Reading the FAQs, the whole situation smacks of changing for the sake of change. It seems like some important functionality of the old system isn't available in the new system, but they're pushing it through regardless. Combined with this downplaying of Linux support, perhaps some political representatives with low technical skills have been talking to some lobbyists. And unless the Finnish school system has bought into Chromebooks in a big way, they seem unusually eager to support ChromeOS.

I wonder if the whole Secure Boot/Microsoft shim key issue is a part of this.

I mean if the current system is truly ancient and doesn't support UEFI I could imagine it ceasing to work, or something like that. But that should be easy enough to fix.

This doesn’t make any sense. Web apps are by their nature universal, but even if you needed to target individual OSes for some reason the app engines that one would use like Edge Webview or Electron run on all the OSes mentioned…

The only way this really makes sense is if they are going with something stupid like Lockdown Browser which, while based on chromium as far as I know, has no official Linux support.

Kids are getting extremely dumb with computers.

The Finnish Marticulation Examination

It's 'matriculation', right? Both times? Is that part of the test?

I would think any webapp based system is going to leave more room for cheating.

Having worked as an admin for both systems, this absolutely sucks... The cost of running these servers is going to at least quadruple due to the new system requirements, and tens of thousands of USB sticks are going to become e-waste.

We used to run these servers on old laptops, but now with the new system requirements (which I won't disclose here, as I am not sure if they have been publically stated yet) the cost of running these servers is going to quadruple for most institutions, moreso for ones buying it as SaaS from OpinSys.

Not a fan AT ALL, but hey, at least I have 200 stickers advertising the new version 🙄

Is this because it's getting difficult for students to mess with the boot options?

Easy fix, forbid the sales of computers in Finland that do not let user boot on the OS of choice, including of course Abitti.

Sure a small percentage of Fins might not buy their computers in the country via a national online shop but I bet it's a minority.

For the few who still do, make a RPi5 or equivalent available instead of a USB stick. It's a bit more expensive but not so much.

You can't spend and earn millions by doing simple bug fixes and simply Debian version bump so they needed to make something.

The last time I looked at this, it did not really add up. The “lack of supoort” was more for BIOS boot than anything. When they say “Linux”, they mean their ancient implementation of it.

It would be a real shame if Linux lost foothold in its own country out of ignorance and bias.

News like this gives me intrusive thoughts that Linux might be dying..