The open-source movement got a big lift from the active participation of many students. And now one of the larger Linux vendors is hoping to strike similar pay dirt by going back to the source. On Tuesday, VA Linux Systems announced plans to sell its $795 (£500) Linux PC to the student market, a move that Director of Product Marketing Robert Patrick hopes will provide a springboard for the company to close direct deals with education institutions. Schools already count for one-third of Linux adoptees, according to International Data Corporation, where analyst Dan Kusnetzky said the university market could provide VA Linux with "a big opportunity." "Winning over the hearts and minds of the students translates in the future to winning over businesses," Kusnetzky said. "Apple and Microsoft have successfully used that strategy for quite some time. Microsoft has been winning in the higher-education accounts, and Apple has won in the pre-college accounts." Linux for non-Linux types? But can an operating system -- whose unfamiliarity to general users is a source of pride for the Linux cognoscenti -- attract non-technical students? "Not really, to be quite honest. Not today," said Bart Decrem, vice president of business development and co-founder of Eazel, a startup looking to make Linux more usable by the general public. "It takes a certain amount of commitment to use Linux on the desktop today." Yet, if anything, Linux has shown that it can change quickly, Decrem pointed out. "Two years ago there wasn't a real desktop environment, and now you have KDE and GNOME," he said. "In another year or two the student market could be a big one." While computer-science students like the operating system's openness -- the students can look at what makes it tick -- network managers tend to like its manageability. Linux in Georgia, Mexico The Georgia Institute of Technology, for instance, uses the OS for just those purposes. More than 200 systems owned by the school use Linux. In fact, many of its undergraduate courses use the system as a teaching tool, and one-third of the school's graduate students work on Linux computers. In the end, however, whether Linux becomes popular among the non-technical crowd at school could come down to price, Decrem said. "A lot of students are very price-sensitive," he said, "and Linux performs very well on low-cost hardware." That's the major force behind the adoption of Linux in Mexican schools. In late 1998 the Mexican government decided to install 140,000 Linux-based computers in its schools. The government expects the plan, which is being rolled out over five years, to result in big savings. Had a proprietary system been used, analysts estimate, it would have cost approximately $125m. For VA Linux and its StartX SP2 Linux-based PC, the prospect of a university handing out Linux boxes to freshmen remains a dream. Today, it still concentrates on the market it knows best. "I think our focus remains directed toward the Linux server business and providing the infrastructure to the dotcoms," said VA Linux's Patrick. "But Linux was started by a grad student." Perhaps it's time for it to go back to school. What do you think? Tell the Mailroom. And read what others have said. Take me to the Linux Lounge