I thought the syntax in your equation looked somewhat familiar, but it's not quite it. Have you tried using the openoffice equation editor? Or, for that matter, in a text doc, just insert a formula (alt-i -> f or something like it for the shortcut). It lets you enter an equation using a simplistic syntax, and then shapes it to look "real". Admittedly you may need to judiciously learn how to use the parentheses and square brackets to make it work right. But I did that for some of my advanced math classes, and it worked like a charm. It really makes life easy, and it automatically adjusts the size, lets you do multiple lines etc. There's a little "tablet" of standard functions, but once you learn the keywords and figure out how to use parentheses to make it select the right thing it'll become easy and accurate. Cheers.

Well do you mean linux used on campus networks, or in a CS curriculum? I'm seeing a lot of people confused about either of them. Personally, I can attest that Lewis & Clark college has a Win/Mac support from IT, but the math/CS department has a Linux lab used for the CS curriculum, and has a lab assistant that can help setting up your machine. Other than that, the network works perfectly with Linux. Wireless and ethernet. If you wanna know more, send an email to the people here, find the contact info at www.lclark.edu. Cheers

You know, I used to think that way too.

And then I got Office 2003 at work.

And I still think that OO.o is superior.

Why? Lets go into a few specific functions, shall we?

-Formatting: I like to be able to cancel formatting and start redoing my fancy table/numbering from scratch. Word 2003 -> HUGE problems on that end. As in, making a document unuseable huge.
-Performance you say? Why in the world does Word generate a 4 MB file for something that's barely 30 pages long with no images and just tables? Creating the same document in OO.o and saving it as a Word 97/2000/2003 file makes the data fit in 250kB. AND IT LOOKS IDENTICAL! Not only that, but Word takes up 30 seconds to load the file, whereas OO.o has the same file (the 250kB file for both suites) useable in about 5.
-Menu options and consistency: When I'm looking for a formatting feature I expect it to be listed under the "Format" menu. I don't expect to have to go find the 1 feature I need in under the Insert menu!

So give me a break. OO.o is not perfect, by any means. It still lacks SIGNIFICANT track changes features, but in almost all other aspects, it beats the hell out of Office 2003 any day. Plus it doesn't crash. Saves a lot of time if you don't have to redo the last 10 minutes of your work every hour. But it's not fair to say that either one of them is "better" than the other.

Use what suits your business needs, end of discussion. In my case, OO.o fits the bill better. If you use track changes a lot, keep MS Office. But there's no guarantee that OO.o won't improve their support for track-changes and supplant MS Office in the long run. Remembering back to version 1.1, OO.o has come a LONG way. Word documents in Word and OO.o look the same now. Same for powerpoint files. Don't just brush off one in favor of the other because one version fits your needs better. Evaluate new versions before making claims or business decisions.

My best and only piece of advice on the topic is to get in touch with places that have deployed OSS software in an educational environment.

I have 2 places in mind to give you:
- Gould Academy (prep school in Maine, www.gouldacademy.org): their entire infrastructure runs on Linux (or did at one point), and they used LTLP (www.ltlp.org) a lot, for all the classroom workstations. Good ways of recycling aging hardware.

- OMSI, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry: their computer lab demoes many systems, in equal amounts (Windows, Mac and Linux), and while I was working on a project there, I noticed that the linux boxes were often more crowded than the others, simply because of the availability of edutainment games on the platform.

Other universities may also have Linux deployed in their CS department, and they may have tips as well. Contact them fishing for tips and info, you'll probably get better information than here anyways.