Let's first take a quick look at interactive whiteboards in general. They provide a close-knit integration of traditional whiteboards and computers, creating a tool which is more flexible and powerful than either of the two on their own. Common tasks and documents utilized in such a setup include presentations, mind maps, and movies. A presenter can also annotate presentations, draw on a virtual whiteboard, and more. However, to maximize the potential of this environment, specialized software is usually necessary. This software is usually developed by a manufacturer to work in tandem with their board and not with those of competitors.
SMART Tech and Promethean are the two most popular manufacturers of interactive whiteboards. Both officially support Linux, so can a Linux-based organization take advantage of interactive whiteboards? Yes, but with some caveats. Although there are other manufacturers who support Linux with their whiteboards, these two have the best experience. They are also the largest and most popular in the industry and it's not hard to see why. The boards are well-made, multiple popular distributions are supported, and the counterpart whiteboard software works well.
In using SMART Tech's board in the classroom, I have encountered a number of issues, most of them related to setup. Quite reasonably enough, only certain distributions are supported:
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, 11.10, and 12.04 LTS
- Linkat 4
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Debian 6.0
- OpenSuse 11.4
The cast of characters in the list is not terribly surprising. Linkat may raise a few eyebrows because of its relative lack of popularity, but considering that it is based on OpenSuse, suddenly it makes a bit more sense. Frustratingly, there is nothing mentioned in the system requirements on SMART Tech's downloads page that only 32-bit versions of the above distributions are supported. It can only be found in the downloadable release notes. The 64-bit versions are left out in the cold. Considering the prevalence of computers with 4GB of RAM or more, this is a glaring oversight. Luckily, computers running these distributions are likely to be less memory hungry than if they were running Windows.
Luckily, just because a distribution is not supported does not mean that the SMART software will not work on it. It does mean that you are on your own, however, and it very well may or may not work. For example, Linux Mint 13, which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, has no problems. On the other hand, OpenSuse 13.1 is a no-go. Considering that it is a long-term support release, this should happen eventually. Other Ubuntu-based distributions, such as Xubuntu and Kubuntu, have no problems. 64-bit distributions are truly left out and all attempts at installing on even a 64-bit version of a supported distribution will fail miserably. Sadly, only SMART Notebook and the whiteboard drivers are the only products available for Linux. Almost all of the others, such as SMART Sync, Response, and the wireless SMART slate, are either Windows-only or Windows/Mac.
Setting up the drivers and SMART Notebook is almost an impossible task for a beginning user, but it is at least doable for someone with experience. RPM and apt-based packages are available for download. Installing from RPM packages is just a matter of entering the command-line and issuing a zypper command. Debian packages are more confusing, as SMART Tech offers both an archive to self-host a repository and another with just the package files. The labels "prepackaged repository" and "plain files" offer little help and there is no accompanying explanation. The former is SMART Tech's recommended way of doing this because installing from the 'plain files' archive requires installing the files individually from the command line. Woe to an average person tasked with this! The installation instructions are quite technical and oriented toward setting up a repository. Detailed instructions on installing from the 'plain files' can be found here. Compared with the Windows process of "just keep clicking Next," Linux installation has a long way to go in terms of difficulty.
Once the drivers and Notebook are installed, the rest of the process is much, much smoother and, in general, a much more reliable experience than with Windows. An activation key is required, but it can easily be obtained from SMART Tech using the serial number from the back of a board. Licensing is quite permissive: it can be installed on any number of computers in an institution so long as Notebook is used with a SMART whiteboard. The "ink" feature which enables annotating the screen with any app, Notebook, calibration, and all of the other features supported under Linux work quite well. In fact, Windows machines which travel around often have reliability problems when connecting to different SMARTboards. It seems that laptops are not generally intended to do this very much. Linux machines using several different boards generally do not have these issues. Notebook is also faster in starting up in Linux than in Windows. Sound is a touch quirky: SMARTboards which also include speakers need create a separate sound device on your system when connected. This device needs to be selected in your computer's Sound preferences in order to be used.
It's sad that so many corporations do not give Linux the support that it deserves. SMART Tech makes its Linux support seem like an afterthought. This is a missed opportunity because Linux is making major strides in education and first-class support for Linux means a larger customer base. Installation difficulties aside, SMART Tech has a product which performs well for the penguin.
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