I'm in my second year teaching English in a classroom with a cart of ten netbooks running Windows XP. I am so grateful to have them, and my students use them at least every other day. However, as an aging operating system, XP runs slowly and is much more complex than we need. The start time is long and we have varied success connecting to the wireless network. On the recommendation of Colin Matheson , an IT specialist at Carmel Unified School District, I installed Ubermix. Ubermix is an all-free, specially built, Linux-based operating system designed from the ground up with the needs of education in mind. I downloaded the image file onto a separate machine and formated the image onto a USB stick following these instructions . The process wasn't as easy as I expected. I noticed that the install would hang after it said it would take about five minutes to install. So, I did what any sane person would do in this situation. I asked a teenager. In this case, Nils, who is lau...