Black Lab Linux Education (previously known as OS4 Education) is a commercially available Linux operating system based upon the current LTS (Long Term Support) release of Ubuntu and designed for educational purposes only.
It is part of the Black Lab Linux project, which also provides the Black Lab Linux, Black Lab Linux KDE, Black Lab Linux Server, Black Lab Enterprise Linux, and Black Lab Professional Desktop operating systems.
Default applications
The system is available for purchase from the official website and distributed only on USB flash drives or SD cards. Default applications include the LibreOffice, Wine, Mono Runtime, Skype, Calibre, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, Celestia, Stellarium, Tux Typing, BASIC 256, SmallBASIC, and Clam AntiVirus.
In addition, the Chromium web browser, Ubuntu Software Center, TuxType typing tutor, TuxMath math drill game, TuxPaint painting tool, Calibre e-book library management, Nitroshare network file-sharing app, Dia diagram creator, and GBrainy brain teaser game and trainer applications are also included.
Designed for educational institutions
The distribution includes support for Nintendo Wii controllers, support for AMD/ATI Radeon and Nvidia graphics cards, support for Microsoft XBox Kinect, as well as a standard set of tools for Robotics development. It is built around the Xfce desktop environment.
The developers successfully deployed Black Lab Linux Education on several educational organizations from California, Oklahoma, North Carolina, New Mexico and New Jersey. It provides users with 12 months of email and phone support. as well as a 60 day free evaluation copy upon request.
A great alternative to the expensive Microsoft Windows
The project is designed to provide both private and state schools that are on a budget with a great alternative to the expensive Microsoft Windows operating system. It offers a professionally supported Linux environment. A single Black Lab Linux Education license costs $80.99 (approx. 58 Euro). If you buy more licenses then it will cost a lot less.
What is new in this release:
- Built for Pre-K - 12 schools
- All Edubuntu and DebianEDU applications are included.
- Support for the KinectOne cameras bundled.
- Featuring Synergy (mouse and keyboard control for multiple systems) and Nitroshare (easy file sharing app).
- ICE SSB for making web application links
- Bleachbit for secure data deletion
What is new in version 6.0 SR4:
- KDE 4.14.2
- Mate 1.8.2 (RHEL 6 Compatible desktop)
- GCC 4.9.2
- Firefox 38
- Thunderbird 31.7
- Skype 4.3
- ScudCloud - Which is a Slack Client
- Citrix Receiver
- LibreOffice 4.3
- FocusWriter
- Gcompris
- Calibre ebook management
- Tux Type
- Tux Paint
- NitroShare
- Ardesia Desktop Sketching
- Timeshift restore facilities
- Wiimote and Kinect support
- Backup Utility
- kernel 3.16.0-38 which has a ton of bug fixes and stabilized device drivers
- Ubuntu LTS kernel 3.13.0-53 which is the default kernel included with Ubuntu 14.04
- Black Lab Education Desktop Also includes all security updates until May 25, 2015. We have also synchronized all package version to Debian Jessie 8.0.
What is new in version 6.0 Beta:
- GNOME 3.10.4, modified GNOME 3 desktop to make it easier for tradition users
- Kernel 3.13.0-43.50
- Parental Controls, we have brought back Parental and access controls that can be used to block websites and manage time spent on machines.
- Thunderbird Suite 31.3 with built in Google Apps support and translation utilities
- Firefox 34 with built in translation utilities
- LibreOffice 4.3.4
- Full NFS support
- Updated nitroshare for passing files between systems
- Synergy so instructors can take control of a students PC easily and efficiently
- Tux suite of educational tools.
- Kinect and Wii support
What is new in version 5.0.3 / 6.0 Beta 2:
- GNOME 3.10.4, modified GNOME 3 desktop to make it easier for tradition users
- Kernel 3.13.0-43.50
- Parental Controls, we have brought back Parental and access controls that can be used to block websites and manage time spent on machines.
- Thunderbird Suite 31.3 with built in Google Apps support and translation utilities
- Firefox 34 with built in translation utilities
- LibreOffice 4.3.4
- Full NFS support
- Updated nitroshare for passing files between systems
- Synergy so instructors can take control of a students PC easily and efficiently
- Tux suite of educational tools.
- Kinect and Wii support
What is new in version 6.0 Beta 1:
- GNOME3 - Our heavily customized and lightweight functionality that Black Lab Linux 6 users have.
- LibreOffice
- Wine 1.7
- Firefox 33
- Thunderbird Suite including calendar functionality as well as translation utilities
- Nitroshare - For sharing files among the classroom
- Synergy - This allows teacher to actually take control of the students desktops and perform valuable education tasks
- Ardesia Desktop Sketching - This allows teachers and presenters to use their own computer screen as a whiteboard
- Callibre ebook management - This allows for quick deployment of etextbooks as well as distribution of reading materials
- Tux Education Suite - Tux Paint, Tux Math, Tux Typing tutor and Tux Notes
- Celestia
- Timeshift System Backup and Restore - This feature allows administrators and teachers to restore school desktops should they be made into an unstable state
- VLC
- Audacious
- GMTP for syncing files among android tablets, Kindle Fire HD/HDX and Barnes and Noble Nooks
- GIMP
- Scribus
- Wine 1.7
- Fogger Webapp Utility
- Weather
- World Clock
- Simple Screen Recorder
- Gcompris Suite
- Springseed Note application
- Kinect and Wiimote support
What is new in version 5.0.3:
- New streamlined visual experience. The one thing we have done by listening to customers is updated the UI to a more modern look and feel as well as provide an experience that is familiar and will require much less retraining than moving to Red Hat or any other Enterprise Linux distribution.
- Updated kernel. We have updated the kernel to include drivers for a wider variety of devices and systems. Point of Sale devices and systems. We have greatly improved the driver support for users who want to run Black Lab Linux on Point of Sale machines. We also support this kernel until 2019.
- Thunderbird Suite has become more of a groupware suite than just a mail client. We include full support for the Google Apps for Business line, we also include a new translation utility so you can translate e-mails sent to you in a different language to the language of your choice as well as translating e-mails that you write to different languages. We also support full calendar functionality.
- Wine has been updated so you can run many of your mission critical apps that are written for Windows in Black Lab Linux. We have also made installing those apps more convenient so users coming from Windows can install their apps as easily as they do on the Windows platform.
- Support for Windows terminal services. We support the full line of Windows Terminal Services through the use of the Remote Desktop Protocol as well as through the Citrix client so users who have Windows Terminal Servers can continue to run them or integrate Black Lab Linux into their environment.
- Command Line install. We have included a command line installer for users who want to install on a headless server or system.
- New web app support. We made creating web apps simple, painless and seamless with the ICE utility from the PeppermintOS team. You just simply enter the URL choose the menu where you would like it stored and hit enter. This works for LAN based apps as well as web apps.
- Support for new app drawers. Are you tired of a cluttered taskbar? Simply create an app drawer and drop all your commonly used applications in it. You can download the how-to from here.
- Support for NVIDIA CUDA and Android development. We included all the prerequisites and tuned Black Lab Linux for Enterprise for these unique development environments. If you meet the hardware requirements, Black Lab Linux can host the SDK's and you can begin development at any time.
- The Black Lab SDK 1.7 is included which contains all development IDE's and tools for developing in Java, Python, C++, ADA, Objective C, MONO, Fortran , and PASCAL
- We have also included all updates to the system up to July 3, 2014. Black Lab Linux for Education also contains all these great enhancements as well as all critical updates for our educational programs included in that distribution.
What is new in version 4.2.5:
- XFCE 4.11 for thin clients and older computers and presented in a way that is familiar to users of legacy Microsoft Windows based systems.
- Chromium Web Browser
- Ubuntu Software Center
- LibreOffice
- TuxType
- TuxMath
- TuxPaint
- Calibre e-book management
- Celestial Simulation
- Nitroshare
- Dia
- GBrainy
- Wii controls
- XBox Kinect Support
- Updated NVIDIA and ATI Driver support
What is new in version 4.2:
- XFCE 4.11
- KDE 4.12 for users who prefer the KDE desktop
- DWM as our tiling interface for users who want a minimalist interface.
- Google Chrome, for we browsing and web application deployment. We have also worked to help certify Google Chrome with many enterprise class web applications which include Oracle Cloud, SAP, IBM Cloud Services and Salesforce.com. So its a robust delivery method.
- Thunderbird 24 Not just a mail reader, we also include MS Exchange support, Coogle Contact Sync, Google Task and Calendar Sync.
- Blender for 3D rendering
- Eclipse for Java development
- QT Development for developing QT based applications
- Monodevelop for developing and refreshing .NET based applications
- YUM and RPM for compatibility with custom Red Hat based packages and repositories.
- Red Hat Cluster suite, for creating clusters and adding your machine to an existing cluster network as a node.
- PostgreSQL 9
- LibreOffice 4.1.4 which is compatible with Microsofts office document formats and other formats as well.
- gMTP for transferring files to your Barnes and Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle Fire, Fire HD and Fire HDX tablets as well as Google Nexus devices
- XFCE based release is compatible with the Apple iTouch, iPhone and iPad
- Also included are a whole host of media applications for audio and video playback including DVD and Blu-Ray.
- Access controls are also available so you can set what times and what applications users are allowed to access.
- Overall there are over 300 application and system updates to these releases.
What is new in version 4.0:
- XFCE 4.10
- Wine 1.5
- LibreOffice 4.0
- Mono Runtime
- Microsoft Kinect support
- Support for Nintendo Wii controls
- Skype
- Robotics development tools
- Calibre ebook management
- eBook reader
- Firefox
- Thunderbird
- Celestia
- Stellarium
- Tux Typing
- BASIC 256
- SmallBASIC
- ClamAV
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