A lot of people are stuck on Windows or MacOS because of one killer app - Photoshop, a CAD/CAM package, a video or audio editor, or some proprietary bit of business software. Many of these applications have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of dev time invested in them and it just isn't realistic to expect an open source alternative to compete.
I'm in that boat, but I don't especially mind. I run Windows because it allows me to run Fusion 360, but Windows Subsystem for Linux gives me a full Linux dev environment. A younger me would have got angry about it, but present me accepts that platform lock-in effects are very strong; fortunately for Linux, it dominates every new category of platform. I sincerely doubt that anyone will ever develop a new proprietary OS from scratch, because the business case for putting a pretty UI on Linux is overwhelming.
I know the evidence is that plenty of people are totally happy with applications running in a browser -- Office Online, Google Sheets, etc. are compelling evidence -- but I strongly prefer dedicated and native applications for something I'll be spending a lot of time using.
I'm not even necessarily blaming this on the performance difference, although that is a pertinent topic, but just the mental structure of something I'm using living in a browser tab rather than actually running on the computer.
MS is on a mission to go after schools that have adopted Chromebooks. If your school is using Chromebooks you can expect all kinds of stick-and-carrot tricks to try to get you to switch (back).
Yes, but many schools lock down their Chromebooks so that you can't run Linux on them. I somehow managed to unenroll mine last year, but I have no idea how I did, and to make it worse I had to switch out my Chromebook after it stopped working.
So in practice, no, it's not very useful. Most students are still forced to use a web browser and nothing more, else they run the risk of getting in trouble for hacking their Chromebook.
Tangent: That being said, it's hilarious how much worse the schools are at locking down Windows computers. As far as I can tell, they just bought a few commercial solutions, set them up on the Chromebooks, and paid no attention to the Windows computers. The BIOS isn't even locked. They're only restricted at the network level.
My middle school's computers (desktop pcs with windows at the time) fidn't have passwords on the bios
We would bring linux "live users to boot on and play minecraft
A loss for the school, but definitely a win for our education
Nah... We've had Workspace for a long time and there are still users that adamantly refuse to use Google Apps over MS. They actually have good reasons as well. Since Google just has web apps only there's always extra steps uploading all the office docs they get from other businesses.
We tried blowing Office 2013 away on everyone's machines after being told most users didn't think they needed it. Now, a few months later 90% of our users have asked for a 365 license.
What typically happens from what I can tell is that most businesses just end up having a mix of both 365 and Workspace.
If the parents are talking about choice, then forced Chromebooks are not choice. The students must use them, and schools like them because they are very locked down and centrally observable.
