides to quickly get anybody using PureOS software quickly and easily.

We at Purism want to empower people with software that respects them, their privacy, and their freedom. Free to use, understand, and free to edit and share those edits. 

Purism Products and Availability Chart

	Model	Status	Lead Time
	Librem Key (Made in USA)	In Stock ($59+)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5	In Stock ($699+) 3GB/32GB	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 COMSEC Bundle	In Stock ($1299+) Qty 2; 3GB/32GB	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Liberty Phone (Made in USA Electronics)	Backorder ($1,999+) 4GB/128GB	Estimated fulfillment February	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 + SIMple (3 GB Data)	In Stock ($99/mo)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 + SIMple Plus (5 GB Data)	In Stock ($129/mo)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 + AweSIM (Unlimited Data)	In Stock ($169/mo)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 11	In Stock ($999+) 8GB/1TB	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 14	Backorder ($1,370+)	Estimated fulfillment December	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem Mini	Backorder ($799+)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem Server	In Stock ($2,999+)	45 business days	Learn More Buy Now