Context: The Finnish Marticulation Examination is a national examination required to qualify for entry into a university in Finland (not strictly required, but the vast majority will have passed the exam before university). These are basically the final exams of Finnish “high school”. The current digital system used for the exams is called “Abitti”, which is a Debian-based OS. The students boot into the system with provided USB-sticks.
In the linked article, there is the following statement (in Finnish):
Computer technology advances quickly, and the current Abitti works in fewer and fewer computers. The threat is that computers that can run the current Linux-environment won’t be available in the near future.
The new system (“Abitti 2”), which is planned to be used by Autumn 2026, uses locked-down Web-apps written for each supported OS. Support is planned for Windows, Mac, and ChromeOS. Linux support “needs further investigation”. As I understand it, the current situation is that the old Linux USB-stick method (now called “Abitti 2 student-stick”) is still used as a backup for those without Windows, Mac, or ChromeOS.
I think the main premise of Linux-bootable computers not being available in the near future is extremely dystopian. Thoughts?
Having worked as an admin for both systems, this absolutely sucks… The cost of running these servers is going to at least quadruple due to the new system requirements, and tens of thousands of USB sticks are going to become e-waste.
We used to run these servers on old laptops, but now with the new system requirements (which I won’t disclose here, as I am not sure if they have been publically stated yet) the cost of running these servers is going to quadruple for most institutions, moreso for ones buying it as SaaS from OpinSys.
Not a fan AT ALL, but hey, at least I have 200 stickers advertising the new version 🙄